MicroHorror

We pulled into the lot of the old gas station, the only car parked out front glowed with a ghostly hue from the moonlight. I reached into my jacket and pulled out my gun.

The robbery took a week to plan and only a second to fall apart. Hank was supposed to enter the gas station to clear out the customers while I waited, but as soon as he entered I heard the blast of his shotgun. I ran inside and found the clerk erupting blood like a volcano from a hole in his chest.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell happened?” I turned to find Hank focused on a woman in the back of the store, she had black hair, tan skin, and fabulous curves. I understood why he was bewitched.

“Bitch, get over here to where I can see you,” Hank said as he locked the front door.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“She looks like a stripper, don’t you think she looks like a stripper?”

The woman stared at her feet as she reluctantly walked down the aisle towards Hank.

“Are you a stripper?” Hank hit her with the butt of the shotgun when she got close enough. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

She wiped the blood from her mouth. “Sure, whatever you want me to be”.

He pointed the muzzle of the shotgun between her eyes. “Then start stripping.”

“No.”

Boom–he fired the shotgun over her head exploding the track lighting in the ceiling. Moonlight streamed through the nearby plate glass window, highlighting the woman like a spotlight. Persuaded, she rocked her hips up and down as her abdomen moved in a circular motion. She reminded me of a belly dancer as her arms slithered outward like waves.

Hank relaxed his stance and lowered his shotgun as he bobbed his head to the invisible music. She unbuttoned her blouse exposing a black lace bra that cupped her fantastic breasts.

“Take it off, now.” He took a step back, giving her room. She put a hand between her breasts to work the clasp on her bra and paused, she seemed to be struggling. Her dancing stopped as a line of blood streaked down her stomach. She had pushed her fingernail into her chest. Hank pumped the shotgun, “what are you trying to pull?”

She dug her index finger deeper into her chest. Blood squirted Hank’s face as she pulled her ribcage. Crack–the room fell silent except for the buzz of the coolers in the back of the store. She stared directly into Hank’s eyes as she tore the broken rib from her chest and tossed it at his feet.

I couldn’t take it anymore, I bolted for the door. I pulled at Hank’s sleeve as I passed but he didn’t follow, he just stood motionless in a puddle of his own urine. My sweaty hands fumbled with the lock, I couldn’t get it open so I kicked out the lower glass panel of the door. Once outside I looked back and screamed for Hank to follow, he ignored me, his shotgun lay on the floor, too heavy for his trembling hands.

Deep within the woman’s exposed muscles and broken ribs a ball of black tar pushed its way out. A blood slicked mass unfolded and expanded revealing a snout and a pair of yellow eyes. A wolf emerged, shedding the rest of her human skin, and howled. Its shark-like mouth opened to reveal deadly jagged teeth. Then in a blur of foaming saliva, Hank was decapitated in one ferocious bite.

I fired my gun at the wolf and I regretted that decision as soon as I pulled the trigger. The wolf, unharmed, glared at me sending shivers of despair throughout my body. The smell of wet fur, blood, and urine overpowered my senses. I could have run, I could have played dead, instead I did nothing. I just waited.

• Copyright: © 2009 Jimmy Calabrese

As the father closes the storybook, the boy says:

“Read it again.”

“I can’t. I have to do some work tonight, so–”

“Not yet, please, read it again.”

The father shakes his head and pulls the covers over the boy’s shoulders.

“It’s time for bed.”

“No no no, please!”

The father stares at the boy:

“What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

The boy opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again. He frowns and shakes his head.

The father’s voice rises:

“Of what?”

The boy hesitates, then says:

“There’s–there’s something in the attic.”

“The attic? Where on earth would you get such an idea?”

“I keep hearing noises up there–strange noises.”

“Listen. This is an old house, and old houses make noises sometimes. There’s nothing in the attic, okay?”

The boy begins to cry:

“What if–what if it comes down here!”

