I’ve been a huge fan of short-form horror for as long as I can remember. It’s what led me to write some of my own short stories, mostly of the horror variety. Call it the fault of my short attention span.
This carried on to TV and movies as well. In particular, I loved watching Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow, Black Mirror, and, the classic of course, The Twilight Zone.
The stories within Unholy Whispers (which, incidentally, I had wanted to be titled Epitaphs of Saint Ambrose, but the publisher told me that it’d just confuse would-be readers) were each written purposefully to include the Saint Ambrose church grounds and mausoleum. I had always intended for them to be put together in a compendium, and so here it is. You’ll catch the very obvious nod to Tales from the Crypt as each story is introduced. Some connections to Saint Ambrose are a little obscure — see if you can pick them all out.
You can pre-order my horror anthology, Unholy Whispers of Saint Ambrose, featuring some stories read on The NoSleep Podcast, as well as a few new ones.
The hardcover of "Toggs: The Christmas Elf with a Fitting Gift" is now available to order! Limited signed copies are also available at no extra cost. Check it out at https://toggstheelf.shop!
"After a prowler suffering an injury wakes in an unexpected location, he quickly finds what he'd been searching for, and learns that he's right where he belongs."
EXT. SUBURBAN RESIDENCE - NIGHT
A FULL MOON silhouettes a dark, HUMAN FIGURE as he drops into the yard from a tall, wooden fence. He lands on a small SQUEAKY DOG TOY. The figure curses under his breath.
This is MARK (late 20s), dressed head-to-toe in black clothing. He's out of breath, already looking guilty for what he's about to do. DOGS bark in the distance. Otherwise, the night is still.
Crouching, Mark hurries to the home's sliding glass door window. He eyes the door menacingly, seemingly about to smash it, then thinks to try the handle first. He's surprised to see it slide open, then steps inside.
INT. SUBURBAN RESIDENCE - KITCHEN - NIGHT
Mark leaves the sliding door open as he gets his bearings. He scans the room, illuninated by moonlight. He regards a PHOTO on the refrigerator: a man (ROB, 50s) and his wife. He heads through a doorway to ...
INT. SUBURBAN RESIDENCE - BEDROOM - NIGHT
Mark slowly opens the door. The bed is unmade and unoccupied.
CUT TO:
INT. SUBURBAN RESIDENCE - DEN - NIGHT
Mark's pulling desk drawers open, dumping contents out, looking for something. The last drawer empties; he looks defeated. He spots a WALLET on a small table and his face lights up: Bingo.
He stops short as DOG GROWLING sounds come from the doorway. Mark's smile slowly fades. Shit.
Tense, Mark carefully turns to face his fate as the growling intensifies. And then ...
In the doorway stands a VERY OLD, FAT CHOCOLATE LABRADOR RETRIEVER.
Mark sighs, relaxes.
MARK
Hey, old boy. Girl. Want a treat? Look at you. Of course you do.
Mark reaches into a pocket, pulls out a DOG TREAT. The dog's growling turns to panting, then drool slurping. She sits, wagging her tail.
MARK
Yeah, you're a hungry girl. Here you go! Looks like you need a bonus treat too.
Mark throws two treats into the hallway. The dog lumbers after them. Mark turns his attention back to the wallet. Instead of pocketing it, he begins sifting through its contents, looking for something. Then, a BUSINESS CARD.
MARK
Yes!
GROWLING again, much more menacing, deep, threatening. Mark freezes, confused.
MARK
(Nervously.)
Y-You want another treat, girl?
The SHADOW OF A LARGE, CANINE HEAD, enormous teeth bared, rises upon the wall in front of Mark. Mark's jaw drops: this cannot possibly be the same fat lab.
MARK
Girl?
Mark slowly turns. Growling intensifies. A DEEP, LOUD, MENACING BARK. Mark SCREAMS in pain.
SMASH CUT TO BLACK
CUT TO:
INT. PRISON CELL - LATER
Mark's eyes shoot open. He brings himself to a sitting position on a COT. He's in a very small prison cell, just large enough to fit him, a cot, and a toilet. The florescent lights are blinding against the sterile, pure-white walls, bars, and floor. Even his prison outfit is white.
Mark shakes it off, gets his bearings. His cell faces a long row of similar ones just across a narrow hallway, each occupied with a single prisoner. Protests and converstaions from both male and female prisoners echo throughout. As realization hits him, Mark slumps, defeated: He's been caught.
He winces as he tries to prop himself up on one arm. His forearm has a HUGE BANDAGE on it, which he eyes curiously.
From the cell directly across from his ...
JAMES
Hey.
JAMES (30s), also dressed in a white uniform, has a LARGE BANDAGE on his neck. Mark's more interested in his own arm than what James has to say.
JAMES (Cont'd.)
Hey, c'mon, I'm not some asshole. I'm just trying to make conversation. Just got here myself last night. I'm James. What, uh, happened to your arm?
MARK
Guess it's from a dog. I hate dogs.
JAMES
A dog! Hope he wasn't rabid. Rabies is a death sentence.
Mark considers this, FLASHES BACK to the confusing moment of attack. He snaps out of it.
MARK
What're you in for?
JAMES
In for? You make it sound like we're in prison or something. I figured this was some hospital. I woke up here like you, after I passed out from this [Indicates the neck bandage].
JAMES (Cont'd.)
Why, what'd you do?
Mark declines to answer.
JAMES
God, I'm starving.
MARK
Yeah. What the hell kind of hospital is this?
HUGHES (O.C.)
It's not.
HUGHES (male, 40s) steps into Mark's view. Muscular, military, menacing, dressed in grey city camo.
HUGHES (Cont'd)
Name's Hughes. This is a holding facility.
MARK
So, a prison.
HUGHES
If you want to call it that. But you did nothing wrong. That's what prisons are for.
JAMES
Then why are you holding us here?
Hughes approaches James's cell.
HUGHES
That wound on your neck. Get frisky with anyone last night?
James considers this. FOUR GUARDS enter from around the corner, escorting a MID-20S WOMAN in handcuffs. She is seething, screeching, her face caked with blood. Her open mouth reveals LARGE FANGS, dripping with more blood. They continue down the hallway.
Realization washes over James's face as he puts his hand to the bandage. Hughes walks back toward Mark's cell.
HUGHES
And you. Have a romp with any puppy-dogs lately?
Mark is unfazed.
MARK
I hate dogs.
HUGHES
Well, you might want to get over that.
JAMES
What're you going to do with us? How long are you keeping us here? This is insane!
HUGHES
Insane? I'd say it's more ... humane. Believe it or not, we're not out to kill you. We're just looking to protect the world from their kind. Your kind.
JAMES
But I haven't done anything! You can't just keep me here in this ... this box! I'm innocent!
HUGHES
All the more reason to keep you here. It's for your own protection too. Out there, well, you're bound to encounter all kinds of dangerous things. Not to mention finding your own ... food. We'll feed you here; don't worry. We've got our own blood bank.
From around the corner, SIX GUARDS enter. Ahead of them, bound in chains, is Rob, from the refrigerator photo. Clothing in tatters, bloody. Mark's surprised but amused.
As Rob shuffles past Mark's cell, they lock eyes. Rob stops dead in his tracks, eyes widened. He begins thrashing within his restraints, crazed.
ROB
N-No. No. No! Get me out of here! GET ME OUT!
Mark's smile widens, then he begins to laugh.
HUGHES
I suppose it's healthy for you to find some humor in this. After all, he is why you're here. He's what you'll become: A werewolf. [Pointing to James] You, a vampire. Lots more here like both of you. Lots more out there too.
Rob continues to protest, scream, cry in fear.
HUGHES (Cont'd)
What the hell's got his jeans in a jerk?
MARK
It's so kind of you to find a home for all of these horrible, horrible creatures, Hughes. So kind of you not to kill them; to feed them, house them, all under this pristine facility. All under one roof; easy to control.
(Beat.)
Easy to find.
Mark's eyes begin to GLOW RED, a sinister smile growing. Rob continues to panic. Hughes backs away from the cell, confused.
ROB
He found me! He found us all! We're dead! We're all DEAD!
HUGHES
(To Mark)
What the hell are you?
JAMES
What's going on!?
MARK
I take it you don't have any demons here. Good. I'll have the whole place to myself. I'm starving.
The door to Mark's cell BURSTS OPEN upon its hinges. The guards cower away, releasing Rob, who then feebly attempts to run away, chains rattling behind him. Mark zips among Hughes and the guards in a blur of motion, executing each of them in turn with broken necks or decapitated heads. The other INMATES scream from their cells in a panic.
Before Rob can get very far, Mark is there, standing in his way.
MARK
Missed you at your house, Rob. Thought your business card would lead me to where you work. Turns out I didn't need it. But you didn't miss me, did you Rob? [Indicates bandage]
ROB
Please. Why me? Why us?
MARK
Humans aren't the same, Rob. They're a bit ... bland, y'know? Don't worry. I'll make this quick. I mean, I'm not a monster.
Well, I did not do well in the first round of the 2020 NYC Midnight Short Screenplay competition, with “A Taste Worth Savoring.” One point. Better than zero, sure, but still crummy. My only hope is that this one gets 15 points, and even then it’s a long shot.
"A pair of fraternity alumni bemoan what has become of their Alpha Omega, as they attend the initiation of its latest pledge. The active membership see a different problem altogether, one to be remedied once and for all, tonight."
INT. FUNERAL HOME - DAY
Two caskets, flowers, mourning family. A YOUNG BOY (10), wearing a suit, a FRESH SCAR on his chin, and a tear-streaked face sits alone in a chair. Nearby, FATHER CLAYTON (30s) speaks softly to a MIDDLE-AGED COUPLE.
FATHER CLAYTON
With every end comes a new beginning. They are with God now. One can only pray that the sad and unfortunate horrors that put them there will come to an end as a result of this, and leave the innocent among us in peace.
In the young boy's eyes, sadness becomes determination, and rage.
FATHER CLAYTON (O.C.)
(Trailing off)
Justice comes in many forms. I and the young brethren at the college will pray for ...
FADE TO:
EXT. WOODED PATH - FALL - NIGHT
GEORGE and ED (both 50s and overweight) huff along a dark, wooded path on a moonlit night, breath showing in the cold air. Both are squeezed into tattered fraternity letter jackets, Alpha Omega, their faces painted like skulls.
George takes a tentative sip from a bottle of alcoholic cider. Ed's hand enters frame and slaps the bottle from Frank's, sending it airborne.
ED
Jesus, G. Why you drinking that pussy shit?
GEORGE
It's all Christine will let me keep in the house. Better than nothing.
Ed eyes George as he takes a long pull from a pocket flask.
ED
No. No, it is not better than nothing. Here, I'm already fucked up.
Ed shoves the flask into George's chest. George accepts it, takes a sip, winces, coughs.
GEORGE
Where the hell is everyone?
ED
Probably up ahead with the pledge. I think they changed up how this works since we were active.
GEORGE
The school turned all religious and shit, hasn't recognized Greeks for years. So I guess they can do whatever the hell they want.
Ed scoffs.
ED
Not like that stopped us before. I hear it's a goddamn dry campus too. Shit. Poor bastards.
(Beat)
We the only alumni tonight?
GEORGE
Dunno. I guess. Sully fell off the face of the earth, MIA. Same with Pauly, Brian ... And you heard about Clem.
ED
Shit. Clem, yeah. His son Charlie was in the car too.
GEORGE
His own fault. He never learned to drive after a few measly tequila shots. Same thing with Gerry. Idiot left Mook's wedding, out of his mind, mowed down that kid and old couple. Gotta practice before driving that wasted. Now he's got twenty years left out of his thirty to serve.
ED
And Eric, slamming into that teacher. Mrs. Sutton, I think, right? Killed her. Stupid prick.
