Northern Gothic – Nicanor Abbott

Watcher

I always click the button that locks the door until my Subaru beeps. It beeps twice, and sometimes, if the mood is just right, I keep hitting the button as I sing “Tainted Love”, the timing and rhythm perfect, as if we are singing together. And that’s what I’m doing as I cross the desolate wet parking lot toward the shabby four-story hotel.

This rust belt town is grim, on its knees, leather work gloves resting on a scratched yellow hardhat, exhausted and panting, trying to get to its feet. The hotel–part of a low budget chain–has seen better days. There are desperately-needed renovations going on inside, and a dumpster the size of a big-rig trailer and several construction vehicles are parked at the darkened end of the lot. Not all the lamps work, and why bother? The interstate with its high halogens sits right there on the other side of a steel and concrete barricade. That’s enough.

My clients asked where I was staying. When I told them, they shuddered. “That’s kind of a halfway house,” they said. “The addicts and homeless often end up there.” I did not offer that once, in another life, I had helped run a little house church, and the men from the halfway house next door had been regular attendees. The men laughingly called me pastor, and I laughed along, because I might be the worst candidate to shepherd any flock anywhere. Ever. People with problems are not the problem; systems that exacerbate problems are.

The car beeps along merrily when I notice him–the shadow of a hooded figure, a man in a rain poncho of some kind–looking down at me, hands pressed against the glass of a third floor guest room window. No discernible features. only darkness where his expressions should live.

The song dies on my lips. In my hesitation, the imagination my steelworker father so often condemned as overactive revs into high gear. Scream. Psycho. The Shining.

I take three more steps and pause between two puddles, my eyes never leaving that darkness where his face must be.

He doesn’t move.

I began calculations, eyeing the structure. Distance to the lobby. Distance to my room adjacent to the second floor stairs. Time it takes to climb those stairs with my briefcase, wearing my slick-soled dress shoes. Distance from his room to the same stairs. Probability that he would correctly guess I had parked closer to the side where my room was located so that I could see it from my window.

I keep watching, my neck craning until I enter the building, until he disappears from sight. The lobby is tiny, brightly lit, and the young woman at the counter has headphones on. She nods as I pass. Once I round the corner, I scurry down the hall to the stairwell closest to my room. On the second floor landing, I hear the fire door open on three. I slip into the hall, run my card key through the slider on my door, and breathe a sigh of relief when it is closed, bolted, and chained. Just my imagination. Yeah.

A shower and a change of clothes later, I settle at the desk to complete the day’s paperwork. That’s when I hear the fire door, followed by a whistle. It’s the tune I had been singing not an hour earlier. The whistler stands just outside my door. I see the shadow of their feet through the crack. There is no peephole. I switch off the light. The whistler leaves the way he came.

I spend the next several hours watching my car through a little opening in the drapes. My room is dark. No one can see me. Just me in the chair and the car and the mostly empty, half-darkened, puddle-ravaged lot. My accursed overactive imagination and the lamps of the interstate. The scattered showers that come and go. An occasional car or truck headed up the mountain, away from the town. A figure–a man in a ball cap and hoodie–walked by my Subaru earlier, during one of the lulls in the rain. Paused in front of it but didn’t touch it. Was he the same person I saw in that window? I don’t know–probably not–but the longer I sit, the more uneasy I get, the more I wonder if I’m somehow part of the problem. No. It’s just my imagination. It must be.

WIP Snippet: The Woods

Hi readers: Just for fun, I’ve scratched out this little piece. Not sure if it’s the intro to a current Work-in-Progress or the beginning of a story in its own right. Hope you enjoy it.

PS. This photo–like all photos and art on this site–is one of mine.

I often think the best days of my life were spent in the woods. Tromping soft detritus-littered trails by the run—run, yes, for it was too small to be a creek. Turning over rocks on a still summer day to find salamanders or crayfish in slow water. Listening to the rattle of browning leaves already past the fiery tones of autumn, waiting for the first crisp wind to cast them down in a cascade. Plucking cicada husks from birch bark. The blue of shale poking out from striated dirt. Chewing honeysuckle or sassafras. Petrichor and rotting stumps. Searching for the feathers behind whistles and twits with my hereditarily bad eyesight.

It was heaven, even when we had to leave it for chores or homework.

But the woods are sacred on an archetypal level, that space where we grew, explored, adventured, and discovered a world larger than our father’s crumbling farmhouse. Shadows moved in the dark of the woods at night, and hoots and howls evoked more from the imagination than owls and wolves. Baba Yaga, the Erlking, the Gingerbread Witch. The woods—our woods—could be where they waited.

Of course not. That’s silly.

The county history book tells of a woman who was slaughtered by the indigenous tribes in the mid-1700s, perhaps right there in the woods behind our house. I have wondered if more than once we played in her shadow—the natives left her hanging in the trees. Despite my love of the woods, the story reinforced a simple fact: woods are dangerous. That knowledge, and the details of the old tale, and my tendency to believe in the things we can’t explain, made me sometimes reluctant to look up.

Hide and Seek

Mel raced the wind, which picked up speed every second. He neared his goal, a little stone ruin—the remnants of a spring house—at the far edge of the cornfield. Behind him came shouts of warning, a girl’s scream. He pelted through the doorway, his lungs on fire.

Crouched in the most shadowy corner behind some grayed roof planks, he strained to listen. They could come at any moment. Cornstalks whispered and shushed when brushed against. Someone running would gasp for breath. Coughs. Whispers, should there be more than one pursuer.

But the wind worked against him. It drowned the sounds in a gray roar that matched the amassing clouds. Distant thunder rumbled.

He peeked through a broken window. No one. An ocean of cornstalks whipping in the wind. The sky a sickly green. Scattered droplets of rain turned into a deluge. Thunder rolled and fingers of lightning flashed. He counted the seconds between flash and boom, to estimate distance.

“One… Two…” he whispered.

Boom!

“One…”

BOOM!!

Then roared the sound of a freight train.

He grabbed a loose plank, pulled it toward him, and laid flat down. The sky roiled in angry black and sickly green. The world screamed.

When he awoke, the roofing that had given Mel shelter had fallen and swept everything against the wall. He crawled out on his belly, rusty roofing spikes scratched his back, butt, and thighs. He winced as he emerged, eyes blinking in the light.

One of the ruin walls had fallen in—he thanked the Maker he hadn’t been on that side of the spring house. The sky was blue, cloudless. Birds chirped in the border trees. He stepped back through the doorway. The corn had been swept flat.

“Who’re you?” asked a boy. Mel spun around to see someone who looked very much like himself peeking out from around the corner.

“Mel,” he coughed. “Who’re you?”

“Burt. You new?” the boy continued to eye him warily.

“No. You?”

“No. I lived her all my life.” Burt adjusted his Pirates ballcap and scowled at the sky. Finally he shrugged. “You wanna play hide and seek? We already got a game going.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Mel explained. “These ruins are great, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Burt agreed. “Best hiding place in the world.”