The father stares at the boy–and then mumbles to himself as he walks out of the bedroom.

The boy wipes the tears from his eyes and catches his breath, looking up and listening as the father stomps all around the attic. A few moments later, the father returns, coughing and dusting himself off–he looks angry:

“There’s nothing in the attic. Okay? Nothing.”

“But there is.”

The father swears softly to himself:

“You know what? I’ve had enough of this foolishness. You’re almost five years old.”

“But Daddy!”

The father walks out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He reaches for the light switch and flips off the light, then grips the doorknob.

“Please, Daddy, just leave the light on.”

“Go to bed, and I mean right now, or I promise I’ll give you something to be scared of.”

The father slams the door shut, and the bedroom plunges into darkness.

The boy sobs, but then stops and lies very still in his bed. It is quiet for a long time.

But then, there is a sound. A muffled hissing sound, somewhere above the boy. Somewhere in the attic. The boy holds his breath and keeps very still–and the sound fades, slowly, into silence.

The boy exhales shakily, but then stops. There is another sound. Footsteps, coming closer. The low groan of a floorboard, right outside the bedroom.

The boy props himself up in the bed. He sees something blocking the crack of light under the door.

The door creaks open, and a thin shaft of light knifes into the gloom.

Something steps inside the bedroom, closing the door behind. It moves slowly through the shadows and stops at the side of the bed, looming over the shaking boy.

It speaks. And its voice–is the father’s voice:

“I’m sorry I yelled at you like that.”

The boy slumps back into the bed, stammering:

“Th–that’s–okay, Daddy.”

“I have a lot of work to do tonight. But that’s not an excuse.”

“That’s okay.”

“Please try to get some sleep.”

“I’m trying, but–I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“I’m scared.”

“I already told you, there’s nothing in the attic.”

“Can–can you maybe stay with me awhile? Please?”

“Will that help you go to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll stay with you awhile.”

The boy rolls over and closes his eyes.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

“I love you.”

And for a time, the only sound is the rhythmic sound of the boy’s breathing, slow and steady.

But then, there is another sound. Footsteps, coming closer. The door creaking open, just a crack. And a voice outside–the father’s voice, low and muffled:

“Do I hear talking in here? I told you to go to sleep.”

The thing in the shadows stirs, then speaks, softly–and this time, its voice is the boy’s voice:

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I was just–saying my prayers.”

The father sighs:

“Just go to sleep.”

The door slowly creaks shut.

The thing in the shadows looms over the sleeping boy. It leans closer, hissing softly.

• Copyright: © 2009 Solomon Grundy

Some nights, I’d hear the Curdles munching and gnawing on something in the back yard. I called them the Curdles because my stomach curdled whenever I heard them. I’m sure you know the feeling of a twisting stomach and nausea after eating something that didn’t agree with you.

I never saw them, though I always knew when they’d been around. The following morning after hearing them, I’d awaken early and hurry to the window overlooking the back yard. Sure enough, carcasses, blood, and fur were scattered about the yard.

I’d sneak out and dispose of the guts and gore to keep my parents from discovering them. If I told them about the Curdles, they wouldn’t have believed me. And then, the Curdles would blame me and come for me.

The Curdles first targeted neighborhood pets. When a neighbor’s pet went missing, he’d wonder who or what had taken it. I knew, but couldn’t tell.

Kids in town avoided old man Jensen. He’d offer them candy and toys to come into his house and play games. Then he’d try to coax them into doing things they’d been taught were wrong.

But the police got involved when he disappeared. Volunteer search teams searched the surrounding fields and woods. They searched the swamp along the Great Northern Railroad tracks leading north to the Twin Cities, but found no trace of him. I knew they wouldn’t; I’d already cleaned up the mess.

After the searchers moved on I buried Jensen’s remains in the swamp. I say remains because he’d been gutted and dressed out like a deer during hunting season.