(Beat)
Hey wasn't Mook at last year's initiation? I couldn't make it until this year.
GEORGE
Same here. He said he was going, though, yeah. Never heard how it went.
George takes another drink from the flask, coughs.
GEORGE (CONT'D)
Guess we're a dying breed, you and me. If the booze itself doesn't kill us.
EXT. SMALL CLEARING - NIGHT
The two men emerge from the woods. In the clearing's center is a small, old, stone amphitheater, set into the ground. A HOODED PERSON is seated in a chair in the center of the amphitheater, a black, cloth sheet covering their head and upper half of their body. No one else is present.
GEORGE
What, just one pledge?
ED
This is pathetic. They gotta get their numbers up or there'll be no one left.
GEORGE
Alright, so what now?
Ed produces a paper note from a pocket.
ED
Invite says wear letters, skull-face, come to the initiation spot. That's it. So where the hell is everyone?
GEORGE
(Calling out)
Alpha Omegas! Come out! Let's get this show on the road!
Only the wind and skittering leaves.
ED
Oh fuck this, let's just get started. You remember how it goes.
GEORGE
Yeah, but I really gotta take a piss. You go on ahead. I'll be right back.
Ed stumbles into the amphitheater, rubbing his hands together, as George heads back into the woods a bit, back turned.
ED
Alright, pledge ...
EXT. WOODED PATH - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER
George finishes, zips up, turns back toward the ...
EXT. CLEARING - NIGHT
George approaches the amphitheater, confused. A hooded person remains in the chair, but Ed can't be seen.
GEORGE
(Calling out)
Yo, Ed! Where'd you go off to?
Twigs SNAP from the treeline. George wheels about to see nothing, as MOANING and WEEPING come from the person in the chair. George grins.
GEORGE
What the hell are you whimpering about? Huh, pleeb? Had enough of Brother Ed?
George enters the amphitheater, takes a long swig from Ed's flask. WEEPING continues.
GEORGE
Damn. One fucking pledge, and he's a blubbering pussy.
The whimpering becomes a GURGLING sound, then falls silent. George looks down to see a large, dark wet spot appearing on the seated person's lap. George laughs.
GEORGE
Holy shit, are you seriously pissing yourself right now?
Steam rises as the wet spot continues to grow, then down the person's pant legs. Confused, George watches as the pants become completely dark with wetness. A drip from a pant cuff onto the amphitheater floor, where the wetness remains dark. George bends for a closer look, sniffs the air, then dabs a finger into the puddle forming on the floor. In the moonlight, we see it is crimson. George stands slowly, pulls the sheet from the seated person's head.
It's Ed, motionless and silent, his throat slit ear-to-ear.
Before George can react, the blade of a large knife bursts through his chest from behind. Blood pours from his mouth as he gurgles and collapses into a heap on the floor. Standing there is a young PLEDGE (18), looking nervous but triumphant.
From the woods, FOOTFALLS, SNAPPING TWIGS. About thirty FRATERNITY BROTHERS enter the clearing. Their leader, ALPHA (20) enters the amphitheater. He has a familiar OLD SCAR on his chin. He picks up the dropped flask from the floor.
ALPHA
Two in one night. Well done. You should be proud.
(Louder)
We should all be proud! But this was the last of them. The last of the old ways. Now their legacy will no longer threaten the lives of current and future generations of our brotherhood, tainting the Alpha Omegas and what we stand for! Their deaths have helped ensure the safety of the pure and innocent. And with them goes the poison that sustained their kind for so long.
Alpha pours out the contents of the flask into the puddles of blood on the floor.
ALPHA
(Softly)
For you Gramma, Grampa. Charlie.
PLEDGE
(Softly)
Mom.
The last drops of alcohol fall, as does the flask. Father Clayton (now 40s) steps from the gathering of young men, up beside the pledge, placing a hand on his shoulder.
FATHER CLAYTON
Welcome to Alpha Omega, Brother Sutton.
Alpha and the surrounding crowd of brothers cheer into the night.
Toggs: The Christmas Elf with a Fitting Gift - Kindle edition by McDuffee, Keith, Tan, Jeric. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Toggs: The Christmas Elf with a Fitting Gift.
Who would have thought this would be the first thing I publish?! I hope everyone enjoys this! Please message me if you’d be interested in a copy in exchange for a review of any kind on Amazon!
I’m back at it again with the NYC Midnight competitions. I always find the Short Screenplay competition fun, and it’s sparked some ideas that I’d eventually grown into larger works or entered into other contests, some garnering a few small-time awards.
This time, my prompts didn’t really inspire anything new in me, so I fell back to a short story of mine and made some adjustments to make it work. It came out better than I thought!
Rules of this round:
Genre: Drama
Location: A Wine Bar
Object: An ATM Machine
Limits: 5 pages, 2 days
A man on an important life-or-death mission faces the realities of mortality, as he digests the realization of his dark place in its process.
EXT. WINE BAR - NIGHT
Edward (30s) operates an ATM MACHINE. A BRIEFCASE sits on the ground. Owen (30s) stands nearby, back against the wall. Edward grabs cash from the machine, then the briefcase.
OWEN
Can't track cash.
Edward nods nervously, pockets the cash. He's sweating, not looking so well.
OWEN
What's up? You can do this, right?
EDWARD
What? Yeah yeah. Just got a bug or something. I'll be fine.
Owen nods, unconvinced.
OWEN
Alright. C'mon.
CUT TO:
INT. WINE BAR, AT TABLE - A BIT LATER - NIGHT
The place is busy. Owen and Edward sit at a small table, each with a near-empty glass of wine. The briefcase is beside Edward's feet; he's looking worse.
EDWARD
You ever think of dying? Not falling down dead, I mean the process. Emphasis on the "ing," y'know? From the day we're born, we're doing just that. Only one result. Some day, dead.
OWEN
Yeah. No. But by the looks of you, you might be getting close.
Owen checks his watch.
OWEN (CONT'D)
Shit, I need to hit the head. You get us a couple more, yeah? You good? Won't be long now.
Edward nods. Owen heads for the restrooms.
INT. WINE BAR, AT BAR - NIGHT
Edward waves some cash at the passing-by BARTENDER.
EDWARD
Hey. A couple Trésor, here?
He's ignored. The bartender passes again. Edward waves.
EDWARD
Hey!
He's again ignored, as though he doesn't exist.
OLDER WOMAN
Trésor. Nice choice. 2009, I hope.
Surprised, Edward whrils to his left, where an OLDER WOMAN (60s, English) sits at the bar sipping wine, admiring him. Edward nods a nervous "okay," and begins to turn away.
OLDER WOMAN (CONT'D)
Shame you can't drink it when you're dead.
Again, Edward whirls, fuming.
EDWARD
And what the hell is that supposed to mean?
She rolls her eyes, nods in the direction of Edward's table. There sits Edward, head on the table, as if resting. Dumbfounded, the Edward at the bar flips his gaze several times between the table and the woman.
EDWARD (CONT'D)
That...?
The woman nods, amused. With Edward, realization sinks in.
EDWARD (CONT'D)
And you? You can't be...
The woman shrugs.
OLDER WOMAN
You expect a scythe and a black cloak, do you? Grrr.
EDWARD
So I'm dead. That's it?
The woman takes a long sip of wine, then a slow shake of her head.
OLDER WOMAN
I'm not quite done with you yet.
EDWARD
Done with me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
OLDER WOMAN
Edward, have you ever had something so good that you simply wished it would never end? A delicious piece of candy as a child? A drug-induced high? A girl, perhaps?
EDWARD
So you're, what? You're using me?
OLDER WOMAN
Using? More like ... savoring.
EDWARD
Savor? You make it sound like I'm a piece of meat. Like I'm food.
OLDER WOMAN
Well that's precisely what you are to me, Edward. I don't eat, per se. You're not food so much to me as you are sustenance. As all the dead are. As all the dying, as you know, become. Just minutes ago you thought of dying and of how every living thing undergoes the process from the moment of creation. Right you are. Right you are.
The woman's eyes dart about, as though to ensure prying ears won't spy upon what juicy secrets she's about to spill.
OLDER WOMAN (CONT'D)
At birth comes my first bite, you see. Just a tiny one. Just enough for a taste. An amuse-bouche. I suppose you could say it's quite like the first stage of digestion, actually. I must say, at times it's a bit too good to take from the start, and then it's all over with right quick; just can't help myself, I'm afraid. And then there are the usual ones, the ones that will do just fine as they are. In due time they're finished off as well. But there are some I just want to hold onto a little longer. Their flavor. It's too good. Worth savoring, you see.
(Beat)
And that's you. Your dying is delicious, Edward.
Edward gulps.
EDWARD
If you're not ready for me, why the hell am I here? Why are you taking me now?
The woman pouts with disappointment.
OLDER WOMAN
Isn't it obvious? I'm not here for you, Edward.
Edward follows the woman's gaze as she scans over all of the bar patrons, stopping on the briefcase on the floor by dead Edward's feet.
OLDER WOMAN (CONT'D)
One way or another, Edward, my dinner is about to be served. If you want to go, you'd best be doing so now. Otherwise ... I've got quite the feast ahead of me, don't I?
As the woman puts the glass of wine to her lips ...
CUT TO:
INT. WINE BAR, AT TABLE - IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING - NIGHT
Edward snaps awake with a snort as Owen approaches the table.
OWEN
Hey. I thought I said to get us a couple more.
Edward's speechless, confused. A BELL RING as the outer door opens, and two WELL-DRESSED MEN enter, all business. Owen recognizes them, turns to Edward.
OWEN (CONT'D)
Targets are here. This is it. You know what to do. I'll meet you outside.
Owen leaves the table and exits as the two well-dressed men are seated. Edward stiffens, throws a look toward the bar. The older woman raises her glass to him.
OLDER WOMAN
Most consider people like you disgusting and vile. Not me, Edward. Certainly not me.
Locking eyes with the woman, he reaches beneath his seat, opens the briefcase, and flips a switch inside before closing it again.
EXT. WINE BAR - NIGHT
Edward exits, head bowed, ashen. He meets up with Owen, and they start down the street.
OWEN
I know. Puts a sour taste in my mouth too. But it's for the good of the country. You just gotta stomach the fact that collateral damage is just part of the job.
(Beat)
We need to disappear. Let's go get something to eat.
NYCMidnight has a couple of new competitions: 250-word Microfiction, and 100-word Microfiction. I passed on the 250-word one when it came about, but with COVID-19 going on, something about the 100-word version struck me, so I signed up!
Writing microfiction is quite the different beast to a full-on short story. “Kill your darlings?” More like slaughter your darlings, their friends, their pets! Brutal, but fun.
My first round assignments:
Genre: Ghost story
Action (must happen in the story somewhere): Licking an envelope
Word (must be used in some way in the story): focus
Time limit: 24 hours
The medium focused her attention to the unseen. As the spirit's words came to her, she scribbled them on paper, licked the nearby envelope, and sealed the note within.
"The fate of the troubled spirit has been revealed," she announced. "Join hands, so we may learn their name."
The doubters seated at the table did as told; the medium's head bowed.
"Doorrrrothyyyy..." came an otherworldly voice.
"Mother?!" the man at the table stammered, now convinced. "You died at your desk writing letters. How?"
The medium fell over, as the man tore the envelope open and read its contents aloud.
I will never forget the sound Evil made when it died in the Baxter’s house one night in the fall of 1982.
—
The basement of the rectory of St. Ambrose had that smell. The one that appears to be common amongst cellars of houses of the Lord. Of decades-old candle wax and spent wicks, mold-imbued books. Of rotted flowers and palm reeds. That smell. I’d once thought it unique to our chosen parish at the time. It’s not. And any time I happened upon it in some other basement, sometimes in another church, I’d be reminded of CCD.
