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Mark Edward Hall – Horror Author

Mark Edward Hall

Last Updated: 11/18/2009

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Signed copies of The Haunting of Sam Cabot!
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hey, all, I now have hard copies of my new novella "The Haunting of Sam Cabot" in hand. Those of you who wanted signed copies contact me here and we'll arrange payment and address info. I will respond to all those interested via private message. Once again, thank you for your friendship and support.

Mark

9:13 PM

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Monday, September 14, 2009

Radio Interview

Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be interviewed on Boss Talk Radio tomorrow night September 15th at 10:PM Eastern time. Show host is Tanis Majere. I will be talking about my new book, "The Haunting of Sam Cabot". For those who are interested you can tune in at http://www.trebleradiorocks.com
I have an entire series of radio interviews lined up, culminating in a midnight interview on October 28th two nights before Halloween.
I'll give details just prior to each interview.

Thanks,
Mark

1:08 PM

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Publishing information!
Category: Writing and Poetry

"The Haunting of Sam Cabot" is now live. I'm told that it will be a few weeks before it shows up on Amazon, etc, as a hard copy. And perhaps a little longer before it starts appearing in the book stores. I'll let everyone know when that happens and also when I have signed copies in hand. If anyone is interested in the ebook format my publisher is offering great deals. Just go to: http://www.damnationbooks.com

From the bottom of my heart I wish to thank everyone here for your continued support of my work. You guys are true friends.

New short fiction coming soon. Stay tuned.

One more thing: There has been a considerable amount of interest in the stories I've published here on myspace. Several publishes and quite a few readers have indicated an interest in seeing them published in a signed limited edition book. Of course there would be several bonuses, (stories that have not appeared here on myspace) possibly a short novel will be included as well, just to sweeten the pot.
I'm just wondering what you guys think of that idea. Should I consider it?

Thanks again,
Mark

1:18 PM

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Friday, July 17, 2009

Video Trailer for "The Haunting of Sam Cabot"
Current mood:Stoked
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hey, all. I just uploaded the video trailer for, The Haunting of Sam Cabot to my profile and my blog. Let me know what you think of it.
Just click on the link below.
Thanks for all your support.

Mark

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=60651318

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

New Fiction: "The Manor" Part 2
Category: Writing and Poetry

"The Manor"©2005 Mark Edward Hall, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.

The Manor

Part 2

The coach trundled through the narrow cobbled streets of the old village, the galloping trot of the sweated horses echoing back at us like gunshots off the brick townhouses that lined both sides of the shadowy riverside passage.

Although it was a hot mid-summer day, clammy and close, the streets were completely devoid of pedestrians. This troubled me. I was troubled by something else, as well. The driver, upon meeting me at the Portland station, seemed upset that the Concord Coach, that of which had provided my transportation from Boston, was late in arriving. I found him pacing nervously, pulling his watch out every few seconds and glaring grimly at it. He hastened me quickly aboard his coach stating flatly that we must hurry, that we must make Ellis Manor before nightfall.

I did not argue, wondering if his manners and the short, humorless way in which I had been treated were common attributes of all James Village natives. There was no doubt about his urgency, however, for the entire distance between Portland and James Village he sat on his box whipping those poor horses nearly to death.

Once inside the village limits, however, the driver slowed the horses to a brisk trot. As the coach trundled through the village’s main thoroughfare I cast my eyes curiously to the left and up, and saw, above the rooftops and beyond the townhouse chimneys, littered across the terraced hillside, caught in the last burning rays of a dying sun, scores of small, gothic-style houses; old, stolid in their implacable equanimity, and nestled in amongst them, an ancient Anglican church with its tall, reflective cross atop its towering steeple stabbing at the heavens like some great, malevolent dagger.

I looked away then, not knowing exactly why, but having the strong sense that something was horribly amiss in this small coastal New England village. I know that such a conclusion was rash, but I could not help myself; as we rode I became increasingly troubled. Not only did the driver’s urgency and the frenetic pace in which he had driven the team trouble me, but there seemed to be something else happening as well. I am not certain that I can adequately explain what, but I will try: it was as if my entire being had become overwhelmed with a sense of reverie, as though I had slept for a time and then awakened in a half-dream. Yet strangely I was fully aware of the fact that I had not slept at all.

I had been under the impression upon leaving Boston that I would be visiting a bustling community of shipbuilders and seafarers, but as I gazed out into those barren stone streets, not a single soul was in evidence, and an oppressiveness as dark and as claustrophobic as the spirit of death lay gloomy and close over the entire village.

What could this mean? I asked myself. What is wrong in this place? My silent questions were answered almost immediately by the driver’s urgent summons:

“Aye, Mr. Tittleman, the night is near upon us and we must hasten indoors and bar entrance lest we be caught in its fearsome grip. Can you not feel its weight bearing down upon us?” The driver had turned toward me and I saw in his eyes a cast of almost inexplicable fright, and his mouth was set in a grim line of disconcert.