Some kids playing around the old grain mill at the edge of the swamp found Jensen, covered with lime and buried beneath a pile of grass and branches. The volunteers couldn’t figure out how they missed him.

Although parents forbid their kids from going to the mill, finding the old man’s remains provided too much fodder for gruesome stories. School kids countywide made nighttime visits to the woods.

My friend Stevie and I built a secret fort underground, in the woods near the old mill. We built a trap door and covered it with a weedy patch of sod. The walls were fortified with stolen wood scraps, and scrap carpet covered the dirt floor.

I hid out there whenever I wanted to be by myself or I thought the Curdles were coming for me. We’d built it sturdy enough that the search teams walked right over it and never knew it was there.

Stevie stopped coming to the woods after I told him about the Curdles lurking there and in the swamp. He was going to tell, but I made him promise not to. Then Stevie disappeared, and I knew the Curdles had gotten to him.

Then, kids venturing into the woods seeking Jensen’s ghost began disappearing, and the FBI was called in. Shortly after they began investigating, they found me in the fort.

I’d gotten one of those terrible headaches from thinking about the Curdles, and hid out at the fort. I heard the FBI when they walked over the roof. An agent probing the ground with a pole hit the plywood roof through the sod.

They dug until they broke through the roof, which collapsed. I retreated to another room where they found me covered in blood. Stevie’s rotting corpse hung from the ceiling, gutted and dressed out.

I swore Stevie was killed by the Curdles, and that I’d brought him to the fort to keep them from harming him. But no one listened to me.

How did I know it was the Curdles? When they dragged me away in this straitjacket, that feeling in my stomach returned. The Curdles were watching from the woods, waiting for their chance to grab me.

As a matter of fact, I’m getting that feeling again. The Curdles are coming, so I’d appreciate it if you would release me. We need to find a place to hide.

• Copyright: © 2009 Harold Kempka

Only when the hilt has a ring of red around it does she pull the knife out from between my ribs. I lean back on the velvet couch, my dick pointing at her, my belt opened down around my thighs. I haven’t touched the Tsing Tao. The unopened bottle stands on the edge of a table in the center of the karaoke room.

The whore whistles some sailor song as she pulls her pantyhose back up her chubby legs. She hops up from the couch where only moments ago she was spread eagle and awaiting my purchased intercourse. She taps the door with the back of her hand.

A man in an Adidas tracksuit pokes his head in. She nods yes to whatever he asks and satisfied, he gets on his cell and blathers rapidly. I only know enough Cantonese to order in a restaurant.

It feels like the knife is still in my side, wiggling around in the nerves. I hold my hands over the wound instinctively. My legs are too cold and numb to run. My mouth is too wrenched tight from the pain that I can’t say anything when she grabs my cheek and shakes it.

“You so fat. They will pay more,” she says.

The whore smiles at me with a mix of pity and vindictiveness. There is a gap between her front teeth that I didn’t notice when agreeing to climb the narrow staircase down into this place.

My blood slides down the folds in my gut and pools under my back. It feels like there is enough to drown in. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have told my wife to stay at the hotel while I supposedly had a drink. The man having a seizure when I first walked in, knocking over barstools with his cowboy boots, should have deterred me.

The whore readjusts her bra, where my hands were just fumbling. She snaps off the bottle cap of the beer with her teeth.

“You already pay this,” she says when she hands it to me.

I put my sticky red hand out and take the bottle. Of all the deaths I’ve imagined, this was not one of them. They all had a few more grains of dignity and the beer was at least cold.

• Copyright: © 2009 Ryan Dilbert

I thought the golf course might be the one place where I wouldn’t have to worry about zombies. I was on the 13th fairway lining up my next shot when I heard a loud moaning behind me. I turned to see a zombie a couple hundred yards back. He was looking up, shielding his eyes from the sun. He had a golf club in his other hand. I guess he was trying to holler “fore,” because the next thing I knew a golf ball bounced off my head. By the time I came to, the zombie golfer had taken a pretty good bite out of my shoulder. Fortunately, I was able to fight him off. I just hope I can finish my round before I join the ranks of the shuffling dead.