Some people call it Catechism. I suppose it could have been called Sunday School, except in our town it was held on Tuesday nights. Tuesday School? Not the same ring to it, I’d say. So, CCD. Sounds like some kind of mental condition, now that I think of it. Apropos, if you don’t mind me saying so.
Needless to say, I did not look forward to Tuesday nights.
The last year of CCD for me was centered around preparing for Confirmation. I won’t get into the details of that for you non-Catholics, and to be quite honest I can’t remember what to tell you about it anyway. I suppose it was to “confirm” one’s faith in God and the church. Confirm beliefs. Confirm that you bought the whole damn thing. One of “them.” One of the flock. For me it served only as confirmation that, following that fall, my Tuesday nights henceforth would carry with it only the aroma of glorious, sweet freedom. Thank you God, Hallelujah, Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong, Amen.
Father Jacobs, the presiding priest at the time, did not conduct CCD at St. Ambrose. The old guy would show up from time to time, sure, when he wasn’t busy doing God-knows-what on a Tuesday evening. Probably better off pulling numbered letters out of a bingo cage, really. But for the most part it was just us ten kids and Mr. Baxter.
Of all the teachers I had for CCD throughout the years, Mr. Baxter won the prize for being, shall we say, the most devout. This includes the likes of Sister Estelle, a decrepit, miserable thing harkening from the days of when my own mother attended Catholic school in a neighboring town. No lie, Sister Estelle — or Sister Est-Hell, as we called her — carried a yard stick along her back like a rifle on a cattle rancher. I’ve learned since then that it served more as a bullshit deterrent than anything else. God save the poor soul warranting its unsheathing. Thankfully, I never bore witness to it.
Warren Baxter’s boys, Mark and Jason, attended this particular CCD class along with me and seven others our age. They were homeschooled, so I can’t say any of us knew much about them beyond the walls of that basement, and that the poor bastards had their dad as a teacher. Not just Tuesday nights, but every fucking day. Mr. Baxter sorta reminded me of Christopher Cross. Y’know, “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind”? Not to mention he carried a beaten acoustic guitar with him anytime I saw him. He certainly wasn’t an old guy, but he sure had what I guess you could say was an old way of thinking when it came to the education of religion. He had a habit of taking it upon himself to detour from the illustrated Jesus textbooks and remind us of all the things that could make up a mortal sin. You might think that means killing, stealing, raping — that sort of thing. No. He’d remind us weekly that masturbating was a mortal sin that was a sure ticket to Hell. Even thinking about jerking off. It was like you might as well give Satan himself a handy, because, son, it’s just like knocking on his door with that hand.
I guess Mrs. Baxter was a sure help of keeping her husband Heaven-worthy, at least before their divorce.
Mr. Baxter was a parishioner at the church, but he also sang and played guitar at Sunday mass. Considering the limited source material, he wasn't half bad. I’d been taking guitar lessons at the time and knew he wasn’t just some two-bit hack. He played for us a couple of nights at class, which was a welcome reprieve from mundane bible verse analysis, even if it wasn’t exactly Clapton we were listening to. The man dug music; no question of that. And on the second-to-last class of the year, he took it to a new level.
The record player sat in the center of the largest table. Not an odd sight, really. We’d listened to hymns and such before, and even been forced to — dear God — sing along to them. But there was something very different about it this time. Something special. When my eyes caught it, I couldn’t restrain myself.
“Zeppelin!”
Paul Morley, my best friend at the time, saw it too. Led Zeppelin IV, its unmistakable album cover featuring that painting of an old man lugging a bundle of sticks, sat among a few recognizable others. AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Queen’s The Game. Classics today — purely defining, then. A few kids started in with “Stairway to Heaven” before Mr. Baxter shut them down.
“And she’s buy-uy-ing a-”
“Sit down, everyone. Yes, I’m going to play some of these — just a little. But then I have an important story for you.”
He slipped Led Zeppelin IV out of its sleeve and placed it onto the turntable. Man, I thought, this is gonna be great. I prepared myself for the sweet sounds of Robert Plant, belting out his “Hey hey, mama,” rolling into Jimmy Page on the ax and Bonham on skins. It was already playing in my head.
Instead, we got something else entirely.
Mr. Baxter turned on the player and moved the needle up a bit onto the platter. He put it down a few times, giving us a little tease here and there of what we could have — should have — been listening to in entirety. He finally got to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and let it play. Sweet release.
About midway through the song, he turned the player off. What is this, another lesson about not beating off? I thought. To 14-year-old me, it may as well have been.
“Now, listen to this.”
We all knew what was going to happen. Playing “Stairway” backwards wasn’t new. And then it all became painfully clear. Zeppelin. AC/DC. Queen? I hadn’t heard about that one yet. But most of us knew of the supposed hidden messages within the latter two, and now Mr. Baxter was going to play them. Here. In the basement of a church.
He spun the record counter-clockwise, slowly, by hand. Eventually he got to the money shot, where Plant’s voice seems to sing out the words “my sweet Satan,” along with some other things that don’t sound so Heavenly when you over-analyze the shit out of them.
But for the playing record, the room was silent. I don’t think we quite knew what to make of it. Mr. Baxter — a guy who’d preached that the simple pleasures of alone time in a long, hot shower was sinful — was playing verses about the Devil. In the Lord’s house! What was next, a Ouija board?
Once he was through with Zeppelin, he went onto Highway to Hell. The album cover alone should have burst into flames the moment it entered the parking lot, but he played it just the same. For a few minutes, singer Bon Scott became Scott Bon. Or maybe it’s Ttocs Nob. You’re supposed to hear something like “my name is Lucifer” somewhere in that backmasked garbage, but all I heard was blasphemy to some wholesome, British-borne rock and roll.
Queen was an interesting one. Played backwards, the lyrics “another one bites the dust” becomes “it’s fun to smoke marijuana.” Oh great, so now that’s evil too? My older brother’s days were numbered.
Mr. Baxter let the chuckles and high-fives among us slide and stopped the turntable.
“Alright. Why did I play these for you tonight?”
I dunno, to thank Jesus these classes are almost over, I thought.
Paula Spencer spoke up. “Because they talk about the Devil…?”
“Not exactly.”
We all looked at each other, clueless. That wasn’t it? Besides Freddie Mercury soloing in reverse about weed, what else was there? And I was sure as shit stinks that Baxter had his fair share of ganja in his days. Hell, at that moment, I was thinking he’d smoked a bowl before class.
“A couple of reasons. First, it’s to make you aware. The things your generation is listening to — on the radio, on records, and tapes — are deceiving you into falling out of love with God.”
“But on the radio, it’s not backwards,” Paul said.
“I don’t even have a record player,” said someone else.
Mr. Baxter shook his head, in that these-clueless-kids sort of way.
“It’s doesn’t matter. You heard it for yourself. It’s still there. And the Devil — he hid it there.”
We learned years ago: you don’t groan at a teacher in CCD. But the restraint in the room was palpable.
“So … Robert Plant … is Satan?” I asked.
“No. He’s just one of many instruments.”
“Like a guitar?” Randal asked. Now that let loose a volley.
“Alright, quiet down. Not like that, no, Randal. I mean they serve the anti-Christ. Though they may not know it. But, because we can play this … music this way, the Devil’s tricks are revealed. And they are in all of the music you’re listening to. All the rock and roll, all the heavy metal. It’s there, and he is trying to use it to deceive you into falling out of grace with God.”
“So … what are we supposed to do?” I asked.
“Stop listening to it. Forwards. Backwards. On the radio, or at home. These are all the new instruments of Evil. And you should shun them just as you would any other mortal sin you’ve learned about in this class. You’ll think you have control over what you believe until it’s too late, and you stop coming to mass. You stop loving Jesus and God and everything else that will bring you to everlasting life in Heaven.”
Well, I was going to Hell. Before he’d finished his bummer of a diatribe, I’d started to think that if everlasting life in Satan’s parlor meant a lot more Zeppelin, Rush, and everything that was candy to my ears, I might just be okay with that.
“The second reason I played these for you — and this is very, very important. You listening?”
Most of us nodded.
“Never — and I mean never — do this on your own. I know it’s tempting — a fun trick to show your friends. But do not do it. I played this here, because we’re safe in God’s house. But at home, or anywhere else, you are not. And the Devil does not like when his tricks are revealed. And he will let you know.”
“How?” Paul asked.
Mr. Baxter pulled out a chair, sat down and leaned in. “I’ll tell you how. Because it happened to me. Mark and Jason can tell you — they were there.”
All eyes were on the two Baxter kids. Their eyes told us that either they were mortified or terrified. After what their father had to say, I’d go with the latter.
“A night a few months ago, Mark was playing one of these records in the cellar at home. I told him what I told you, many times before — none of that music. The work of the Devil. Sins against God. But he couldn't help himself. That’s how it works: You let him in, and he won’t let go.
“So I decided to show him what was hidden in those songs. I did the same thing I did here tonight. I stopped the record, and slowly I began to play it in reverse. And those same, hidden messages were revealed.
“And then … he walked right through the room.”
“Who?” someone asked.
“The Devil,” Jason whispered. In the ensuing silence, you could hear a guitar pick drop.
Mr. Baxter nodded. “He did. A dark figure. Dressed in the darkest cloak I'd ever seen, he passed into the room. No face, just nothingness. Tears were streaming down our faces. We couldn’t move. He glided closer to us, and we still could not move. He stopped just ten feet away from us, and he pointed, right at me. And in a voice I’ll never, ever forget he said …”
He let the sentence hang in the air. This was some real campfire-story shit, and I’m betting I wasn’t alone in hankering for some roast marshmallows right about then. What a showman.
“… ‘No’.”
No? That was it? Not “come with me, you’re going to hell” or “turn it up, man?” I say that now, but to be quite honest with you, I was shitting bricks.
I’d been taught for years every manner of how the grip of evil might drag me down into a fiery pit of doom. You bet your ass I was saying the rosary every night and had a small shrine to Virgin Mary in the corner of my bedroom. Now I was learning that this Satan fella came in a physical form like the Grim-fucking-Reaper if you pissed him off.
I glanced over at the Baxter kids. My look said “this shit real?” Their look was “this shit real.” That did it. After an extra lap around the beads before bed that night, sleeplessness would be unavoidable.
—
The following Sunday morning, I was once again packed hip-to-hip between my mother and brother within our usual pew at St. Ambrose. The usual congregation was there, including Mr. Baxter on guitar, and front-man Father Jacobs. Paul, a four-years-running altar boy, was on the bells with Mark Baxter.
I hadn’t forgotten the story Mr. Baxter told earlier that week. How could he just continue on like that, seeing what he saw? Or worse, what load of horse shit he fed to a mess of God-fearing — and now, for certain, Devil-fearing — kids? I wasn’t sure what was worse: That he went so far as to convince his own boys to play along so convincingly, or that they actually did see something that night.
Paul caught up with me in the parking lot, as the adults meandered around shaking hands with one another and secretly hoping they’d get home in time for football.
“What’s up?”
I shrugged. I had nothing.
“Hey, I talked to Mark earlier. About what his dad said.”
“What, about masturbating?”
He pushed me. Hard. I guess I deserved it.
“That Devil shit.”
“Paul! We’re still at church!” Paul’s mother hissed from somewhere in the crowd. That woman could hear a hummingbird fart in a bison stampede.
“It’s the parking lot, Mom! God, relax.”
If I’d talked to either of my parents the way Paul did, all the prayers in the world wouldn’t protect be from the sure evil that would ensue. The Devil would walk right in and applaud. But Paul’s exposure to the dictionary from Hell came from none other than his own mother’s mouth, and with certain regularity. I became fluent in the language by the time I was eight, from weekly summer sleepovers at the Morley house.