“Rubbish,” I shouted in reply, knowing full well that it was my own sense of rising paranoia that I was trying to extinguish. “It is merely the night, after all. What harm can be found in the night?” By then I was leaning halfway out of the window, cupping both hands round my mouth so the burgeoning wind could not steal my voice. “Why would one wish to hasten indoors and bar entrance?” The driver turned back to me but did not reply. I could clearly see by the cast of his eyes and the grim set of his jaw that he was staid in his conviction, however. He then crossed himself, and an icy finger of fear crawled up my spine. I could sense suddenly that I was in the midst of some unspoken pall that I did not, and perhaps never could grasp. I slid back through the carriage window and settled uneasily back into my seat, and as I chanced a glance to the side, I saw with much trepidation that in some of the houses along the shadowy passage, the curtains were drawn back ever so slightly and eyes—eyes as sharp and as glittering as blood-rubies, eyes that could be at home only in the night—were staring out at the coach as it trundled noisily past. An unwitting shudder went through me, chilling me to the bone, for I felt that those terrible eyes had seen into my depths, perhaps to the heart of my very soul. I pulled my coat around me and hugged myself to keep warm even though the temperature outside must surely have been tottering close to the eighty-degree mark.

“Tis the way of the Village,” the driver barked suddenly. “They are all in their houses with the doors barred. Since the end of that damned ill-fated voyage, when night falls it happens.”

“What happens?” I asked.

“Children!” the driver replied, as if any fool should have known. “Be warned. Do not venture out after dark, neither the village nor the countryside, for the little demons roam. Tis the curse of Satan himself, I tell you.”

“Children? Little demons?” I repeated in awe, not understanding, perhaps not wanting to understand the implications of that statement. I observed then that I had unwittingly grasped the side rail to steady myself and the knuckles of my hands had gone white with strain. The curse of Satan? Surely this was madness. Surely this entire day was madness. I settled myself uneasily back into the seat as the carriage cleared the village proper, entering once again the ominous darkness of woods. For this I was somewhat grateful, for in darkness, I believed foolishly, those glittering eyes could no longer gaze upon me.

The driver upped his pace then; he was frenzied beyond belief, unmercifully whipping those poor animals as the sky darkened overhead with the coming of a summer storm. The air grew heavy with the oppressive sense of moisture. Thunder muttered uneasily in the distance and jagged forks of lightening licked at the earth like the tongues of serpents. The coach yawed and strained against its springs.

Off to my right and through the trees I caught a glimpse of the River St. James and the masts of clippers, brigs, barks and schooners bobbing in its uneasy swells. Above and beyond the masts, some distance away, toward the south, a gray pall of clouds swirled and massed in a harried whirlwind. And through the swirling mass I chanced a glimpse of a lofty crag. For the most part, the crag was encompassed in dark forest, save the very summit, which seemed curiously devoid of flora. I was captured immediately by the sight of that odd vortex swirling round that craggy spire, never before being witness to such a peculiar phenomenon. My body gave yet another unwitting shudder.

What is this strange place? I asked myself. A place I had so fervently journeyed to. Could it be that the accounts I had read and the rumors I had scoffed at in my own overly cynical, journalistic mind could, in fact, be correct? Could it be that the published accounts of the first mate of the clipper, Witchcraft and its mysterious voyage were indeed fact and that something was strangely amiss in this tiny village? I realized suddenly that I had journeyed all this way to dispel those very myths. Now I could do nothing but fight the growing sense of alarm inside of me.

I had concealed a flask in my boot upon departing Boston and chose that moment to extract it and partake of a healthy swallow of its contents, a fine amber brandy. And I did so with great relish. It succeeded in warming my bones but did nothing to quell the terrible dread I felt deep in my soul.

The coach cleared the darkness of forest once again and this time instead of village I saw a green sloping land filled with pastures and distant woods, and farmhouses.

I looked and beheld in the distance a wide expanse of ocean whose waters were being whipped into a hideous frenzy. To the right and left as far as the eye could see, the water was ink-black and bubbling as if it was some vile brine boiling in a massive caldron. And yet that spinning vortex continued to whirl crazily around that barren crag as dark, elongated clouds spun away from it like the tattered remnants of ruined curtains.

The driver lashed the team unmercifully and at the foot of the hill he pulled back on the reins and brought them up short, swung them about, entering onto a road to the right that was nary a road at all, but merely a wide path with two wheel-ruts at its center. And once again, this time with dismay, I found myself shrouded in shadowy forest. We were all but hemmed in with trees, which in places arched over the roadway till we passed, as through a tunnel. Every now and then the horses would throw their heads up and sniff the air suspiciously, and looking through the window I saw that the driver was having difficulty holding them on course, for they were trying to break pace in their panic and turn back. Their whinnying was filled with the unmistakable sound of terror.