• Copyright: © 2009 Robert C. Eccles

It was just after lunch on Easter Sunday and Jenny and I were sitting in the kitchen, relaxing after the tiring task of setting up the neighborhood egg hunt earlier that morning. Our twin boys had donned their swimming trunks and gone back out to get a “giant secret egg” that they’d seen in the marsh at the edge of the park during the hunt. Of course none of the parents had hidden anything in the marsh, but we figured there was no point in telling them that if they wanted to go play for the afternoon.

Suddenly, Terry raced into the house covered in sludge and marsh plants, and clutching a cantaloupe-sized green and yellow egg. He was white as a sheet and breathing raggedly.

“What have you got there, and where’s your brother?” I said, cutting off Jenny before she could yell about the tracked-in swamp muck. The boy looked panicked, and I worried that his brother might have become somehow stuck in the marsh.

He looked at me wildly, then noticed the egg as if he’d had no idea he was holding it and flung it away from himself as if burned. It cracked against the wall and then splattered on the floor with a sickening wet crunching sound. A fetal green something kicked and gurgled hideously in the ruined mess of egg before making a wet screeching sound and lying still.

Jenny had started to make a stuttering gulping sound, as if she couldn’t decide whether to speak or gag. Terry had fallen to his knees and was sobbing uncontrollably. I was trying to gather myself to do… something, when an object smashed through the living room window and came to rest just outside the kitchen. It was a long object, mostly obscured by a covering of stringy water weeds. One end of it was ragged red and slowly dripping crimson liquid, on the other end, just visible under the obscuring scum, was a red children’s sneaker.

The implications of that sunk in gradually. Everything had taken on a very surreal aspect and seemed to be moving slowly. Idly, I realized that I could hear wet footsteps slapping across the carpet as something moved toward the kitchen out of my sight. I was vaguely aware of Jenny screaming and Terry scrambling behind the counter in a panic. The whole house was filled with the scent of wet and plants and decay. The smell of the marsh. And mixing with that was the rising coppery odor of blood, from a source that was moving closer.

• Copyright: © 2009 Brett Saunders

The idiot box said doom was coming. Fire. Flood. Extinction of the whole human kind. But Rachelle didn’t pay it any mind. They were always predicting some damn thing: Judgment Day. Japan to buy Pennsylvania Avenue. The British are coming! Rachelle had better things to do than listen to all of that. The plants needed watering. Old Deacon hadn’t been out to play with his Frisbee all day. The trash was piling up. Rachelle flicked off the tube.

The Georgia sun hung like a syrupy egg yolk, a golden globe over the tall pines and mossy oak trees that canopied Rachelle’s little trailer. Deacon rolled on his back in the emerald St. Augustine grass, gnawing his old Frisbee and groaning his pleasure. They say animals know before we do when something truly bad is coming. Old Deacon didn’t have a care in the world.

Rachelle sprayed her sunflower seedlings and mature red roses with the garden hose. She watched Deacon out of the corner of her eye, trying to channel some of his joy over to her. She tried to tell herself that everything was just fine, but that queasy spot in the pit of her stomach rang out like buckshot in the country quiet, unsettling her mind. If there had been someone else there to comfort, Rachelle would have lied, just to distract herself. “Sure, sure, everything’s gonna be all right.” But that feeling there in her belly, she couldn’t deny. Rachelle looked back up to the sky. Something wasn’t right.

Metallic shadows filtered the sunlight. The emerald grass turned steely blue and quiet. The branches of the low hanging oak trees that before had simply danced with the gentle suggestions of the breeze, seemed now to shudder visibly, to shiver. Deacon dropped his Frisbee and came to Rachelle’s side. He knew. His eyes locked with Rachelle’s, conspiring with the pit of her stomach to carry the message to her denying heart and mind, that they were all soon to die.