“He still swears it’s true.”
“You make him swear to God?”
Paul laughed. “No. But he’s not changing his story. Said a big person in a cloak sorta floated into the room, and then back out again.”
“What did he sound like?”
“I dunno. I didn’t ask him. Probably like ‘STOP THAT SHIT NOW!’”
His impression sounded more like Froggy from The Little Rascals than some dark being from the netherworld. Come to think of it, that would be pretty terrifying. Would someone please get that poor boy a cough drop, for God’s sake?
“Paul!”
“Sorry, Ma. I tried it, y’know. The record thing. Nothing happened. It’s a bunch of buuuuull shit.”
“Well, duh, yeah. You thought it was real? Creepy story, but no way is that gonna really happen. He was just trying to scare us. Don’t you think we’d hear of it happening to someone else already? I did it at my cousin’s house a few months ago.”
“What happened?”
I gave him a look that told him that his stupid question was going forever unanswered.
Paul pointed to the parking lot behind me. “Look, there he is.”
Mark Baxter was still clothed in his altar-boy whites, carrying his father’s guitar case to their station wagon. Paul gave me a nudge and started in his direction.
“Hey. Mark.”
Mark was a quiet kid, but not shy. More of a rebellious sort, I guess you could say. If he’d been in traditional school like the rest of us, no doubt he’d be one of the “cool kids” who took no shit from anyone and gave a pile of it to the teachers. There were few occasions you’d see him without bruises or a black eye, a sure sign he hadn’t backed down from trouble. It was that attitude that made the story he was holding onto so compelling.
“What’s up? Hey Keith.”
I held up a hand in greeting.
“Swear to God that story is true,” Paul said. The equivalent of a religious double-dog dare.
Mark shut the rear door and leaned against it.
“I’m not doing that. You know I won’t do that.”
“So it’s a bunch of buuuuull-”
“I don’t care if you won’t take my word for it. It’s what I saw.”
“How come it never happened to Keith? He said he did it at his cousin’s house, and nobody creepy came drifting through the room. Except maybe his Aunt Helen. Sorry Keith, she’s, like, a witch or something.”
Mark shrugged. “I guess you’re lucky. Maybe it’s the house.”
Paul seemed to back down at that. Then the wheels started to turn.
“Let’s do a sleep-over, then,” he said.
“A … sleep-over? What are we, ten?”
“Well then just have us over at night. Your dad’s got the records already. We just play them in the same room, on the same record player. If the Devil doesn’t show up, then it’s a bunch of crap.”
Mark’s cool demeanor warmed at that. “My father really doesn’t like people over. And it’s not a bunch of crap.”
“I wanna see for myself. So do you, right, Keith?”
I did my best to hide my real answer to that one. Instead, Mark did the honors.
“No. You don’t. And I don’t either.”
“Psssh. B.S. Whatever.”
Paul turned and walked away. I gave another silent wave to Mark before taking off as well.
—
I was only just getting ready for bed when something rapped against my bedroom window. It was early, but it was a school night, and I knew just who it was.
I opened the window to Paul’s shit-eating grin.
“Let’s go.”
“Now? Where? It’s a school night, man.”
“Baxter’s.”
“What, Mark wants us over? I thought his dad wouldn’t let us.”
“We’re just gonna go visit. Come on.”
I shut the window in his face. Paul kept right on talking.
“If you don’t come out now, I’ll go knock on your parents’ window and tell them you called me over.”
I flung the window back open.
“No you wouldn’t. And they’re not even in bed anyway.”
“Fine, then I’ll go knock on the door.”
He wasn’t bluffing. He’d done this to me before, and my folks fell for his Eddie Haskell routine every single time, hook line and sinker. As usual, Paul was going to get his way. I, as usual, was not.
—
The Baxter house was walking-distance away, but since Paul had his bike with him, I took mine as well. There’s something about walking while someone rides circles around you that feels a bit degrading.
We threw our bikes onto the Baxter’s lawn. I headed for the front door, but Paul started around the back.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“Mark’s window.”
“Jesus Christ! He doesn’t know we’re coming?”
“Nah. You heard him. He wasn’t gonna have us over. So we’ll just come over.”
I really should have made for my bike and headed back home. I started to weigh the punishment I’d get from my parents due to Paul’s threats against Mr. Baxter’s wrath, should we knock on the wrong window. Once I got home, Paul would make good on what he said, I’d be grounded for a week — and more — and the process would repeat until he got his way. I thought it better to see it through and put an end to Paul’s obsession right then.
None of the shades were drawn in the Baxter’s single-story ranch, and we found Mark hanging out in one of the rooms alone with its door shut. The lights were on and he was laying in bed, sort of huddled in a ball, back to the window. He was still clothed and clearly not sleeping. I tried to convince Paul otherwise.
“He’s sleeping. Let’s go.”
Paul ignored me and gave the window a knock.
Mark sprang up from the bed and turned to the door.
“I- I’m just praying, Dad. I promise.”
Paul knocked again. Mark stiffened, snapped around, and was greeted by Paul’s smart-assed wave. My look said, “I know. I’m sorry. What can ya do, it’s Paul.”
The window unlocked and opened.
“What are you doing here?”
Mark licked at a cut below his lip, and his face was sunburn-red. Always meeting trouble.
“Man. Who’d you fight this time? Did you finally fight Felix?”
“Maybe I’ll fight you for coming here knocking on my window. What do you want?”
“Play us the records.”
“Go play them yourself.”
“We wanna see what you saw. Come on.”
“You really don’t.”
“Just let us in. If you don’t, I’ll just go knock on the door and tell your dad you called us over.”
Right from the Morley playbook.
“No! Just … Fine. Meet me at the back by the bulkhead.”
Mark lowered the window. Paul was already on his way to the back of the house, but I watched Mark push his bedroom door open carefully, looking around before edging himself into the hallway, and pushed the door shut without a sound.
The bulkhead was a rusty, two-door entryway set into the house’s foundation. A few minutes passed before the inside latch was screeched open like a prison lock, and one of its doors creaked open. I could barely make out a person standing in the dark. I sure as Hell hoped it was Mark. Paul nudged me ahead of him. Either his night sight was better than mine and he was sure of who it was, or he just as blind and I was his shield.
“Get in,” Mark whispered.
The bulkhead led into concrete-floored basement, pitch black but for a crack of faint light from beneath a closed door. The smell of mildew and machine oil was unmistakably workshop-ian. I confirmed this when I bumped into what I figured was a long workbench. A few tools clattered onto wood and clanged against the floor.
“Shhh! My dad’s room is right above here.”
“Where’s Jason?” I asked.
“He’s staying with my mom.”
Mark opened the door into a finished part of the basement. All was dark but for a single lamp on an end table against a torn couch. Grey berber carpeting covered the floor from wall-to-wall, stained in the corners with water damage. French drains were always an afterthought back then, and not one easily or cheaply rectified. An old pool table took up the place of honor, consuming most of the room. Against one wall a Radio-Shack-brand Realistic stereo. Of course, it had a turntable.
Mark shut the door behind us as quietly as he had his bedroom door.
“We’re under the living room here. We should be okay.”
Paul already had the turntable cover off and was flipping through the sleeved albums stacked vertically beneath it.
“Which one did you play when you saw that thing?”
Mark hurried over and pushed Paul aside.
“Get out of there! My dad has them all organized. He’ll kill me if we mess it up.”
Marked pulled an album from the shelf and looked at its cover. Admiring it? Fearing it? One couldn’t tell.
“This one.”
“In this room, right?” Paul asked.
Mark nodded.
“Where did he come from?”
Mark pointed to an opening without a door. “The laundry room.”
“At my house, that’s where my dad keeps his booze,” I said.
“Are you sure it wasn’t just your mom?” Paul said.
“What? No! My parents are divorced, stupid.”
“So maybe it was your mom.”
Mark said nothing, but the seething in his posture was palpable. At that moment, I felt sorry for both of them.
Mark eased the platter out from the sleeve and placed it on the turntable, then turned the receiver on. He grabbed the needle and halted before placing it down.
“I don’t think you want me to play this backwards. It ruins the record, anyway.”
“No, we want you to play disco so we can dance,” Paul said. “Just play it. I want to see the Devil you said you saw.”
I finally spoke up. “But what if-”
“But what if what?” Paul snapped. “We see him and he tells us ‘no’ again? So what. Then we know and we won’t do it again.”
Mark looked back at us both, then placed the needle down. He seemed to know just where it had to go.
“This can play the record backwards on its own. I don’t need to do it by hand.”
He flipped a lever on the turntable and stepped far away, eyes not leaving that laundry room door. At first, seconds of silence, but for the popping and crackle of worn vinyl, then the speakers came to life. Sure enough, the words of Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” began to blast in reverse. I was caught off-guard at how loud it was, on account of Mark’s fear of alerting his father to the goings on. It caught Mark by surprise as well.
“Shit!”
Mark stumbled to the stereo. Someone stood in the doorway to the dark laundry room.
Mark froze. We all did. Satan had come. And then he spoke.
“What did I tell you.”
We said nothing. I felt the urge to run, but my legs were no better than bowling balls on Twizzler sticks. Paul backed up and was stopped short by the pool table. The record kept on playing.
“What. Did. I. Tell. You!”
Mark spoke. “N- No?”
“No! Nobody over! Nobody!”
Mr. Baxter stepped into the room. He was seething. He was nothing like I’d seen him before. And he was clearly loaded.
“And are you … are you playing that again?! After what happened last time?!”
“Dad? I … I’m sorry. They just showed up. I didn’t know-”
“Shut up! You two, get out of here the way you came!”
Through this all, the record continued to play, but all I could hear was Mr. Baxter’s rage.
“And you! Get over here!”
Paul and I turned tail and blasted through the door into the workshop. Paul shut the door behind him.
“Holy shit! His dad is … he’s crazy! Let’s get the hell outta here!”
For once I was willing to following Paul’s lead. As the bulkhead lock slid open, I heard Mr. Baxter’s anger turn up to eleven, while Robert Plant carried on.
“How many lessons do I need to teach you, Mark?! Another one?! And another?! I guess it’s time for one more! Come here!”
Mark started to cry. “No, Dad. Please.”
I couldn’t move. I knew that plea all too well. To leave, or stand idly by, knowing what was sure to come next, would be as damaging as what that bastard was about to do.
“What are you doing? Let’s go!” Paul said, and then flew out into the yard.
I turned and opened the basement door. Mr. Baxter had Mark pinned against the wall by the stereo, his arm cocked back with a fist. The record skipped. I’d say it was comically timed to my entrance, but the situation was anything but.
I’ve carried on a lot about how strange Mr. Baxter was. How he seemed to thrive on using the fear of damnation as a demented teaching tool, to kids who had been taught throughout their lives that Hell was no place to wind up. Throughout lessons failing in everything but illustrating the absurdity of it all, he had been kind. He had been patient and good. A seemingly willing volunteer to God. In that moment, the fog had lifted. Like with the ridiculous things he preached, he had fully veiled the truth of himself.
Mr. Baxter’s head snapped in my direction.
“I thought I told you to-”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. My breath caught in my chest. My eyes were no longer looking at Mr. Baxter or Mark. The anger that had blazing within them turned to absolute terror, trained on the open laundry room door.
The being floated into the room.
Mr. Baxter dropped his arm and flattened himself against the wall next to his son. The record played on.
Tattered dark brown robes draped over what was mostly human-shaped, drifting about it within a nonexistent wind. Swirls of debris and filth floated within the gaps of the cloth. Though they could have been flies, as the sounds of Led Zeppelin seemed drowned out by a skittering, hissing sound that bordered on radio static. There was no face, no real body parts at all. Just a thing. I would say it stood about seven feet tall, but that wouldn’t be quite accurate. Because the best I could tell, it was floating. The thing drifted closer to the Baxters. Mark continued to cry. Mr. Baxter looked as though he might start. Neither one said a word.