They hid there among the ruins, crouched below the window, until a third person—an older girl in a pair of overalls—peeked in and surprised them.

She swatted her hand downward through the window, slapping Bert on the head.

“Found you!” she yelled, then she turned and raced back through the corn.

“Bert’s it! Bert’s it!” she screamed.

The boys started back through the field. The Bert turned, a sly look on his face, and tagged Mel’s shoulder.

“You’re it!” he yelled and tore off between the rows.

Mel gave chase, back over the hill to the little dell with the big chestnut tree—home base. He ran as hard as he could, but the going became harder as he went. He broke into the clearing to find a group of eight kids gathered around the tree.

“Mel’s it! Mel’s it!” Bert yelled as he tagged the tree.

“Who’s Mel?” an older version of Bert asked.

“Him,” Bert pointed Mel’s way.

“Idiot,” said the older boy, slapping Bert in the head.

Poor Burt, Mel thought. The boy rubbed his scalp.

The older boy and the girl who had tagged Bert “it” approached him—not in the happy sprint of kids at play, but in the slow walk of those who had been chastened, or forced home at the end of the day.

“We’re sorry, sir,” the boy began.

“For what?” Mel asked. He coughed again. Paused. His voice sounded lower. Older.

The two children exchanged nervous glances.

“For Burt… bothering you,” the girl said.

“It was no bother. I’m glad to finally—” Mel waved, then stopped. His hands were wrinkled and liver-spotted.

He looked to the pair. Burt. The others. The tree. Then back at his hand.

“I need to sit.” He sat with his back against the chestnut.

It came to pass, just as Mel suspected it would, that somehow he had been gone over seventy years.

“They still talk about the tornado as if it happened yesterday,” explained Allen, Burt’s older brother.

“It made the state news,” added another pudgy boy with a sheepish expression. “Especially because of the death toll—I mean, all the kids. everyone who died was a kid. My gram says she prays every day for those kids, and thanks heaven she got grounded for kissing Billy Blankenship the night before, or she might’ve been out there too—”

“Billy Blankenship?” Mel paused. “Your gram? Is her name Franny Dormont?”

“It was,” the boy seemed astonished. “But then she got married to Gramps, and now its Platt.”

“Platt, as in Mikey Platt?”

“No, sir. Marcus Platt. His little brother Mikey—my great uncle—died in the storm. He and two brothers who tried to outrun it.”

“—my guess is the boys who tried to run were the Farrelly brothers,” Mel said with a wistful smile. Gary and Greg were only a year apart. Daredevils. The bravest of their gang.

“A couple others were killed where they hid,” said the girl, whose name was Jolene. “The twister came right down the tree line, where all the kids were hiding. They still say the ridge and the spring house are haunted.”

“That’s why I hid there,” said Bert. “They’d never come looking—except for Jo, since she’s fearless.” Bert clearly adored the older girl.

“Funny,” said Mel. “I thought the same thing that day—they’d never come looking over there. Not that it was haunted, though I guess I must be the first ghost you’ve ever met.”

“But you can’t be dead,” Bert argued. “I mean, if you’re dead, we’re all in trouble.”

“Seeing as how we can see you,” added Allen.

The other kids agreed.

“But what happened to Jeannie Anne? The little girl who was playing with us that day?” Mel asked.

Allen smiled. “She’s my grandma. Bert’s and Jolene’s, too. And she married Billy Blankenship.”

“She did? Why that rascal. I oughtta –” He stopped at the sight of the kids’ expressions.

“He passed on in 1997,” Allen said. “Heart attack.”

“And Jeannie Anne?” Mel asked, a hint of fear in his voice.

Allen smiled. “She’s still living in the same house her parents lived in.”

“Is she really?” He remembered the sounds and smells of that kitchen, especially on Sundays and holidays.

“She is.” Then Bert paused and studied Mel’s face. “You’re great uncle Melvin, aren’t you?”

Mel nodded.

The other children looked very serious. “She talks about you. They never found you. Great Gram — she never got over you.”

“Bert,” hissed Jolene.

“Well, that’s what Gram says,” Bert protested. “Never got over him, and died a year later. Left Gram and Great Grandpa alone in that house.”

Mel stared down at the dirt. A small beetle crawled alongside his foot. A slight shift, and he could crush it.

“So you’re coming home with us,” Jolene declared. “You’re living history. It’ll be a sensation. Our own ‘boy who lived!'”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Allen said. “Jolene spends too much time reading.”

“Oh, reading’s not such a bad thing,” she insisted. Mel agreed.

“But they’ll want to interview you, for sure,” Allen said. “Find out where you’ve been. Maybe even put you on the news. Meet the governor.”

“Or the president!” A little girl who had played with them exclaimed. “I’d love to see the First Lady.”

“And make a movie about you!” said Bert excitedly. “You’ll be famous!”

Mel smiled at the children’s excitement, then shook his head.

“When I left that day,” he said. “I really wanted to hide. I never wanted to be it, and I never wanted to be found.”

“What are you saying?” Jolene asked, not bothering to hide her frown. “You’re not coming home with us?”

“I don’t think it would be wise.” Mel watched the corn sway in the summer breeze. The town lay just over the hill. he wondered what Main Street would look like. If Corner General and the old school yard had changed much. But where would he even begin rebuilding a life that never really was.

“That’s not true,” Jo protested. “Gram would love to see you! You’re her brother!”

The other kids steadfastly agreed that Mel should go home with Allen, Jolene, and Bert, and accept the fame that was coming to him.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Mel. “We’ll make a deal. I want to visit the spring house one more time. Just once, and by myself. If I return, I’ll come home with you. Okay?”

“We’ll come with you,” Bert said quickly, but Mel shook his head.

“This is a game of Hide and Seek for one. Of course, if I come back, we’ll have a lot more time together. But think: everyone who loved me is gone, or has already mourned me and gone on with life. Would it be fair to dredge up the past on them, show up so late in the game? I don’t think so.”

“But we’ll miss you,” said Jolene.

“My dear,” said Mel, “take a lesson from Franny Dormont Platt, and don’t be so free with your heart. It’s easily broken.”

And the kids watched as he stood up, stiffly, and trudged his way toward the corn.

“We’ll wait for you!” called Bert.

Mel looked at the sky.

“Not past sundown. If I’m coming back, you’ll know by then. And if you’re late getting home, there’ll be hell to pay with your folks, I’m sure. Especially if they’re anything like my sister—like my parents.”

He paused once more.

“Besides,” he added, “you play here often, right? Whose to say I won’t be waiting at the spring house? Maybe even my old self—my young self—waiting for a game of Hide and Seek?”

Then he gave them a smile, and vanished between the rows.

The Box (Mover’s Variant)

Author’s Note: My apologies for being away the past few weeks. October has brought significant change. We moved to an apartment in the city, sold the house, and I changed jobs. And now I’m fighting a cold…

Anyway, here’s a brief bit of therapy.