Names flashed like comets in Rachelle’s mind. Names she’d heard all her life but that had never carried any significance until now. Jupiter. Eros. The names of those who now conspired to assassinate her world.

The newsman, with his five o’clock shadow and tie twisted to the side, had explained that Jupiter, like a magnet in a pinball machine had yanked the asteroid Eros into a direct collision course with Earth. The closest it had come before now was about 22 million kilometers. Rachelle thought of the shopping list hanging on her refrigerator. She needed to pick up milk. Then the haggard face of the newsman came back.

Not taking into consideration atmospheric friction or the orbital speed of Eros and Earth, scientists predicted roughly a 75 million megaton explosion upon impact based on a final velocity of about 40,000 kilometers per hour. This dwarfed the destructive capability of the collected nuclear stockpiles on Earth.

Rachelle reached down and ran her fingers through Deacon’s smooth brown fur. His eyes, symmetrical copper orbs, seemed to capture the expression of a scream trapped in black space. Silent. The wind lashed the treetops, snapping the once gracefully swaying branches and sending them crashing into the underbrush, now jagged bristling spikes.

Sunday afternoon turned quickly to final night. Asteroid extinction, the newsman had called it. Rachelle’s soil now tended, under the darkening sun, she lay down flat on her back with Deacon curled up close beside her. Their work was done.

• Copyright: © 2009 Damien Filer

Chris sat on the back porch watching Jill play with her dolls in Sandra’s big yard. He took another slug of his beer and saw Sandra coming out with a tray of sandwiches.

“Is that what you’re going to do all day?” she asked. “Sit around knocking back beers?”

“My first beer,” he said. “It’s hot here.” He’d drunk only Dr Pepper on the way from Las Vegas to Flagstaff, half to keep cool, half to keep awake.

Sandra raised her eyebrows and set the tray on the patio table. “So, how’s Rita?”

“Yeah, well, Rita.” Chris didn’t need to say more. Sandra had told him from the beginning what would happen with Rita.

Chris had arrived late last night, leaving Vegas right after work. He’d snuck around the side of the dark property to the small poolhouse where he stayed whenever he came. He’d been woken early by his little girl pounding on the door. When he’d asked her how she’d gotten through the pool gate she’d just smiled, then asked him to come help look for her dolls.

He picked up a sandwich. “You know I had to cut all of Jill’s dolls down from the trees this morning,” he said. “Eddie had strung them up with baling twine like a lynching.” Eddie was Jill’s half-brother, nine years older than her, born when Sandra was barely twenty, long before Chris had known her.

“Eddie’s having a tough time…” Sandra said.

Jill came running up the lawn, dropped a doll on the table, took a sandwich, hugged Chris, then ran inside.

“She still has the eyes,” Sandra said.

“She doesn’t have ‘the eyes.’ She’s just little. Blended family, too many…”

“Go on,” Sandra said. “Go on, say it.”

Chris sighed and tossed back another mouthful of beer. “There’s nothing fierce about her eyes.”

Sandra had a sandwich. “You could sleep inside the house, you know.” She reached out and put her hand on his.

Chris was about to answer, unsure what he’d say.

“She misses you,” Sandra said.

“Yeah, well, I miss here.”

“Miss… here? Miss her?”

“Uh… both, I guess.” This was already his fourth time back to Flagstaff this year and though the winters were Arctic compared to Vegas, the pace was much kinder.

“She’s growing up,” Sandra said. “Smart. I caught her with Greg’s power drill the other day.”

Greg had been the fourth husband, dispatched over a year ago.

“Huh?” Chris sat up. “What was she doing?”

“It was fine. She’d removed the bit and put in a screwdriver tip, and she was fixing the busted hinge in the bathroom.”

“That one you asked me to fix? Last time?”