A long piece of the thing’s robe lifted, as though carried by an arm that wasn’t there, pointing, at the abusive wretch against the wall. It spoke.
“NO.”
Mr. Baxter broke down and slid to the floor. His mouth moved the words of “Our Father,” though I couldn’t hear him over the hissing, the music, and the throbbing in my head.
Mark didn’t follow suit. Instead, he ran over and stood beside me.
“NO,” it hissed again.
“Please.”
“NO.”
“No. I know. I know,” Mr. Baxter whimpered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you said no. I won’t do it again. I won’t do it again. I won’t!”
“COME.”
The specs floating within the swirl of robes darted to where Mr. Baxter lay huddled on the floor. There was no music, only the sound of what had begun to consume Mark’s father within a cloud of black, black which became solid, almost gelatinous and liquid. He screamed as the mass took over the man’s shape, writhing on the floor in what appeared to be pure agony.
The screams became grotesque, muffled gurgles before ceasing as abruptly as the thing had appeared in the laundry room doorway. Mark turned his face away. I still couldn’t move at all.
I have no idea how much time had passed before what had overcome Mr. Baxter once again became a cloud of airborne debris. On the floor, only another stain to match those in the corners of the room, filling the room with the odor of stale urine. As though called back to their master, they drifted to where the robed thing hovered, wafting about it as they’d done before.
It didn’t go back into the laundry room. Instead, it was just gone. Just as was the music. Just as was Warren Baxter.
—
Outside, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Paul and his bike long gone. I’d been inside with Mark for a long while after what had happened. He was a raw mess, as anyone would be. I helped him give a call to his mother, who lived about an hour away. I stayed for about that long before walking my bike home — I was in no condition to ride.
“I’ll say he just left me here,” Mark said. “Nobody would believe me if I told them what really happened.”
“What about his car?”
“He walks a lot. Usually to the bar down the street. They’ll believe that. I know Mom will.”
I could tell you I was terrified, walking that stretch of road alone late at night, after what I’d seen. In truth, I was relieved. For so long I was told of mortal sins I thought frivolous as being the true path to Hell. That simple “impure thoughts” would destine me to a horrible eternity only a young, teenage boy could imagine. How could such things measure in defiance of all that is good to the monstrous acts of murder, or of rape, or of beating one’s own child? There was a comfort in knowing that once the Devil truly is in someone, he comes looking for that piece of him to take home.
—
My house was in complete darkness. I threw my bicycle into the garage and entered through the back door, into the kitchen. At that hour, I was sure everyone was asleep.
“Where’ve you been?” It was my father. The son of a bitch was standing in the doorway from the basement, in the dark. Ice cubes tinkled from his highball glass.
“I … was just putting my bike away.”
“No. You were out. All night.”
“Dad, I-”
“Get in your room.”
There was no point in carrying on. I did as he said and shut the door behind me.
It was a school night, but I wasn’t about ready to sleep. Sleep, I knew, wouldn’t come at all. Not after the Baxter’s. Not after Dad. It would be another day of looking tired, looking terrible. All under the guise of looking tough.
“What are you doing?” I heard my mother ask from down the hall. “What time is it?”
“Your son. I’m getting my belt.”
“Steven, no…”
I turned on the small stereo in my room. Led Zeppelin IV was already mounted on the turntable, affectionately played countless times in the past as I fought to sleep through a shroud of tears and pain.
I placed the needle down, and as the door to my room opened, I began to turn it counter-clockwise by hand.
I have to admit: I’m surprised I made it through to the 2nd round of NYCMidnight with my last entry, but I squeaked by!
The prompts and restrictions this time:
Genre: Fairy Tale
Subject: Permanent
Object: An architect
48 hours, 2000 words max.
Tagline: An old and indecisive Conjurer, consumed by the need for true companionship, looks to his Architect to fill the void. As the Architect struggles to find the purpose of his own existence, a plan is forged to give both the Architect and Conjurer what they truly want.
###
The Conjurer stood within shadows, beside himself, peering out a nearby window into the dismal garden far below. Of what he was seeing, he was not satisfied. To him, the other occupants within his tower meant nothing -- mere minions for his bidding. He longed now only for a companion of his own, and each moment that passed without her mounted his grief.
What now stood in the garden took nothing of that away.
He would have taken it upon himself to once again design and create his own needs and desires, were it not for his mind growing feeble with age. Now, the old man was lucky to be able to conjure a toad. Designs and creations were a task now for the Architect, one of a much more sound and fruitful mind. Yet this, his latest and most important work, was once again a failure.
"Undo it. Undo it now. It's no good," the Conjurer muttered, disgusted. "No good at all. It never is, you know."
Stef, the Conjurer's servant, craned her head beyond the stone window frame, taking in all that her Master did not approve of. Of that, she supposed, there was much.
"Undo it," said Stef, nodding in agreement. "Yes I do know. At once. Surely."
Stef pushed away from the sill, back into the dead air of the turret room, where sunshine dared intrude upon a beam the mere width of its solitary window. She wasted no time acknowledging her liege, heading for the staircase downward and bounding over them ten at a go.
Upon reaching the second landing, she entered the Architect's quarters without a knock. She squinted as the unexpected heat of a blazing fireplace met her.
"Master says to undo it," she declared within fits for breath.
The Architect, a man of many years and many more gray hairs did not turn from the work at-hand. Though curious, Stef could not see what he was so consumed with, though she made no movement to satisfy her curiosity. She had deep respect and admiration for the man and his creations, despite their Master's displeasure at both.
"What is it this time?" asked the Architect, very much used to such intrusions.
Stef opened her mouth to speak, then stopped short.
"Well?"
"He simply says to undo it. He doesn't like it."
The Architect put his instruments down and leaned against the drafting table, head slumped in exasperation.
"Of course he doesn't. Why should I be the slightest bit surprised?"
Stef wasn't sure how to answer, nor whether she should at all. "That he chose to wait more than an hour this time to tell you?" she finally cracked. Her smile faded as the Architect remained unmoved.
"This would be eighty-hundred and seven," the Architect said matter-of-factly.
"Eight ... hundred...?"
The Architect turned to face the girl. "Times our Master has had me undo my work."
He strode to the window and gazed out at his latest creation, the princess, one of eight-hundred and six others and equally unique. Garbed in black and the darkest of reds, she stood among the tangled vines and leafless trees of the withering garden. Sensing his presence, her seemingly lifeless eyes met his, saying nothing.
"And so he should. I, too, feel nothing," murmured the Architect. "No doubt just as those many architects before me. The ones who he ... burned out. For this one and the others, they felt nothing at all. Then only by their creator's hand can they be destroyed, and so willingly."
He blindly snatched a freshly-rolled scroll sitting atop a pile of many much older within an open chest. Tossing it into the fire, he watched as the scroll became ash within a heartbeat.
"And do you know why this is?" he asked. The hot, amber glow of the fire gave his otherwise pale visage the complexion of life.
Stef had since slunk into the corner of the room. She shook her head.
"They are all but temporary," he continued. "They are designed and created by me only to be un-created. Undone. Our Master's indecisiveness plagues me; always has. And so it does my work."
The Architect walked to Stef and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. "He sends you to command me now, rather than cross my workshop's threshold himself."
Stef nodded, her eyes cast downward.
"I feel I have no purpose, Stef. It is a wonder why we should even continue to exist in this place, when our own presence is not enough to satisfy his feelings of desolation," said the Architect. "How am I to put all that I am into a thing to please one who cannot be pleased?"
Stef glanced sideways, nibbling at her lower lip. "Perhaps..."
From the corner of his eye, the Architect turned his attention to the girl.
"Perhaps, instead, the one you should please first is yourself," she suggested.
"Pssh!" The Architect waved a dismissive hand. "For it only to be gone at Master's command when he so chooses?"
"Gone. Yes. You seek ... permanence."
The Architect thought on this a moment, then nodded.
Stef emerged from the shadows, a few tender footsteps closer to the man. "Your desires and his, it seems, are not quite ..." She fought to find the word: "Aligned. Hm?"
The Architect raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the girl, whose narrowed gaze in return spoke mischief, at him then to the chest of scrolls.
It was nearing a fortnight, and the Conjurer grew impatient. Most times the Architect would have him a new design within days, but this? This was not routine.
Not for years had the garden stood empty and without a bride of the Architect's design. Now the garden stood empty but for detritus and piles of ash beneath the cloudless gaze of a full moon.
"Stef! Stef, here!"
A mere moment passed before the servant girl topped the stairs into her Master's tower.
"Yes, Master," she said. "I'm here."
"Bring me the Architect."
"The Architect?" Stef replied dumbly.
The Conjurer whirled about. It was unlike the servant girl to question him. His patience was thin; his suspicion, more so.
"What is going on?"
"Master?"
"Where is he? The Architect. He was to have a new design for me, and here we are nearly entering Solstice, and still nothing."
The Conjurer weakly glided to within a breath of the girl. "So I ask again: What is going on?"
Stef's eyes darted about the room, searching for words that would not come forth.
"He- He says he has been working on something special, Master."
The Conjurer pulled back, bemused. "Special. Well then, where is it? Not in the garden, I see."
Stef shook her head. "No. His workshop. You must go to the workshop to see."
The Conjurer's eyes narrowed. He'd have otherwise protested at the demand, but his curiosity and desperation took hold.
"Very well. See me to him."
###
Stef and the Conjurer entered the workshop without a knock. The Architect stood within the glow of the fireplace, facing them as though expecting their arrival. He nervously drummed upon his open palm with a fat, rolled scroll as he wore an expression of satisfaction.
"Architect," the Conjurer announced. "I take it that your insisting I descend into your workshop tells of some satisfactory news."
The Architect nodded deeply as his eyes imperceptibly met Stef's.
"Indeed," said the Architect. Spreading his arms wide, he stepped aside and into the shadows. Behind where he once stood was his latest creation: a visage of the Conjurer himself.
The true Conjurer stumbled backward and made a sound unlike any he'd uttered before, one of astonishment and disbelief. "Wh- What is the meaning of this?"
"Yes," said the Conjurer's doppelganger. "Explain yourself, Architect!"
The Architect bowed deeply. "Your perfect match, Master."
The two Conjurers examined one another from afar, heel to head. In every aspect they were the same, save for their position within the room. It did not take long for the true Conjurer to break gaze and confront the trickster in their midst.
"Architect!" he stammered, extending a bony finger at the man. "This is unacceptable! This crosses the line! You must undo this at once!"
"Now see here!" the other Conjurer protested. "Let's consider this-"
"Master," the Architect calmly interjected. "For eons I have been tasked with designing your perfect companion; your soulmate. And in all that time Stef and I have endured your abusive reign upon us, as we have served only for your acceptance. It is clear to me now why I have failed you eight-hundred and seven times in this task: Without facing yourself as you are now, you will forever accept nothing but yourself."
Stef had since distanced herself from her Master, taking up beside the Architect in the dark. Both Conjurers remained speechless, taking in what they'd heard. As though sensing what then entered the true Conjurer's mind, the doppelganger lunged for the Architect, but not before the Master seized the scroll within the Architect's grasp.
"What are you doing?" the Conjurer's double exclaimed, panicked and annoyed.
"Undoing this, of course," the Master said, holding the scroll within arm's reach of the fireplace. His fingers prepared for release. "You are not my ... my soulmate. I demand more! I deserve more!"
"Know this, Master," the Architect said, resting a hand on Stef's shoulder. In turn, she placed her hand on his. "From this point forth," he continued, "we shall finally be at peace. You, however, will know nothing more than living with yourself for your actions here. And you shall forever live with yourself, alone."