*****

Crisp did not recognize the box. He was certainly not the owner. Its nakedness marked its difference. No labels, no neat writing. No warnings about fragility, or which end should go up. It wasn’t a liquor box, nor a box that once held reams of paper. The perfectly empty box sat empty in the middle of his guest bedroom floor.

He picked it up and carried it out.

When he returned, it was back.

He removed it again, folding it and placing it into a box containing other neatly disassembled and folded boxes. Then he carried on with his day.

That night, during his ritual room check, he discovered that the box had returned.

Muttering a string of curses, he removed it again, then, steadfastly refusing to check the room again, went to sleep, which is to say, fitfully tossed and turned and dreamed of endless cardboard boxes, stacked neatly up the side of a mountain.

“Move them,” a voice in the clouds commanded.

“To where?” he inquired, tapping his fingertips together.

Silence followed, and, like an ant or a bee, he began carrying the boxes up the mountain, certain of his task.

When he awoke, bleary-eyed and grumpy, he checked the guest room.

Across the street, Frieda Blake noticed the new neighbor jumping up and down and screaming, clad only in a pair of boxers. She put down the binoculars, swearing off them for all of ten minutes. When she checked again, he was gone.

What happened next is entirely speculation.

The neighbors say he was unstable, and torched the place for the insurance money. The experts disagreed, since the only thing that was burned, really, was an upstairs bedroom.

Two facts, however, are perfectly clear. First, Zachary Crisp was carted away in an ambulance, still wearing nothing but his underwear. Second, the firefighters swore they saw a perfectly good cardboard box untouched amid the charred remains of the bedroom.

Behind the Falls

He stepped out from behind the falls, almost directly into the path of a young couple. All three froze: two bucks and a doe, each with matching expressions of surprise.

“Sorry… sir,” Gabi said, sure that of all possible responses, acquiescence and respect were most needed.

Before her stood a study in tweed: his robust frame was clad in a Norfolk jacket and vest adorned in droplets of clear mountain water. He slapped the matching cap against his knickerbockers. Droplets pattered the leaves of a nearby rhododendron. His high brown leather boots were scuffed. There was a tear in his jacket sleeve.

He wriggled his bushy mustache and furrowed his thick brow, clearly appraising the couple.

Then Will snorted. “Nice threads. Costume party?”

Gabi slapped his arm.

The man raised an eyebrow. “No less than Helen insisted,” he replied. “Something about Mrs. Cleveland, and then we were off to Wanamaker’s Depot. Anyway, I see you’re off for a swim. I can say with certainty that you’re on the wrong path, and dressed like that, you’ll only find trouble where you’re headed. Best to head back down to the river.”

Will looked confused. “Swim?”

The tweed man matched his expression and motioned a dive. “Swim. To submerge in a sizable body of water…”

“No,” Gabi corrected. “We’re just on a hike.”

“In your swimsuits?”

“These aren’t swimsuits. They’re our regular clothes.”

Will nudged her, trying to indicate that they should go.

“Well, now I’m confused.” The man leaned against a boulder. “Helen said the Wahnetah was a perfect retreat, and while I don’t mind liberal, this might be more liberal than I’m accustomed to.”

“The Wahnetah?” Gabi asked. “What’s the Wahnetah?”

“‘What’s the…what’s the Wahnetah?’ are you joking?”

The couple shook their heads.

“It’s the hotel. Bottom of the hill. The train pulls almost right up to it.”

Will shook his head. “Ain’t any hotel down there. And there’s no train.”

“You’re talking nonsense, boy.”

Will balled his fists. “I’m not a boy, old man. You white people…” Gabi touched his arm to calm him. He grumbled and walked away, though not too far.

“I meant no offense. I was referring to your youth. Helen’s people include a number of Abolitionists—”

Now Gabi cut him off. “Look, before you make things worse, do you want us to get you some help?”

“Well, I’m supposed to meet her for dinner tonight, but I need to… Maybe I hit my head on the way out? I’ll just rest here a moment.”

Gabi paused at the man’s confused look, the disoriented way in which he gazed at the trees and shrubbery, seemingly no longer sure of himself. He ran a hand over the boulder, then gazed at his fingertips.

“You’re sure?”

“Sure of what?”

“Help,” she said, then pulled out her phone.

“What’s that?” The old man eyed it suspiciously.

“My smartphone…” she pressed a button “… but there’s no signal up here. Damn. Will, honey, do you want to go back down the hill—”

Will was by her side in an instant. “I ain’t leaving you with him.”

“I’ll be fine… Miss? Can I call you Miss, or is that disallowed?”

“Gabi. Call me Gabi.”

“Very good, Gabi. Thank you for your kindness. And Will, my apologies for any offense. I’m Lester Bowen. Of Society Hill.”

He offered a hand. Warily, Will gave it a curt shake. Gabi was more gentle.

“So Mr. Bowen,” she said, “you were behind the falls?”

“Yes, and I suggest that if you know what’s best, you’ll avoid it at all costs.”

Will scoffed. “Avoid it? That’s one of the highlights!”

“More like a singularly unique experience in exhilaration and terror. I was lucky to escape it with my life.”

“I think you bumped your head pretty hard, Mr. Bowen,” Will watched the cascade. They were so close.

“Please, Mr. Will, for her sake…” he nodded to Gabi. “Don’t go in there.”

“You know what, Mr. Bowen? Okay.”

“What?” Gabi gasped.

“Man says there’s something terrifying inside. I seen all the films I need to know that when you meet a strange person in a strange place telling’ you don’t do a thing, you don’t do it.”

“So that’s that?” She crossed her arms.

“It’s for the best, Miss Gabi.” Bowen rubbed the bark of a trailside oak. He rubbed his fingers together after, feeling the grit of the tree.

“See? He says it’s for the best.” Will winked, almost imperceptibly. It could have been an eye twitch, but she knew better. “Let’s help him down the hill.”

Gabi acquiesced, and the trio made their way down the mountain. Along the way, they paced a trail closed sign.

“Why’s it closed?” Bowen asked.

“Long story,” Will replied.

“There’ve been a lot of accidents and a bunch of deaths up by the falls over the years,” Gabi added.

“But that’s nonsense. It’s a major attraction. The management could surely do something.”

They reached the lower trail and followed the river to the parking lot.

“See, Mr. Bowen?” Will said. “No train. No hotel.”

“But it was just here this morning! This…this is impossible.” He began shaking his head. Gabi saw the panic rising and had him sit down on a boulder and rest his head.

He was still murmuring when a jeep jostled into the nearby space.

“Everything alright?” called the driver. He wore mirrored sunglasses. Tufts of white hair peeked out from under his ball cap.

Bowen looked up at the sound of tires on gravel.

“My heavens, what is it?”

“A jeep,” Gabi said.

“A jeep? What’s that? Like an electric vehicle? A runabout? Must be delusional. It’s like none I’ve ever seen.”