“The time before that.”

Jill came back out, carrying a jug of watered-down Powerade. “Thirsty dolls,” she said. She bent over to hug Chris again, then went on down the steps to the lawn, eyes ablaze. Chris’s nose wrinkled. Something stank, something volatile.

“She’ll be five in a few months,” Sandra said. “Starting school.”

“I could move back, I guess.” Vegas was working out okay, but the speed of things was overwhelming.

“You could go back to the observatory.”

“Go back to school.” Why did the smell bother him?

“If you sold your place in Nevada you’d have some cash.”

He nodded. An escape from Vegas heat. “I could bunk in the pool house while I thought things over.” Kerosene, he thought, not watered-down Powerade.

“While we thought things over.”

“Oh.”

There was a hollow sound from down in the trees, like a big animal suddenly exhaling. Chris jumped to his feet and saw the flames, heard someone screaming.

Eddie was on fire, stumbling up the yard bellowing. Chris launched himself off the deck. He knocked Eddie down and rolled him across the grass to kill the flames

“He was playing with matches,” Jill said watching. “So I taught him a lesson.”

Chris looked up and saw that Sandra was right about his little girl’s ferocious eyes.

• Copyright: © 2009 Sean Monaghan

“Fucking kids!” Winston declared, looking down at the mangled mess that was his beloved pumpkin patch. He ran a thick-veined hand through his graying brown hair. “Got no respect at all for other people’s property.”

“Dad,” Bo cried, shaking his spiked-haired head. “You don’t know that kids did this.” He paused, putting his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans, shrugged his thin shoulders and said, “It could’ve been animals.”

“Animals?” Winston laughed. He gawked at Bo and said smugly, “Boy, kids did this and I’ll prove it. I’ll hide in that old shed tonight–” he pointed an askew finger at a worn-out brown shed–“And wait on those disrespectful little brats.” A wiry smile crossed Winston’s weather-tanned face. “Then I’ll jump out and scare the shit right out of their disrespectful assholes.”

Bo looked doubtful and bored with the conversation.

Winston breathed deeply, raising his massive chest. “Trust me, son,” he began. “Fathers always know best.”

That night Winston waited until he heard the muffed and hushed voices of oncoming intruders. “It’s about time,” he whispered, moving slowly to a grime-covered window. He saw two small figures coming through the moonlight. As they got closer he could see a little boy that was wearing an oversized boot with a huge steel-toe cap on it, and a small girl who wore the boot’s mate. “Kids,” he murmured, softly. “I knew it.” He positioned himself by the door.

The kids began kicking the remaining pumpkins. Seeds and orange goop covered their clothes and flew through the cool night air. They giggled softly and smiled mischievously, and didn’t even jump when Winston ran out of the shed yelling at them.

“Aarrrh!” Winston bellowed, waving his arms in the air like a madman. “Get out of here!” His heart was racing, but these kids were standing there, unalarmed and definitely not scared. He grew red with anger. “What’s your parents’ name?” he asked sternly. “Someone owns me money for my pumpkins you two have destroyed!”

The boy and girl didn’t say a word. They just looked at Winston like he was the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus all rolled up into one.

Winston huffed, “Answer me!” He gnawed at his bottom lip. The kids stood there, eyes unblinking. “Fine!” Winston growled. “I’ll just go and call the cops.”

“Please don’t,” the girl chirped. “I’ll tell you.”

Winston walked over to her.

The girl smile shrewdly and kicked Winston in his shin with her steel-toed boot. Once. Twice. Three times. He fell to the ground in a thud.

Winston’s eyes filled with rage. “I’m gonna wear your ass out for that!”

“You shouldn’t cuss,” the little boy said. “Because Daddy says that’s the Devil’s language.”

The little girl knelt down and patted Winston’s sweaty head. “Do you know what else Daddy says?” she asked, smiling hellishly.