"Nonsense," the Conjurer scoffed. "You forever serve me! Here! Do not forget that."
With that, the scroll unraveled from the Conjurer's grasp, separating into two separate documents, tumbling into the fire. As they slowly became engulfed in flame, the Conjurer turned to face the impostor before him, to watch the abomination become undone by his hand.
Both Conjurers expected this, yet there was nothing.
Their eyes met the fire and the documents within, now half consumed. The designs upon them became as clear as the night the Conjurer had made them, so many years ago: Those of the Architect and Stef.
"Of course," the real Conjurer said, defeated. "Only by its creator can something be undone."
Both watched as the last bits of parchment became one with the flame and disappeared.
"I wonder, then," started the doppelganger. "Who will undo me?"
Beside the two Conjurers, in the darkness of the workshop now abandoned by its caretaker, two fresh mounds of ash stirred by the wind from the open window and were let free.
###
The Conjurer stood within shadows, beside himself, peering out a nearby window into the dismal garden far below.
I’m back at the NYC Midnight Short Story competition again. You know the drill: genre, location, object, 2500 words, 1 week. That’s the first round, at least. This time I’ve got: Crime Caper / A reunion / A police officer. At first glance, a bit too simple. Everyone’s gonna do the class reunion gone bad, or a family reunion with someone out to steal Grammy’s jewels. Trust me: you need to steer far, FAR away from such tropes. The judges will get sick of them, and yours won’t stand out, never mind a chance in hell.
The good news about having “crime caper” as a “genre” is that it’s not so cut and dry as “drama” or “comedy” – you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want, so long as you’ve got a planned crime involved. Comedy, drama, horror – it all works!
I had a few ideas in mind, but they were a bit too … cutesy? In the end, I decided I’d make the best of the levity and make the story work out for me, even if it doesn’t cart me forward in the contest: throw in some horror, of course. Later, without the 2500-word restriction, I can tighten and lengthen it, then slip it into my planned anthology perfectly. Works for me!
Something I want to note about my writing, that I’m pretty clear on: I tend to get wordy and deter from “the point” quite a bit. Ramble, maybe? I’m not sure yet if that’s a fault of mine or just an acquired reading style. Stephen King: he rambles. At least I think he does. He’s successful. Is it because he’s earned the right to ramble and so gets a pass? I know I’m no Stephen King but … OK I’m rambling. On to the story.
—
Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
It was something Shawn used to say to Ruth when she was too scared or shy to do something she wanted – rather, needed to do. She’s pretty sure he got the saying from someone famous, but the man loved horses, so she thought it a fitting phrase for him to latch onto. And she still thinks of it when she’s too chicken shit to do what she wants to do; what she needs to do.
Sometimes courage has nothing to do with it at all. Sometimes it’s flat-out self-preservation; common sense. And when those situations face you square on, you may as well take that cowboy saying and toss it right in the toilet, because no manner of courage makes up for being stupid.
Ruth had barely a recollection of how she got there, squatting below the beam of Rack’s flashlight, picking at a mausoleum keyhole, thinking of Shawn. She hated Rack for bringing her there, but he was at least good at finding jobs worth paying a damn in that godforsaken armpit of the world. Worth paying for Shawn’s medical bills that a cop’s salary couldn’t touch. She’d have seen to Rack sporting orange duds at Hillsborough County, or among the many laying prone just inside, if he wasn’t at least good for that.
She winced as something flared within her brain, then stood, smacking her head on Rack’s flashlight.
“Shit! Why’d you pick this place?” she asked, rubbing her head. “This place.”
Rack threw his hands up. “You picked it, remember? Said ‘something-something Ambrose’ … A big score. Biggest yet. Wouldn’t say nothing else. Maybe you could, y'know, clue me in yourself?”
She shook her head. “No. No, I … How can I not remember that?”
“You better remember. We need this one. Damn place gives me the creeps. How much longer?”
“I dunno. Few more minutes. Now shut up.”
The lock was popped five minutes ago, but Rack didn’t know that. Ruth knelt once again and resumed picking at a keyhole that had already relented, like one would a toothpick digging at a stubborn gobbet. She wasn’t ready to go in.
Saddle-on up, Ruthie.
“Right. Saddle-up,” she whispered.
She supposed having courage had about as much to do with it as stupidity after all. The fact that she still wore her uniform on jobs like these pointed her actions firmly toward the latter camp, but it helped serve as a cover story more than once.
The iron door opened without a sound into the darkness, into the cold, into only where death lay.
“Yesss. Alright, ladies first.”
“No. Go ahead.”
Rack shrugged, lifted the toolbox, and shone his flashlight into the gloom.
“Whatever you say. Officer.”
She hated that Rack felt the need to say that. She could sense his wise-ass smirk as he stepped through the open doorway, as though what lay beyond was nothing at all. It was so easy for him to treat it as just another job, when the clothes he was wearing didn’t serve as a contradiction to the task at-hand. Her uniform was all part of the plan: she knew that. Always had been. It didn’t make it feel any less violating.
“Good to be working with you again, Cassidy,” Rack said. “Remember our last job? Shit, must’ve been a year now since-”
Since the last time I was here, she thought. Saying goodbye.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Rack shrugged off the interruption and continued into the cold air of the mausoleum. Ruth followed close behind, her own flashlight lit. The scent of flowers for the dead stung her senses and rattled her already pounding head as she shut the door, echoing off the marble floor and placarded tombs. There was a feeling of finality, of no turning back. If only the proverbial horse she’d saddled onto would carry her forward.
“Jesus this place is big,” Rack said, spinning around. “Must be a thousand of 'em.”
“Twelve-hundred,” she said.
“Really? Damn.” He shone his flashlight along the marble vaults, its beam catching nameplates as it went. “Alright, so … where is he?”
“Section 8C, row 28. Second from the bottom.” It came to her unhindered, automatic.
She’d last been there so long ago, yet recalled Shawn’s resting place like one would a friend’s phone number. Or a husband’s. She tried to shake the thought away.
Rack flinched, fazed. “You remember it just like that?”
Her head continued to shake. “No. Forget it. Someone else.”
Ruth turned her eyes to her left, toward Section 8C, where along row 28 and two doors up from the floor was a name plate she was sure she’d never cast eyes upon again. Yet there she was, mere footsteps away. And for what? Still, she wasn’t sure, and Rack’s patience with her would no doubt grow thin at the prospect of her not knowing.
“So. Lead the way,” said Rack, with a flourish of his hand.
She scanned the names outside the tombs around her, stacked four high, floor-to-ceiling. Some were clearly older than others: their name plates more tarnished; vases empty of flowers, or containing skeletal, leafless stems. Those more recent had flowers in varying states of decay, or with trinkets and mementos placed at the foot of their stack: notes, toys, more flowers.
Shawn had a plastic Appaloosa under his, she recalled. She had left it, then, before walking away for what should have been forever.
“Hey Cassidy,” Rack said.
The pain in Ruth’s skull surged as she snapped out of her thought.
“What do you call these things we’re looking at, on the graves? The things the names are on. Doors?”
“They’re tombs. Graves are outside, in the ground.”
“I think they’re, like, seals or something. Can’t call 'em doors, right? Ain’t like anyone’s opening them all the time, y'know? 'Cept us I guess.”
“Yeah. Well. Some doors are meant to stay shut.”
“Not tonight they ain’t. Not all of 'em.”
What kind of job was it, really? Parting the overly wealthy, the exceedingly fortunate of their over-abundances seemed an entirely different sort of job than relieving the dead of precious items left to rot alongside them. But was it so different? Were they not merely indulgences left to waste? Perhaps a more honorable thing was to see them do some good in the world than have them forever sealed away? Perhaps, she thought, that was reasoning enough to get her to find this “job,” as loose as that term was for it. It still didn’t put a veil over what kind of place it was, nor who took residence there.
If not Shawn, who was she looking for? She may have had a hand in putting some of the bodies there over the years, but names tended to wither away like the petals littering the floor. She chose to keep those names locked away in the mausoleum of her mind, with doors that are forever closed. Closed, perhaps, but apparently not sealed, with an occasional issuance that served to drive her mad.
“C'mon, Cassidy, which one?” Rack’s tone bordered on annoyed. “Just blurt it out. Come on. First name that pops in your head. Tick-tock, tick-tock! Go!”
Shawn. No!
“The blacksmith’s son,” she said, though not knowing why. “The blacksmith’s son. That’s all I got.”
“What? Blacksmith’s son? That’s not a name. That ain’t gonna be on the front of any of these doors.”
Ruth stepped forward, reading nameplates as she went.
“Maybe you’re wrong,” she said. “There’s more than just names and dates on these.”
“Yeah, alright. But 'blacksmith’s son’? I dunno. Don’t you have a name? Just need a name. C'mon, think. That’s what you cops do.”
What did he think she’d been doing the moment they’d arrived? And before that? And what did come before? She presumed a car ride, a phone call. All of that lost now, and none of it made sense.
“How did I tell you about this job?” she asked.
“What do you mean 'how?’ You called me, remember?”
“No. What did I say? I didn’t tell you a name or anything then?”
“Naw, you just said it was in Saint Ambrose’s and it was enough of a score we’d be set for life.”
Rack averted Ruth’s gaze. He suddenly didn’t look so good. Her cop’s intuition fired.
What are you not telling me? she wanted to say, but was stopped short as Rack’s flashlight flickered out.
Ruth turned her own light toward Rack, but he had disappeared as fast as his light had gone dark.
“Rack?”
Her flashlight sputtered out.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The hairs on her neck and back sprung lives of their own, standing at shaky attention beneath her uniform. The pulse within her brain beat in rhythm to the reverberating sounds around her. She fought the urge to double-over in pain as her hand flew to her sidearm.
“Rack?!”
THUD! THUD!
The sound of a match being struck, then a soft glow from her left.
“Hey,” a male voice said.
She threw the latch off her weapon and drew it, wheeling about. It was not Rack.
The man stood twenty feet from Ruth at the center of the hallway. Along with the cigarette that hung sideways from his lips, the stained-glass-colored moonlight barely illuminated the contours of his pale face in the dark. He was young, well-dressed and, despite his submission with one hand raised, unafraid.
“I’m a cop,” she said. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in here? Put your other hand up!”
Slowly, he complied.
“I know who you are, Officer Cassidy. Thought you’d be happy to see me.”
Her pistol remained drawn and ready, safety released. There was nothing good about someone lurking in the dark of a place like that, no matter their business or intentions. She resisted the urge to call out to Rack again. She could explain a uniformed cop’s presence just about anywhere, but not with her slime-ball partner-in-crime in tow.
“How the hell should I know who you are?” she asked. “I can barely see you.”
He remained still, with only the movement of slender tendrils of smoke rising from his silhouette. An occasional auburn glow from a cigarette inhale gave hint to the bemused smile that held it. Something about it became at once somewhat familiar to Ruth, but only just.
“You work here?” she asked.
A drawn-out exhale. “Something like that, Ruthie.”
A realization struck her, and she did all she could to stifle a cry.
“Sh-Shawn?” Ruth whispered.
At that, the man began lowering his hands.
“Keep your hands up!” Ruth yelled. “Wh-What the hell is going on? Who the fuck are you?”
“Ruthie,” the voice said with calm reassurance. “Ruthie, it’s me.”
Ruth released the dead flashlight, letting it clatter to the floor, as she drew the now freed-up hand to steady the first. Her finger teased the safety on her pistol as she fought back tears.
“Shut up! My husband is dead! Shawn is dead! What kind of sick fuck are you, calling yourself Shawn, huh? Who are you?!”
The man dropped the cigarette, then took a careful step forward, into a shaft of moonlight that illuminated his face in full. Ruth’s tears released.
“Hey honey. Good to see you again.”