The driver smiled at Bowen. “A bit overdressed for the occasion, don’t you think?”

Bowen stood up. “What? On about my wardrobe?” His temper escalated. “Is that all you people think of? Where’s the hotel? Where’s the train? Where’s my wife?!”

The driver threw a questioning glance at Gabi and Will.

“He’s looking for the Washtaw Hotel. Or the Washenaw. Or something like that, sir.” Gabi said.

“The Wahnetah?” The driver looked surprised. “It burned down in 1911.”

Bowen’s pudgy face sagged. The color ran out. “What year is it?”

Before Will or Gabi could stop him, the driver blurted it out.

“No. No, no no.” He turned around. “That’s it. I’m going back.”

“Sir,” the driver called. “That’s posted. You can’t go up there. The trail is closed.”

“Well how do you think I got down here!” he called without turning.

The man looked to the couple. “You all find him up there?”

Gabi and Will nodded.

“You know it’s illegal to go up there.”

Neither of them spoke.

“I’m gonna call this in,” he said. “I suggest you two get in your car and take the date elsewhere.”

“And leave him up there?” Gabi asked.

“Of course,” Will replied. “Dude’s crazy.”

“Dude’s crazy? What was your plan? Bring him down here to traumatize him?”

“I thought he’d snap out of it.”

The jeep driver coughed. “Well, whatever you decide, it’s going to be a matter for the Game Wardens very shortly. You two would be safer somewhere else.” He dialed his phone.

Gabi ran after Bowen.

“Are you? Awww, man!” Will ran after her.

For a man of considerable size, Mr. Bowen had gotten a good head start on the two. They ran as far as they could, shouting for him, then jogged as the route steepened. They were both winded when they found him sitting on a rock, almost exactly where they first met.

“Thank God… we found you…” Gabi gasped.

“I’ve got to go back,” he said.

“Go back?”

“Back inside.” His head tilted, as if trying to see the falls from a different way.

“You know, they were lovely when I first arrived.”

“Who?” Will leaned against a tree and stretched his legs.

“I don’t know. I suppose fair folk, though I never thought they’d be here.”

“This just keeps getting better and better,” Will groused.

“Fair folk? Like fairies?”

Bowen nodded. “Yes. It was pleasant the first few hours, but then I had to run. their decorum is strict, though in many ways far better than what we have here. But they have enemies, and those enemies gave chase.” He pulled at the tear in his coat. “I suppose I’ll be a dead man if I go back. But if it’s been more than a century, as that fellow in the runabout said, then I’m dead already.”

“But you might have family now,” Gabi argued.

“Do you think Helen would still be alive? I don’t. And we never had children of our own.“

The three stood together and listened to the roar and splash of the falls. Presently he stood.

“Well, it’s all been good,” he announced.

“Really?” Will asked.

“No,” said Bowen. “But the two of you? That’s been alright for the most part.” He reached out. This time Will shook his hand in earnest.

“Here,” Bowen said, fishing in his pocket. “It’s my wallet, proof of identification… everything I think you could use to prove that I was real. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

“You’re sure about all this?” Gabi asked.

“Yes, I think so. But I do have one question.”

“What’s that?”

“How are my Quakers doing?”

“Your what?”

“The Philadelphia Quakers. You might know them as the Phillies, though I hope the name didn’t catch on.”

Will laughed. “You’re better off not knowing a thing, Mr. Bowen.”

“Well,” Bowen laughed. “At least that’s still the same.”

Then he wandered behind the falls. Will and Gabi discussed it a little, and when he didn’t come out after five minutes, they followed him.

A week later, searchers found a bag with three wallets in the hollow of a dying oak. Officially, no sign of the missing couple was ever found.

Roses

After the war, Victor bought a cottage on a postage stamp lot in the dying coal town of Pine Ridge. Through the spring of that year, he tried to keep to himself.

But there was Verna Cringe and a homemade cream cake.

“What brings you to our neighborhood?” She sighed.

“Oh, the fresh air.” He thanked her for the cake.

“Your roses are beautiful.” She stopped to sniff one of the yellow roses from a bush he had planted by the walk.

“That’s an English rose.” He stopped short of offering her a bouquet; he suspected she would mistake a gesture of friendship for something more, or worse, that her husband the longtime City Councilman might take offense. “They’re ornamentals. A bit touchy, but I do alright.”

“Are you English then?”

“I’m from Lancaster,” he grinned, and after a beat added “Pennsylvania.”

She laughed and invited him to join the horticulture society. He politely declined, then planted more delicate yellow English roses along the border beds from sidewalk to front porch.

The next week, Antonia Busco appeared at the door with a large flat of manicotti.

“We don’t see you around town much, Mr. Williams,” she said.

“I’m very private.”

She handed him the container. “And you’re certainly not old enough for Verna’s circle. My husband hosts poker night every few weeks. Would you care to join? I’ll introduce you?”

Pink floribundas separated the yellow English, creating a soft yet vibrant contrast that would only grow more brilliant over time. Victor was pleased.

Carmine Busco appeared next. He did not bring food. Instead, he shuffled, fidgeting with his hands from pocket to hairy neck scratch to crossed arms and back. Victor just smiled.

“My wife sent me to invite you to poker night.”

“Did she now?”

“Do you play poker?”

Victor shook his head. Carmine sighed and his hands fell comfortably in his pockets.

“Oh-okay.” He turned to go.

“Mr. Busco,” Victor called. “Perhaps we can do each other a favor?”

Carmine resumed fidgeting.

“I have a bush of temperamental tea roses in the back. Yellow, tinged orange on the edges. Quite beautiful things. Why don’t I cut you some as a gift from you to your wife?”

His awkward guest perked up. “Yeah?”

“Yes. And in return, could you… suggest… to our neighbors that although I’m tremendously grateful for the kindness so far, I’ll engage the community when I’m ready to do so.”

Carmine considered the request. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Victor’s new snowy shrub roses clustered beneath the windows like eavesdropping neighbors. Much to his pleasure, the real neighbors soon stopped using food to coax him out, though not until after they had entreated him to join the Elks Lodge (lasagna), the volunteer firefighters (ladies’ auxiliary homemade filling), the historical society (a terribly dry meatloaf), and the horticulture society again (seven layer dark chocolate cake with ganache and fudge, which tempted him much more sorely than the meatloaf did).

Meanwhile, ground cover roses crowded around the shrub roses like children at their mothers’ skirts. Along the foundation of his clapboard dwelling, he had erected stiff white trellises, soon hidden by red, pink, and yellow climbers. They hung from the fences as well, obscuring his backyard from watchful eyes.

“Ow!” Jennie Pringle pulled her hair free from a thorny rambling rose just as Victor opened his door.

“Be careful,” he said. “They like to grab.”

“I see. You haven’t given any thought to pruning them back? You can hardly see off the porch!”

Victor smiled thinly. His eyes narrowed. She held out a plastic grocery bag.