“No,” Winston croaked, his eyes filling with fear. He tried to get up, but the boy kicked him between the legs.

The girl stood up and looked at the boy. He smiled like he’d been caught stealing a cookie out of the cookie jar. “Daddy says,” he stated, “that kicking pumpkins is the closest thing to kicking in a real person’s head.”

Winston drew deep, uneasy breaths. “Now, you kids quit playing this silly little game of yours, and go and get me some help.”

The girl looked around and surveyed the pumpkin patch. Fifty or more pumpkins were busted opened and bleeding out their remnants. “Brother,” she said, turning her attention to the little boy. “Daddy said that once we perfected kicking in pumpkins that we could try the real thing, and don’t you think that it’s time we try?”

The boy shook his small head proudly. He looked down at Winston who was shaking his head no. The boy drew back his steel-toe boot and said, “Like Daddy always says, ‘Fathers do know best.’”

• Copyright: © 2009 Chad Case

I fear that my memoirs will soon come to an end. This inkwell is nearly depleted. I’ve been scraping my quill along the sides and bottom, collecting every last bit. The scant remains will turn dry before long. Likewise, my candle burns low.

I could ask him for more ink, but to what avail? I begged and pleaded, cried and howled, for the last splash of ink… for the tattered notebook in which I write. Down here, I have no concept of time, but it must have been a year before he finally agreed to provide me with this small accommodation. I cannot, will not, go through that again. Somehow, I think it tickles his fancy. To see me fight the Great Fight and then finally give in… consuming the elixir he brings.

It takes the pain away, that elixir, that potion. It reaches down into my core, wrapping around this sour feeling and washing it clean out of reach. I find myself wanting, thirsting for more, wishing the magic to last longer…

But alas, the potion has worn off! My legs, how they ache where he’s beaten me again. I can still feel the leather strap against my skin, lashing out in hot bursts of pain–for running, for spitting the vile concoction in his face.

I rest my head in the dirt and listen to the insects that scurry in and out of my hell. Outside, I hear the first few drops of rain. I pray for God to spare me from the fury of a storm, from water trickling past the sides of the boulder that holds me prisoner. I once spent three days with soaked sheets, listening–against my will–to the wretched sound of my teeth chattering, echoing through the darkness of my world. Please, God, let the cursed stone that prevents my escape serve a small purpose… for once. Let my cavern stay dry. Oh please… don’t let the rain find me again.

I dream of a day I can return to my manor, and go riding on my horses again. I see the smiling faces of my brother and sister who, like myself, could never seem to move away. It’s so cozy on the family’s estate, strolling the gardens and dining together. Why would I ever wish to marry?

Then he enters my thoughts, ripping through the garden’s beauty, ruining the remembrance of an afternoon tea. It brings me back to this cave. To my hell.

He used to watch me, while I was riding horseback, or watering the bright lilies of my garden. He thought I couldn’t see him peeking through the shrubbery. It was his job, after all, to trim the bushes.

In private, I sought my sister’s advice.

“Steer clear of that boy. His grandmother is a witch!”

My darling sister… how intuitive you are…

I knew his face the night he took me, as I was bound and gagged. I knew his name, his family and home. Perhaps that’s why he sees no other option than to hide me, locked away from the prying ears of strangers.

I swear to keep this secret, if he would just let me go. I’d carry on, pretending I could not remember where I’d gone on the day I disappeared… where I’d been since that fateful night. Yes…

If only he would let me go…

***

I hardly recognize the words I wrote earlier this day! They seem cruel, untrue and unfair. It’s just as well my ink runs low, if I’m going to write things so dire!

My lover has come to see me again, bringing with him our special “love potion”! He moved the stone from outside my safe haven, sliding it easily out of place. I wish I could see his muscles at work. My lover is so very strong!

The way he touches me, his hot breath on my neck, the warm feeling of his lips on my flesh…

I eagerly await his return.

• Copyright: © 2009 LB Goddard