Through a watery veil Ruth saw that before her was indeed Shawn, just as she’d last seen him. It did nothing to make her lower her weapon; as much as such a vision brought her joy, innate intuition kept her in check.
“No,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “No no no.”
Shawn sighed. “I know. Sorry to drop in on you this way.”
THUD!
Again, to Ruth’s right. Again, her head. She snapped-to and spun around, her gun now pointed in the direction of the sound.
“Rack?!” she called out.
“Rack’s gone, Ruthie,” said Shawn. “It’s just you and me right now. He’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean 'right now?’ Who else is coming? My dad?!”
Shawn chuckled nervously. “No, not your dad.”
THUD!
“What the fuck is that?” she said. “What’s going on?”
Shawn stepped closer. Ruth kept her gun pointed down the dark hallway, where what sounded like imminent threats lay. The man before her – the person who had to be Shawn, but couldn’t be – was no threat in that place. As her tears continued their descent, Shawn gently placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Ruthie. You have to remember now.”
THUD!
Ruth jumped, her nerves shot. The sound was louder now, closer, more threatening.
“This is crazy. I must be going crazy. I-I-I don’t know what you mean. Remember what?”
“Shhh. You’re not crazy. The name, Ruthie. The one you came for. It’s important.”
THUD! THUD!
Shawn turned Ruth to face him and put his hand on her wrist. She complied as he slowly helped her lower her gun.
“It’s time to saddle-up, Ruthie. You said a blacksmith’s son. Do you mean 'son of’ a blacksmith? An Irish name, maybe? Like 'Mc’-something? You can do this.”
Her eyes widened and the flow of tears ceased, while a calmness began to wash over her. She realized then what she’d missed most about not having Shawn in her life: his reassurance that she could do no wrong, even when that was all she felt she ever did.
He also had a way of giving her a nudge when she needed it most.
“MacGowan.”
Ruth’s world slowed as she dropped her gun and let herself fall into her husband’s arms. He held her there, saying nothing.
She still had no idea why she was there, how Shawn was there, or why such a name was so important and so difficult to muster. All she cared for then was the unlikely reunion. To feel for once safe, and with a mind finally at peace.
Retired Officer Ruth Cassidy remained sedated and restrained in the dirty laboratory bed, an array of sensors covering her wounded head. Doctor Roland hobbled over with his cane once again to the set of monitors, still displaying the computer-generated interior of the Saint Ambrose mausoleum.
THUMP! THUMP!
He cast a glance over at the woman in bed, with puddles of sweat and tears soaking the sheets by her face.
He turned the monitors off, retrieved a phone from beside them, and typed out a call.
“It’s Roland. I finally got that name for you. 'MacGowan.’ Yes, right. Yes, glad we didn’t have to resort to, well, more dangerous means. She’s lucky. A woman in her mental state, the brain damage … she might not have survived the next phase.
"Strange thing: it worked even when your avatar malfunctioned and blipped out of the simulation. The names in there didn’t seem to matter. She just sort-of told the name to … well, nobody. Just out of the blue.
"Anyway, payment’s due tomorrow. Hope you find what you’re looking for, Mr. Racksmith.”
Something I’ve been wanting to do since the first @thenosleeppodcast live tour is write something the voice actors would read on-stage. I’m told the following story might be making its way around the 2019 tour, though I won’t know for sure until it hits Boston in October. If you’re hearing this elsewhere, please let me know!
I had this idea of someone knocking on a door for Halloween, only it not being Halloween. The original idea was quite different than this, but when I thought of something that might do well as a live reading, this is what I came up with.
I still think I should tighten up the idea some day. I saw comments that I may have spoon-fed the twist a bit too much toward the end. I get it: I’m a wordy sumbitch at times. Most times? It’s how I roll.
Bill left the den air conditioner on again. I’m sure I will never understand why that man insists it be as cold as an icebox on the North Pole every blessed moment in this house. And my lord is it noisy. The quiet night air is just fine without it this time of year, so off it goes. Well. He will just have to settle with being a tad “stuffy,” as I seem to recall him putting himself. Better stuffy than catching your death, I say.
It’s just as well, with him busying himself with lord-knows-what in the cellar again while I’m left to my lonesome upstairs.
Lonesome. I can’t say why, but I feel as though I should be saddened by the thought. I love Bill dearly and all, but the man can be quite nonsensical at times. Most times, that I can recall, I say. An enigma, he is. Never can understand him.
There is what sounds to be a light knock on the porch door. At first I think the sound to be Bill again, messing with his doo-dads and what-nots in that hellish place down below. But sure as snowflakes, there it is again. A light tap-tapping sound, just outside.
I think to myself, “what an odd hour for a visitor.” Here, at the end of this farm road that’s sure to be a clear half-mile long. A neighbor, perhaps? I hope they’re alright. It is quite late.
Bill usually likes to answer to visitors these days, so I wait for him to head on up. But again the knocking, and I’d say with a fair level of some insistence for an answer now.
Oh, to Hell with Bill. I call out, “Coming!” As the the last knock falls. Though the porch light is on, its door is without windows, so I cannot see who might be outside. I think to open it before my wits overcome me.
“Who is it?” I ask. It seems a dog’s age before there’s a reply. “T- Trick. Or. T- Treat.” I cover my mouth to stifle a laugh, and I shake my head in sheer disappointment in myself for having not known what day it was. Of all the blessed days of the year, how could I have forgotten that today was Halloween?
I’ve had no time for decorations! No candy! Why, no costume of my own! How could Bill have not reminded me? That scoundrel of a man.
Without further hesitation, I pull the door open to its widest. There on the front porch is a solitary figure: a child, who couldn’t be but ten. A little girl, or so I believe, as her costume is by far and wide one to behold.
“T- Trick-”
“Oh, would you look at you!” I exclaim. “That is a scary costume you have there. So ... gruesome!”
And indeed it is gruesome. Delightfully so. While she wears an adorable blue fairytale-like dress with a white smock, it is near-fully soiled by soot and costume blood. The mask she wears is indeed a terrifying sight, the appearance of what was once a beautiful girl, now a ruin of flesh and bone so much as to be unrecognizable. There is only but one eye I can see, precariously dangling from what appears to be fine thread. Only half of what would be gorgeous locks of golden hair cover her head, the rest a mass of reddened scalp beneath exposed skull. An elaborate piece that, I must say, I do admire.
“Tr-” Her speech is but a gurgle, what with all the flesh parts of her mask covering her mouth.
“It’s a wonder you can speak! Tell me, did your folks help you put that together? Your mum?”
At this she falls silent. Her breath ragged. Only her empty bag hangs open before her. It, too, as soiled as her garb.
“OhMyGoodness. I’m so embarrassed. Sorry, my ... mind is not so sharp these days. I don’t have any-”
But I do. I do, and I may just about jump for joy if I could at the recollection. I hold out a finger of wait to the girl and rush back inside.
Bill has forever had a sweet tooth. I and his dentures could not forget this unfortunate fact. Reaching the kitchen, I open his cabinet nearly clear off its hinges and reach inside. A Hershey’s chocolate bar. It’s the only one left, with two squares already taken. I suppose I will just fault Bill for not thinking so clearly himself, in that it is he who’d kept his own stock so light and will now have to go without.
I arrive back to the porch. The girl remains, seemingly swaying to an unsung song, patiently awaiting her bounty. Her costume, it appears, has gotten the best of the remains of her dress, it now more red than not.
“Here we are. I’m so sorry, it’s ... opened. My husband has a way with candy, I guess you could say. Hope you don’t mind.”
I place Bill’s last bit of indulgence into the girl’s bag, careful as I can not to have it covered in the mess that continues to issue from her mask.
“M...M...” She speaks, but for the life of me I can’t make sense of what she is trying to say. But there ... is something ...
“Where did you come from, dear? Where are your folks?”
“M...M...”
Again, there is ... something.
My mind. God damn, my mind.
“Have I ... seen you around before, sweetie?” I’m not sure what I’ve done to cause it, but she turns and walks away. Down the porch steps. Down the pebbled driveway. Out into the night; a night cold enough to bring my own breath to a fog before me. Much too cold for air conditioning, and far too dark for a little girl to rightfully be traveling in alone. I motion to call out. I stop something that compels me to run off after her. If there is nothing else I know, it is that my frail, God-forsaken legs would not carry me far, least of all down the stairs.
Just as I close the door, Bill is in the kitchen. He’d come up and I hadn’t noticed.
“Irene?!”
At first I don’t answer. There is something within me that has something to say yet ... it just will not come. Something.
“Irene. Did you eat my Hershey’s?”
“No, Bill. I ... Bill, why didn’t you tell me it was Halloween?”
“What?”
“Halloween! Halloween! You didn’t ... you didn’t think to remind me it was Halloween!”
“Halloween? Well what gave you that idea?”
“There was ...”
Bill’s concerned. He has that face again. He doesn’t care about the chocolate anymore and comes into the living room, pulls me into his big arms. He smells like the old boxes of things we store our photographs and memories in. Sometimes the entire house smells like him. Sometimes — like now — I think I like it.
“Honey. Honey. Halloween. I know. Your favorite ... holiday, you used to call it. Used to wonder why the station didn’t give me the day off.”
“It ... was my favorite day, wasn’t it?” I say. And then I remember. “It is my favorite day.”
He laughs a little, like he’s remembering something too. “You could say that, yep. Used to have this whole place decked out in spiderwebs. Had me play scary music from the stereo. Lord knows nobody came up to this neck of the woods for candy, but that didn’t stop you.”
He laughs again, but it seems different now. “You used to dress up to scare the Devil himself, I swear. Last time ... Lord, it was so long ago. I think I recall you and Bonnie dressed up as fairytale characters. You were ... Oh! You were The Mad Hatter, only with his head cut off. You held a bloody melon with a hat in your hands! You were mad, alright! But not Bonnie, she-”
“Bonnie?”
His hug gets tight. It feels good, but I know there’s something not quite right.
“Yeah,” he says, and swallows hard in my ear. “She ... she just wanted to be Alice in Wonderland. Nothing scary. Just ... so pretty.”
“Who’s Bonnie?”
Bill pulls away and hides his face from me, wiping cellar grime from his face and eyes.
“Our girl, Irene. Our Bonnie. After all these years, I still miss her. It’s why I’m downstairs all the time. Looking at the old pictures we have of her. And today ... today, of course ...”
“Halloween?”
He laughs, sounding a bit more like himself. “Today she would have been forty years old. Her birthday. Forty, can you believe that? Christ, are we old.”
He holds me again. “Twenty-nine years. I thought I’d lost you both.” He lets me go and starts into the den. I still can make no sense on what he’s going on about.
“Y’Know, there aren’t a whole lotta blessings I can come up with these days, but there are three in particular that help me sleep at night.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Well. One — and sorry to have to admit this — that the accident made you unable to ever drive again. And two, that ... horrible thing you went through the last time you drove ... with Bonnie ... it did something to your mind where you can’t remember what happened to our little girl. Sometimes I envy you of that. And I thank God you’re mostly okay.”
Little girl. Bonnie. I feel at any moment my Bill is going to hop right into the Halloween spirit unlike he’d ever done and tell me this is all some scary story — some awful, awful nightmare of a story — and that Halloween is as special of a time to him as it’s ever been to me.
“And the third?” I ask. “What’s that?”
He presses the button on the air conditioner, and the silence of the night is as gone as my recollection of why we are having such an odd conversation in the first place.
“Air conditioning. Sweet, sweet AC. My god, is it stuffy. It’s the middle of July, Irene.”
I realized recently I made a terrible mistake trying to link/embed my screenplays off to Google docs. I’m in the process of exporting them so they work here in Tumblr as-is. Some of the more recent ones are already done, but anything new will follow the same format going forward.