“This is home made deer jerky. We have a farm, so Mark can bag a deer anytime.”

Victor looped a finger through the handles.

“And what club or organization would you like me to join in return?”

Jennie’s mouth moved before she spoke. “No, no no. It’s not like that at all.”

“No?”

“No. Well, I do wonder if I could have a rose or two?”

Victor raised an eyebrow.

Jennie wrung her hands.

“It’s just that… well, I saw how happy Antonia and Carmine have been since he gave her those roses, and I found out from Genevieve who heard from Mathilda at the library who found out from Francie at the general store whose husband Billy manages the diner over near the bypass that Carmine got the roses from you. And it’s hard to be a farmer’s wife, you know? Mark comes in from the field, and he’s tired, and somedays I want to hit him with my rolling pin. But I thought…I thought a rose or two might bring us a little happiness?”

Victor sighed and gave her five of his tea roses. One for her, one for Mark, and one for each of their children.

Then he transformed the backyard into a fracas of bleeding red and buttery yellow, spiraling outward in scratchy greens: waxy or serrated leaves and prickly thorns.The central birdbath and a variety of feeders and houses attracted his favorite eastern bluebirds, orioles, and hummingbirds, though jays and squirrels quarreled over meals as well.

By the fifth year, he no longer needed the mower. People waved when they saw him, but that was rare. By the tenth year, his roses had formed a wall of color and scent that delighted all who passed. But the food and the visits had ceased. Rose bushes burst through the cracks in his walk. The ramblers and ground covers laced the front of his house in white. The climbers had broken the trellises but now clung to the roof. In the backyard, seeds had sprouted. Only the hummingbirds ceased to visit; Victor could no longer fill their feeders.

“Well, perhaps it’s apropos that a little sweetness has gone,” he said, and trudged up the stairs.

They had promised each other, but Cal had failed. He didn’t survive the war. Victor had taken possession of the ashes, and now they had all been used up, the last to plant a pair of Damask roses, one at each entrance to the house, smack in the middle of the cracked walkways. They would bloom strong and red, with a glorious, powerful fragrance. The neighbors would love them.

The Deepened Brook

Her tongue lolled, her bloodied head perched askew; Rust-colored splotches and streaks stained her muted dress and white apron. A crow landed on her shoulder, plucked one eye free, and flew away with it. Whether by the physics of the bird’s departure or something preternatural, her head rolled, and I found myself staring into that gaping socket.

“Hey!”

I started. Josiah burst into delighted guffaws and tumbled back on to his bed.

“Let’s go!” He righted himself and laced his hiking boots. By the time I arrived in the kitchen, he had already but a couple sandwiches and apples in his knapsack. I grabbed an orange and ate it as we tramped down to the woods, a dense stretch of red oak and tulip poplar. Josiah had a fondness for Mary’s Run, a brook that burst from the shale at the lower end of the cornfield. We played there often, following the game trail down to the edge of the Okendaigua Sportsman’s Club.

“Don’t play there,” Dad warned. “It’s a gun club. You could get shot if they mistake you for wildlife.”

So we avoided the Okendaigua, and tried to wear blue, which didn’t occur naturally in our woods. Just to be safe.

We meandered—well, Josiah did, anyway; I didn’t meander, but marched resolutely and with some trepidation—down to a rocky place where the brook picked up speed. We crossed there, and a little further beyond emerged in the clearing where the brook deepened. An occasional fish might find its way this far up, but crayfish, salamanders, toads—they loved the banks here.

Josiah began overturning rocks. Carefully, waiting for the silt to settle, to see swirling cloud of mud or bubbles that might indicate a living think slipping deeper into the earth. This was our place. we searched for little lives there.

“C’mon and help me.”

Not long ago I led the way. I taught him how to turn the rocks slowly, to watch the creek bed. With Dad’s Audubon Guide, we learned to listen for unique chirps—“drink your tea!” said the Eastern Towhee—and watched for killdeer guarding their nests on the rocky ground. A little of me was jealous that he could still play here, so carefree.

The clearing was perfect for filling jugs or buckets. Hers had been left at the base of the tree, the contents tipped, dribbling away.

It was a tulip poplar. The leaves were the giveaway. Four lobes. Not like maples or oaks, which are also pretty distinctive. But this one was distinctive for another reason. While one half kept growing upward, it seemed to wither above the limb where she hung, as if her death had maimed it.

“Help me, James!”

She watched me. I watched her. A plopping noise followed as Josiah turned over another rock.

The shove caught me off guard and I lost my balance. Cold water filled my show and soaked my sock and jeans. I scrambled out of the water.

“What’s wrong with you?” Josiah whined.

“Nothing,” I replied, looking back to the tree. Was she smiling at me?

He followed my gaze.

“Watcha lookin’ at?”

“Nothing,” I repeated, still transfixed.

“Then help me.” He gave my arm a yank and I spun. For the next hour, I helped him search, always keeping a wary eye on the woman in the tree. Finally Josiah grew bored with his search and led us home.

I had long been two minds about the woman in the tree. I never wanted to see her again, of course, but I knew that she would haunt my dreams, my memory for the rest of my life. But Josiah loved the woods; I love the woods. If I let her chase me from there, or if I told him the truth of what I saw, something else would be lost. Trust? Innocence? I had no one to tell, so of course I kept it to myself. But my greatest fear was that Josiah would go down there without me, and that somehow the woman might climb down from that tree…

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re paying attention to reality, rather than reading that horror trash and science fiction garbage.”

Dad had tipped my library book toward me so he could see the cover.

“Where’d you find that? The genealogy section?”

“Local history,” I said, not bothering to look up.

“Good.”

I read the passage of the old book again.

Mary’s Run had been named for Mary Luther, an early 18th century settler who had befriended the local natives. During the French and Indian War, they crossed paths, and she was killed.

That’s all history gave me, but it was enough.

The next time Josiah wanted to play in the woods, I went with him. Mary was there, but she terrified me less. For two hundred fifty years she hung from that tree. And if, in all that time, no one had come to her aid, what could I do with only a dozen years to my lifetime?

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You can go.”

“Who can go?” Josiah asked. He looked in the tree.

I shrugged.

“You’re weird,” he said. “You act creepy whenever we come down here.”

Josiah never asked me to come to the woods again, and I never went back. Over the years, we’ve gotten more and more distant. Sometimes I think he looks at me like I’m about to break. He leaves his wife and children at home on the rare occasions when he drops by; I think it’s to protect them from me. The fabric of trust that had been frayed a little at a time throughout our childhood seems close to being rent. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But I know where it began.

Delivery

I’ve had this idea in my head for a while, based in part on a news article I read some years ago. It’s a draft of a piece that I would like to put into a collection of northern gothic tales.

*****

As addresses went, Fourteen Seventy-Two Warren Valley Road did not match its appearance. At least not to Brewster. He pictured a boxy two-story on a manicured cul-de-sac. A split level in an aging neighborhood. A fifties rancher under a stand of old maples.

The first crack in his expectations came when he found the numbers peeling from a battered mailbox standing sentinel at the head of a dirt drive. By the time he finished bouncing and jostling his way up the rutty road to a low slung cottage, he had dismissed all preconceptions about his delivery and its recipient, a Miss Delia Grunderson.

Brewster parked the van on the edge of a field that had once been a yard. He adjusted the pin on his vest: “Here’s a bouquet to brighten your day!” it read, and retrieved the flowers from the back. He paused at the passenger side mirror. He checked his nostrils and teeth for anything that could ruin his impression, adjusted his cap to an angle he deemed more jaunty, and started toward the porch.

A Buick, its yellow faded with age, sat in the freestanding shed, an AM radio gospel preacher shouted the message of the Lord from the shadows at the back of the garage.

“Anybody home?” Brewster called. Only the preacher replied, demanding his flock repent.

The porch ran the length of the cottage. He rang the doorbell. Silence. He opened the wood screen door and knocked, letting the door slam shut.

“In a moment!” came an elderly voice.

Brewster held up the delivery: three dozen red roses in a white ceramic vase, the neck of the tase trimmed with bright red ribbon.

The door creaked open.

“Delivery for Miss Delia Grunderson!” Brewster cheered.

A wrinkled old woman answered the door. She was tiny, with white hair like cotton candy coiffed in a thin Edwardian pompadour. She blinked, uncertain, with vibrant green eyes.

“Oh! For me? Do come in!” She motioned with a claw-like hand—it looked stiff in the knuckles—for Brewster to follow into the front room. He placed the flowers on a faded lace doily that covered the coffee table, as if she had expected them. “I was just pouring tea. Would you like some?”

“I’ve got a few more deliveries,” Brewster began, but the sudden droop in her countenance, the sag of her smile and the wetness of those eyes made him reconsider. “Maybe just a minute or two,” he said, and settled on the ancient sofa. Its damask cushions had little give and the creak it unleashed made him fear for its delicate wooden legs.

“Oh, good. Now wait while I get the tea. Do you like shortbread?”

“Yes, Miss Grunderson.”

“Such a nice young man.” She swept out, quicker than he expected for someone so old.

The furniture came from a bygone age. There was no television, but an old Zenith console radio stood in the corner. Velvet paisley drapes. The doilies, the polished dark woods and the claw-footed chaise the hardware on the double doors that separated him from an adjoining room—they seemed like refugees from an aristocrat’s house museum, an exhibit on wealthy life a century prior. Odd decor for a house in woods, Brewster thought, except the roses unsettled it even further. Every surface—the end tables, the buffet on the far wall, the mantle—had been decorated in dried roses, some still in their white ceramic vases, others clustered in bunches on the mantle. The room may have been frozen in time; but the roses revealed its passage.

“Here it is!” she said, pushing a little server cart laden with thin china pieces and a platter of shortbread. “Home made. And the mint comes from the garden.”

Brewster stood to help but she shooed him away and parked the cart between the sofa and the chair by the radio.

Miss Grunderson nibbled the bread, slurped her tea, and cooed throughout. Brewster started, then accepted these actions to be products of age.

“May I ask who all the flowers are from?” He set his cup and saucer on the tray.

“Who the—? Oh, yes, they’re from my admirer.” Grunderson hid her mouth behind her cup.

“He must be a wonderful admirer.”

“He is,” she replied. Her tea finished, she fingered her brooch: a rose with red glass petals and silver leaves.

“What’s his name?”

She froze, her index finger still against a petal. He followed her eyes. She was looking out the window toward the garage.

“William,” she finally said. “William Warren.”

“As in the road?” Brewster asked.

“The road is named for him,” she said, then turned on the radio. Gospel hymns crackled from the speakers.

“Really? Oh, speaking of which—there’s a radio on in the garage. Did you leave it on, by chance? Shall I turn it off for you?”

“No!” she jerked as if some invisible thorn had stabbed her finger. “You’re a lovely boy. Please don’t. That’s my husband.”

“I thought you said you had an admirer?”

“My husband. He’s my admirer. But he’s very busy.” She trembled a little. “Well, you’ve been a blessing, Mr.?

“Brewster. Eddie Brewster. But you’re right, Miss Grunderson. I should be going now.”

“Yes, you should.” They stood at once.

“More deliveries—“

“Make their day with a bouquet,” she said, and her smile returned. She reached up, motioning for him to lean down. She pinched his cheek.

“Thank you,” she said, and closed the door swiftly behind him. He heard the lock click and a bolt follow.

Scratching his head beneath his cap, Brewster wandered around to the garage.

“Mr. Warren? William?” He wondered about Miss Grunderson’s behavior. “Sir?”

He stepped into the cool of the garage. The preacher had given way to a stirring rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Mr. Warren sat in a chair by his workbench, eyes closed, listening to the radio.

“Mr. Warren, I just wanted to say how nice it is—“ Brewster’s voice trailed off as he finally saw William Warren properly. A car coming up the drive scattered dirt and gravel.

“Oh my—“ Brewster backed away, turned, and saw a police officer emerge from his patrol car.

“Officer! Officer! There’s a corpse in the garage!” Brewster grabbed a hold of the officer’s arm.

“Easy now, son. You new in town?”

Brewster nodded.

“You planning to stay?”

He looked at the officer’s name badge. It read Grunderson.

Horror and realization filled Brewster’s face.

“What is this?” he whispered. Another car had pulled up behind his van, effectively blocking him in. The gentleman who appeared wore a black suit and a grave expression.

“Just answer the question, Mr. Brewster. Are you planning to stay?”

“I… I.. what happens if I don’t?”

The officer unlocked his service pistol from its holster. Brewster paled.

“Well, you and I’ll have to go for a walk before you can leave. But you look like a smart boy, so I suspect you’re staying.”

Brewster nodded.

“How come you’re up here? Doesn’t the florist make this delivery herself?”

“She… she had to step out. The order came in with a rush on it. The assistant just put it together and sent me to deliver it.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit, Chief,” said the grave looking man, “Callie can really keep a secret if her assistant didn’t even know.”

“Yeah, and that’s why she called me in a panic when she couldn’t get Brewster here on the phone. So what’s it gonna be, Brewster?”

The screen door clatter drew all three of their attention. Miss Grunderson stood in the doorway.

“I like him, Chief. Can we keep him?”

“Go back inside, Delia.” The grave-looking man went to lead her back in.

The Chief sighed. “People give me a headache. You know that, Brewster?”

“What is all this?” Brewster whispered.

“This is what happens when you grow old alone. Delia’s husband died. Then her sister-in-law died. Then Jones—who own the only funeral home in the area—caught my great aunt in the cemetery with a shovel. more times than you can imagine. So are you staying or going?” He hadn’t taken his hand off his revolver.

“I really like him,” Miss Delia told Jones. “He’s a lovely young man.”

“She likes you, Brewster. It’d be a lot easier on everyone if you just stayed.”