A small dive in a New England town. A long bar, a few tables, a red and blue dartboard, and a pool table. A TV is mounted behind the bar next to half-empty bottles of bottom-shelf booze. The bartender, DANIEL (50s), stands beside the TV, cleaning glasses. On the TV: a NEWS ANCHOR covering the 2008 US Presidential Election. A WOMAN (50s) sits at a small table. Two MEN sit at the bar, one of them SULLY (30s), nursing a beer and intently watching the TV.
MARK (30s) walks into the bar. He looks around, spots Sully, and sits beside him.
NEWS ANCHOR
... we can expect results to trickle in, as more polls close on the eastern region of the country ...
Mark motions to Daniel and points to the beer tap. Daniel obliges.
MARK
Bad day, I take it?
SULLY
Bad year, more like it. What clued you in?
MARK
Well, that you're in here, for starters. And you're watching that.
Daniel slides a beer over to Mark.
MARK (CONT'D)
(To Daniel.)
He put you up to this?
Daniel shrugs.
MARK (CONT'D)
I don't understand the point. The results are going to be depressing no matter how you look at 'em. Tomorrow, nothing's changed. How can you stand to watch?
SULLY
Gives me hope is all. I guess.
NEWS ANCHOR
... exit polls show Obama with a clear foothold in ...
MARK
Come on. Can we at least make this interesting?
SULLY
And how's that?
MARK
Call the results. Call the state red or blue before the TV does. You get it right, I'll chug a beer. Bottoms-up. You get it wrong, and, well ...
Sully mulls it over.
SULLY
Then bottoms-up for me. And why is this interesting?
MARK
Let's just say that the reality of the resulting situation is better lost on me within a cloud of sweet, sweet inebriation. So I'm rooting for you, my friend.
SULLY
Whatever that means. Alright. Get that tap handle ready for Mark, Danny. We are on.
CUT TO:
MONTAGE as Sully and Mark make their way around different areas of the bar throughout the night.
- Sully lines up for a shot at the dartboard.
MARK
Alright, Sully. Make the first call.
SULLY
Too easy. Vermont, blue. Kentucky, red.
Sully lets the dart fly. It lands in the a red section of the board.
NEWS ANCHOR
... As predicted, the Democrats have secured Vermont, while Republicans seem to have won over Kentucky ...
Mark chugs a beer.
- Mark aims at the dartboard.
MARK
Eight o'clock, Sully. Make the call.
SULLY
Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., blue. West Virginia, South Carolina, red.
US map on TV shows each state light up the colors Sully mentions. Mark chugs a beer.
- Mark is at the pool table, lining up a shot. He's showing signs of drunkenness.
Sully hits the cue ball, connecting with the red 3 ball. The US map on TV shows all of his picks are correct but Georgia. Sully chugs a beer.
- Mark's at the pool table. Both men are pretty drunk and are beginning to slur.
MARK
Ten o'clock. Sully. Go.
SULLY
Ten o'clock. Oh man. Uh ... Utah, red. North Dakota, red. Utah ... Iowa ... (Beat.)
MARK
Make the call, Sully!
The woman at the table is drunker than they are.
WOMAN
Can you two fools turn that crap off and let a woman have a drink in peace?
MARK
No. Sully, c'mon, call it, man!
SULLY
Blue!
US map on TV lights Iowa blue. Both men cheer and chug their respective beers. The woman shakes her head and drinks.
- The cue ball hits the blue 2 ball. The US map lights up Idaho as red. Mark chugs a beer.
NEWS ANCHOR
... we're calling South Dakota Idaho for McCain ...
- A dart hits the dartboard in a red section. The US map on TV lights up Idaho in red. Sully chugs a beer. Daniel chugs a beer. The other MAN at the bar clinks glasses with the woman, and they both drink their beers.
DANIEL
Alright. Alright, fellas. Don't you think you've had about enough now? You're happy. They're happy. Everyone's happy. How's about we turn this thing off and make me happy now?
EVERYONE ELSE
No!
- The blue/white 10 pool ball enters a pocket. The US map on TV lights up California, Hawaii and Oregon in blue. The whole bar cheers.
FADE TO:
Sully and Mark sit at the bar, glassy-eyed. The other patrons stand behind them. All eyes are on the TV.
NEWS ANCHOR
... We're getting word now that Senator John McCain has officially reached out to Senator Barack Obama, conceding the race for the presidency. Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States.
The bar erupts in cheers.
DANIEL
Alright, everyone. Party's over. Tap's closed. Last call was an hour ago.
Everyone grumbles in disappointment.
SULLY
Some night.
MARK
Y'know, buddy, it's been a tough year. For all of us. Seeing this ... well, I guess it sorta gives us all hope, like you said. That things can turn around for the country. Right choices can be made. Some day, though, right?
Daniel turns the TV channel. "Casablanca" is playing.
MARK
Danny. What's this playing?
DANIEL
This? C'mon, it's-
MARK
Well stop it. You know what we want to see.
DANIEL
No. I-
MARK
If Sully could stand it, we all can! Play it!
DANIEL
Okay, okay! Alright, boss.
Daniel changes the channel back, then exits to ...
INT. ROOM BEHIND BAR - NIGHT
Daniel approaches a computer. A calendar on the screen shows the current date: December 1, 2018. A video plays center-screen: the recorded news broadcast displayed on the TV at the bar. With a MOUSE he clicks a button labeled "REPLAY," and the video starts from the beginning.
NEWS ANCHOR (O.C.)
... we can expect results to trickle in, as more polls close on the eastern region of the country ...
MARK (O.C.)
You remembered more of that night than I did, Sully. But no bets this time. Let's just watch it again. For old-time's sake.
I’ve got an entry in an upcoming book titled “A Cure for Chaos: Horrors from hospitals and psych wards.” Pre-order it today in eBook form for only $0.99!
(Click the arrow in the upper-right to see it larger, same with my other scripts here. Also, Google Docs sometimes makes the script out to over five pages, though in PDF it’s five pages exactly.)
The prompts and limitations we had for this one:
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Location: A divorce hearing
Object: A rocking chair
An empty ROCKING CHAIR and a love seat with ottoman face a crackling fireplace that lights the room. On the wall above the fireplace we see a HONEY-COLORED, WOOD-FRAMED PAINTING depicting a MAN in bygone-era clothing. Close-in on the fire.
OLD MAN (O.C.)
Honey, remind me again why we're hanging around in here. I liked the other room much better.
OLD WOMAN (O.C.)
Oh, come now. This is nice. I love being wrapped all around you, cozy and warm. I'm not letting you go.
OLD MAN (O.C.)
I guess you've got me up against a wall here. I feel like I'm melting.
OLD WOMAN (O.C.)
Oh, don't be so dramatic, Art. We're together, aren't we?
OLD MAN (O.C.)
This is true. To think there was a time we almost let Mat come between us. Mat! (Laughs.) What a square.
OLD WOMAN (O.C.)
(Laughs.) He was too thin. Oh, and don't forget the divorce! We almost lost each other for good.
INT. COURT ROOM - DAY - A PREVIOUS DAY
A divorce proceeding is underway. A JUDGE (M) sits at his bench, looking over some documents. A BAILIFF, clerk and court reporter sit at their appointed spots. Seated behind a table and facing them all is MRS. GRAHAM (30s) and MR. GRAHAM (30s), speaking quietly to one another, awaiting the judge to finish.
MR. GRAHAM
We shouldn't be here. I just need time to prove to you there was nothing going on. Nothing!
MRS. GRAHAM
The pictures say it all. I'm glad whoever mailed them to me spared me from finding out some other way. Or not at all.
MR. GRAHAM
I told you, I was set up. It wasn't like tha-
JUDGE
Mrs. Graham. Perhaps you can clear something up for me. In looking over your partial settlement agreement with Mr. Graham, it seems there are very few items you're unable to come to terms with. In fact, if I'm reading this correctly, there's only ... one disagreement listed? Is that correct?
MRS. GRAHAM
Well, yes, your honor. But it's actually two items.
JUDGE
Two. As I understand it from your documents, there is a ... framed painting listed. Framed painting. That's it.
MR. GRAHAM
Your honor, if I may. The frame and the painting are two separate items.
JUDGE
And you both want this ... these items, I take it?
MR. GRAHAM
No, your honor. I just want the frame. My grandfather made it with his own two hands.
MRS. GRAHAM
And I want the painting. It's my great-grandmother's.
JUDGE
Alright, then the simple solution to this is to separate the two.
MR. GRAHAM
It's not that easy, sir. We've tried. The two won't come apart.
JUDGE
Won't come apart? Well why is that?
MRS. GRAHAM
We've ... brought them here, your honor. We can show you.
JUDGE
Brought them with you? Well. Bailiff, go on and bring it up here. Exhibit four, I suppose.
The bailiff approaches the couple, retrieves the SAME FRAMED PAINTING from the living room, and brings it to the judge. The judge closely inspects the painting, back to front.
We hear the SAME TWO VOICES from the living room: they are of the PAINTING (old man) and the FRAME (old woman).
FRAME
What is he doing?
PAINTING
He's looking for a way to get us apart! Why do they keep trying to do this? We have to hang on again, honey!
JUDGE
Looks like some sort of glue. Bailiff? I think if you hold onto the frame and I grab the painting, we might get these two apart.
MR. GRAHAM
We tried that, your honor. They're really latched on tight. It's strange. They weren't always like that. Just since my mother-in-law moved in (speaking of latching on).
JUDGE
Well, we'll see about that.
The bailiff grabs onto the frame with both hands as the judge pulls hard at the painting. Both men grunt in exertion, as does the painting.
FRAME
Hold on, Art! I can't lose you! I'm nothing without you!
JUDGE
You weren't kidding! This is really stuck.
BAILIFF
Actually, I think I feel it coming loose, sir. The bottom here.
FRAME
What are you doing? Don't let go!
PAINTING
Countermeasures. Just. A little.
A slight RIPPING noise as the painting comes away from the frame at the bottom. Three photos fall out from the formed gap and fall to the floor. The judge and bailiff stop pulling. The bailiff grabs the photos and looks them over.
BAILIFF
Sir? You might want to see these.
The bailiff hands the photos to the judge, who glances through them.
PAINTING
I think that did it! I'd have fallen apart without you!
FRAME
It seems I'll be sticking around you for a while more, my love. Without you, I'd be an empty shell.
PAINTING
Honey, there's no one else I'd rather be hanging around with.
JUDGE
Mr. And Ms. Graham? You may want to have a look at these.
The Grahams approach to look at the photos. Several are of Mr. Graham, pushing away another woman's advances as she tries to kiss him at a party. The refection of an older woman holding the camera can be seen in a mirror.
MRS. GRAHAM
That's that whore you were with. And that's my mom in the mirror! She took these! And ... the others.
MR. GRAHAM
She set me up. She never liked me. I knew it! I told you, I love you, baby! We should't be here.
MRS. GRAHAM
That witch! Why would she keep these? In case she changed her mind? I almost left you!
MR. GRAHAM
The woman is crazy. She probably wanted to enjoy poring over them some day after I was gone.
JUDGE
I ... take it we're done here then?
Mrs. Graham smiles guiltily at Mr. Graham. He smiles back.
MRS. GRAHAM
Yes. I think we'll both be taking everything home with us now. Together.
INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT - PRESENT DAY
Mrs. and Mr. Graham snuggle on a couch, watching the fire.
FRAME
Goodness. What on Earth would we would do in a fix like that again?
PAINTING
Well, I just might be holding onto some love letters from another man to Mrs. Graham's mother.
FRAME
Oh! Well let's just keep those behind your back for the time being. Now, let me just hold you.
PAINTING
Hey, you think they might get us hung in the den again? No, really. This fire is brutal. My coat is starting to run.