“Can I talk with her?”

Chief Grunderson led Brewster back up the steps.

“You can stay for tea, can’t you?” she asked him. “I have homemade shortbread.”

“Why isn’t she in a hospital?” Brewster asked.

“That’s a long and complicated story,” the Chief said. “Officially it boils down to money and family. She has a lot of one and none left of the other.”

“Aren’t you her family?”

The Chief shook his head. “No more than anybody else. She had two family members: her husband, who we keep in the garage. And her sister-in-law, who occupies the back bedroom.”

Jones huffed. “Make a choice already, Brewster. If you’re gonna be a problem, we can just stuff you and set you up in her parlor. She’d love the company.”

Brewster recoiled. “You’d do that?”

Miss Grunderson smiled and gave the deliveryman a little wave. “I love company. You can visit any time.” She held out her arms as if to embrace the world.

“Yes,” Jones said. “This town would do anything to keep her happy.”

“She must have been important.”

The Chief nodded.

“Then I’ll stay,” Brewster sighed.

Chief Grunderson locked his pistol back in the holster.

“Good choice,” said Jones.

“Wonderful,” added Miss Grunderson. “I’ll pick more mint! And maybe some lemon balm!”

“We’ll need to keep an eye on you,” the Chief said as they returned to their cars. “Don’t go skipping town any time soon. Callie will be watching as well.”

Brewster only half heard the chief. His mind was on something else. “When she dies, will they all be buried?”

The Chief hung his head before looking Brewster in the eye. “Brewster, when she dies, I will personally bear witness to all three cremations.”

Brewster chuckled. The Chief didn’t.

“Thing is, kid, Callie sent me here to rescue you. Don’t get any funny ideas about coming back up here on your own. We hope Delia will go naturally, and soon, but truth is, no one knows when or even if that will be. And you don’t want to experience Delia Grunderson grieving or angry. None of us do ever again.”

“Is that the unofficial reason?”

Chief tapped the hood of his car.

“Just get back to the shop,” he said. “And focus on delivering those flowers. It’s good to make people smile.”

History

Author’s Note: A friend asked me to write a story about industrial buildings-turned-condos… one that paid attention to people and history. This was the result.

“See what I found!”

The words consistently made Ellen Dreyfus jumpy. Junior suffered the same curiosity as his father. Jim senior had channelled that curiosity into engineering, a job in the city, and a brand-new high-end condo in a converted industrial building by the train station. The future of his four year old spawn, however, had yet to be written. He could be bringing a magnetic letter from the refrigerator door, a grasshopper, or a bit of moldy pasta from under the stove—again.

“What’s that, baby?” She squinted at the thing in his hand as she hugged baby Ashley to her bosom. Junior seemed to be holding a piece of hotdog. Or a caterpillar. Or—

A finger.

Ellen knocked it from his hand with a shout. It bounced off the hardwood floor with a light thud and landed on the area rug. Both children erupted into tears.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” She cradled her children, one in each arm as she stared at the digit. It was wrinkled, ash-grey, and the nail had been split down the middle. Despite her observations, she counted Junior’s much smaller fingers. He took off his socks while she checked Ashley’s hands and feet. Then she counted Junior’s toes. Against all rational thought, she inspected her own hands and feet, worried about leprosy or diabetes or some other illness that could cause digits to drop off—none of which she suffered from.

“You sit here, ok? Don’t move.” Junior nodded, still wiping tears, as Ellen tossed Ashley’s spit-up towel over the dismembered part. Then she called Jim, questioning Junior as she thumbed her cell.

“What’s going on, babe?”

“There’s a finger on the floor.”

“Say again?”

“Junior found a finger under the dining room table. Is… is it yours?”

“No.” She guessed—correctly—that Jim was checking his hands as well.

“It’s none of ours. I check their hands and feet—”

“Why’d you check their feet if it was a finger?”

His penchant for analysis grated at her, never more so than now. “I—just come home, alright? I don’t know. Maybe it was a toe. Do you have all your toes? We have all of ours and I’m not looking at it again—”

“Call 9-1-1, babe. I’m on my way.”

After calling the police, Ellen and her children hunkered on the sofa. Junior and Ashley watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Ellen held her children close and watched the towel, half expecting the thing underneath to start moving.

While Jim Dreyfus raced home, Gloria Hatchett, first floor resident of one of the accessible-friendly units, puzzled over a bowl of wet cat food. The electric can opener always brought the cats running, but today, they didn’t answer. Missy would have been first, inky blackness dropping from the kitchen window to press against her legs. Alexander would prance in, light on his orange tabby toes from his late namesake’s easy chair. Mr. Pickles would slink in from whatever furniture he had chosen to hide under that day. And Queen Anne would come last, skittish as always, ducking in from the guest room, the warm dent and long hairs in the center of the bed evidence of her royal place.

Gloria set the bowl on the floor.

Nothing.

Missy wasn’t in her windowsill.

She crossed the living room. No Alexander. No Mr. Pickles.

Queen Anne was not on the bed, but Mr. Pickles’s gray tail swished back and forth, the rest of his body hidden by the bedskirt.

Gloria attempted to extract him, but he fought, the telltale sound of ripping carpet indicating that he had dug in.

“Spoiled, all of you.”

A growl from underneath, almost as if in reply.

“So spoiled.” She retrieved the broom from the cupboard and slowly dropped to her knees. The crackling made her grimace.

“The nerve of you. All of you. Especially you, Alexander.” She swept the broom underneath and flushed them out. Queen Anne jumped out first, with Mr. Pickles close behind. Her broom met with unexpected resistance.

“Really, Missy?” She swept again. Missy popped out and raced away, a streak of black.

Gloria tried again She stuck the broom under, gave it a firm sweep, and a severed hand bounced out at her, flesh torn away in morsel-sized tatters. She screamed. Dropped her broom. Screamed some more. Alexander jumped up on to the bed and watched her, blinking and licking his chops.

The scene repeated throughout the building. Gary Breen had bounced a red rubber ball down the hall, and instead of returning with it, his schnauzer returned with a desiccated set of three fingers—pinky, ring, and middle—joined by a bit of sinew and tendon. Dana Lowry concussed herself in the shower when she pulled back the curtain and rolled her ankle on a partial hand and forearm left on the bathmat. Jim Dreyfus returned home to find their building cordoned off, blue lights flashing, paramedics and mental health counselors treating the residents.

“What is it?” he asked a young officer who shrugged and urged him away. Ellen’s mom had picked up her daughter and grandchildren. Jim was there just to get answers.

Across the street, an old-timer took in the spectacle from his seat on a low wall. He wore a blue suit too long in the sleeves and leaned on his cane. When Jim waved, he waved the cane back.

“Sit down.” The rumpled man rapped his cane on the concrete wall.

“Nobody seems to know what’s going on.” Jim huffed and sagged.

“Lemme guess. They finding parts?”

“How’d you know that?” Jim asked.

“Oh, it’s history.” The old-timer tapped his cane on the ground. “Used to be they brought the cattle down by rail.” He pointed to the station. “Run ‘em right down the road to the slaughterhouse. Gone now.” He motioned to the condo parking lot. “And they’d get processed right there.” He pointed at the building. “Ain’t been in there in a long time.”

“So what are you telling me?” Jim asked.

The old-timer watched police officers come and go through the front doors. “Tellin’ you there’s a good reason we have unions.” He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a naked stump where his wrist had been.

“I don’t believe in unions.” Jim abruptly stood up. “Sorry about your hand.” He had no time for politics, and he wanted answers, not stories.

“If you see it in there, tell ‘em I’d like it back.” The old-timer chuckled. “Been tryin’ for years.”

Jim paled and hurried away. He pressed the matter with the police, who offered him little time and no answers. He pointed out the old-timer, but no one would listen. After every rejection he turned back, as if expecting the old man to disappear. He never did though. He just smiled and waved with his cane until the last of the emergency services departed, leaving yellow tape across the doorway to warn anyone against entering.

But when Jim tried to speak to the old-timer again, all he got in response were shrugs.

“Come on, man,” Jim pressed.

“What do I know?” The old-timer finally stood up, creaking and cracking, and adjusted his suit coat. “You made it big enough to live there. Do your homework, man. Read The Jungle or somethin’. Attend to your history.”

As he strolled away, the old-timer felt it happen. Body never forgets a missing limb. At the medical examiner’s office, the bag containing all those severed parts had gone flat, the contents vanished.

Whence the Horrors

Author’s Note: A little different tune today. A bit of fiction about a particularly scary personal rabbit hole.

April had been a month-long deluge. We used twice the socks; the puddles and rivulets of runoff begged to be jumped in and over, especially after long days in stuffy classrooms with no lunchtime recess. Mom hung our wet pants over the shower curtain rod; they dripped on to a frayed towel spread on the floor beneath. Our sneakers practically lived in the dryer.

Between the school library and the public library, I had gained access to a Halloween-colored collection of books on the horror film classics: The Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein. The school library also owned a book on horror films wherein I first met Count Orlock and Erik Claudin. The public lIbrary’s series from Time-Life Books—The Enchanted World—completed my tour of the terrible fantastic; I was set for a month of pleasure reading.

“What have you got there?” Dad asked.

I showed him the book Wizards and Witches. He frowned at it, as if blaming the book for arriving in my hands.

“That’s garbage,” he said, and walked away.

After that, he didn’t ask what I was reading, opting to lace his question with judgment.

“Still reading garbage?”

Of course, the Playgirl he found under my mattress six years later was far worse to him than anything I had brought home before. As I reflect on it, my only regret is that I didn’t start reading comic books sooner, since those were banned in our house as well.

I rolled my eyes and held up whatever I was reading so he could read the cover.

“Yep. Garbage,” he invariable decreed.

That night I awoke to the light of the full moon shining through my window. The clouds had parted, the patter of rain ending just in time for me to notice the silence. No chirping of crickets or cries of spring peepers. No whirrs or croaks, no skittering of rodents over detritus. Not even the rustle of leaves. We lived on the edge of the woods. Silence was wrong.

“Hey Justin?” I asked. I could see the hulk of my older brother in bed beneath the far window. Overweight and a heavy sleeper, he snored badly. But now I heard nothing.

“Justin, I know you’re awake. Answer me!”

I slid out of bed and crossed the creaky old floor. He didn’t stir. I pulled on his shoulder. He rolled back, eyes glassy, lips blue.

Heart pounding, I ran from the room. The attic door was next to our bedroom, and I heard the clomp of heavy boots descending the creaking stairs. I smelled formaldehyde and ozone. The groaning started before I reached my parents’ bedroom.

“Mom! Dad!”

I pounded on their door, grabbed the knob, and flung it open.

They were dead, too, wrapped in thick webs. Something skittered under the bed. I turned. Something with yellow-eyes snarled from the darkness of the bathroom.

I raced past my sisters’ room, sure of the horror I would find if I opened their door. Instead I bounded downstairs, and struggled with the kitchen door, sparing a glance just as Orlock in his rat-toothed glory crept from around the corner that led to the cellar.

The door was locked. Something grabbed me from behind. I awoke.

It happened again the next night, after which I was too afraid to go to sleep. I pictured them waiting, horrors taking shape in the cellar, in the attic, under the bed, their clomps and growls and snarls held at bay just for me. The stink of them—wet wolf and the rusty smell of blood—came to me in my waking hours.

My father decreed that I had too active an imagination, and confiscated my books. I didn’t want to tell him that he shouldn’t take my Mad Scientist book because Fredric March might be the most handsome Dr. Jekyll I’d ever seen and I really wanted look at him some more.

The third night, I made it outside and across the yard. But Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch caught me in the driveway. I skidded across the stone and gravel, tumbling to all fours as her green claws dug into my shoulder and scratched wet grooves down my back. My limbs gave out. A cackle filled the damp, foggy night.

My palms and knees hurt the next few days.

I made it across the street a few nights later. Nearly hit by a car. The witch caught me running up the road, screaming for help. I didn’t know if the car was real. I felt the whoosh of wind and the blare of a horn. It smelled like fire as it passed, contrary to the icy wind that followed in its wake. But I didn’t dare turn. There was no time to look back.

The first time I reached the neighbors, I actually paused to reconsider. These were not nice neighbors: the windbag, the milquetoast, and their spawn. But I pounded on the door anyway. Screamed for them. Something with claws yanked me off the porch and dragged me across the yard.

Finally, one night they answered. A quartet of shambling corpses. Emaciated cheeks and the stink of rotting flesh. Lolling eyes and broken grasping fingers. Not even the unsafe places were safe. I was alone. They swiped at me; I fought back. Tried to pull me inside. I ripped free of their clutches, tearing my t-shirt, and ran up the road, barefoot, crying, alone…

And then I awoke.

The next evening, Justin called me a faggot at the dinner table.

“Well, you should be more of a man, Brian,” my father said. Mom just stared at her salad. Jane leered at me, complicit in her silence. Little Alice chewed her cud, blissfully ignorant. And suddenly I knew what those horrors had been trying to say.

I determined to face my fears this time—not to run—sure that I was alone. Anything I did in my life, I would do for myself. Love and support did not exist; help wasn’t coming. No one would care for me like me.

The nightmare didn’t return.

I’m older now, and there are days, really bad days, when I think I could dream it again. I am no longer the lonely boy in the house on the edge of the woods. But I can sit in the park, or at a restaurant, or drive home on a perfectly blue day, birds chirping in the trees, and feel a hand, clammy against my neck, or glance in the rearview mirror to see a pair of glowing eyes staring back. Or hear the unnatural creaking under my bed as my husband snores gently beside me.

No, the nightmare hasn’t come back.

And it’s my job to keep it that way.