The sun had now fallen behind that lofty crag and darkness was encroaching upon the land. The trail ahead was rugged but still we flew over it at a feverish pace.

Presently we passed near the foot of the crag in question. The coach rocked and swayed as a ship in rough seas, the horses whinnied and reared, threatening to break stride and bolt away in panic. The driver held them fast, however, despite their insane antics, shouting terse commands, his whip cracking fiercely down on their seemingly impervious flesh.

Presently the muttering in the heavens turned to a loud and ferocious booming, and the terrible wind roared like a mighty demon, stealing away the whinnying of the horses.

“It is too near nightfall,” the driver cried, and his voice was nearly stolen by the horrendous cacophony around us. “Dear God, we must make Ellis Manor before they are upon us.”

“Before they are upon us?” I shot back in reply, my voice filled with trepidation. “Who are they?” I did not want to think about the children he’d mentioned; little demons with blood sucking mouths and terrible intentions. For an answer I was rewarded with nothing but the shrieking of wind. “Driver!” I railed, and again received no reply from the box. The coach was careening at great speed by then, rocking and shuddering. I leaned out of the window and saw, to my utter and complete dread that the driver was no longer on his box and the reins were whipping about freely in the wind. A terrible fear went into my heart, for the team was now racing out of control, their heads lolling to and fro in delirium, their bulbous eyes insane with utter terror. At that moment I saw fit to cross myself, believing that my last breath was most certainly about to be taken. I could do nothing in those last few precious seconds of my life but stare out of the window and shudder as the maelstrom encompassed the summit of that hideous crag and settle on it like a roiling dervish.

Then, an all-pervading darkness blanketed the land. It was as if some strange and wicked power had suddenly extinguished all light from the earth, plunging us helpless pilgrims into a hideous endless night. In my moment of absolute blindness I could feel the coach trembling unmercifully beneath me, then suddenly, the vibration ceased, and with it, all sound and all sensation. Now I was not merely blind, but deaf as well. Sensation suddenly returned, and with it, disorientation. I felt the coach keeling forward at a frightening angle. I was powerless in my terror for I knew that I was falling. My stomach lurched up into my mouth. My mind conjured some hellish abyss without end, a bottomless pit of purgatory where I would most assuredly descend forever without the benefit of sight or sound. I grasped the side rails with both hands and stopped breathing. The carriage tumbled suddenly out of control; end over end, slamming me dreadfully and painfully into the forward seat. There was a horrendous crash. I screamed. All sensation ceased suddenly and this time it did not return. Darkness enveloped me and I was grateful.

Sometime later, perhaps hours, perhaps only minutes, I woke face down, sick with pain, disoriented. Total darkness prevailed. There was a pervading stillness as well. The storm had passed and perhaps in sympathy with nature’s silence my heart seemed to have stopped as well. I could not find my breath. I groped about me blindly, wanting very badly to grasp hold of something substantial which would confirm the fact of my continued existence, but I was rewarded only with hand-full after hand-full of wet, pebbly soil. The darkness was so pervasive that for a short moment I believed I had been blinded. But this was short-lived, for suddenly moonlight broke through scudding clouds, showing me that I was lying at the base of what at first appeared to be a large stone tomb. I struggled weakly to my feet, staring at the monolith. I stood there on shaky legs scrutinizing the strange-looking phenomenon. It might very well have been a tomb of sorts, I suppose, for it was dull gray in color and appeared very smooth like polished marble. But I did not think it was marble, for the cast was perhaps too smooth. It appeared more metallic in construction, like pewter or unpolished silver. It seemed to glow dully, however, with some strange inner light, and there was a slight pulsing on its surface as if a heart were beating at its center. I closed my eyes and opened them again but the light and the pulsing persisted. From my vantage the object at first appeared to have only three sides narrowing as it pointed skyward like a miniature version of one of the Giza pyramids. A moment’s scrutiny, however, dispelled that illusion, for now it appeared to have many sides, then the object seemed to shift shapes again. I closed my eyes not wishing to look upon the wretched thing a moment longer. But unwittingly my eyes again opened and I saw that the land around it was desolate and barren, as if scorched by some ferocious and titanic forest fire. There seemed to be some sort of energy force coming from the thing, for along with the light and the slight pulsing I felt a kind of vibration in my head accompanied by a low frequency humming. I took a step in its direction. Unwittingly I was being drawn toward the wretched thing even as I tried to ignore it. My heart filled with dread at the prospect.

Suddenly my head snapped around to the left for there came a series of soft mewing sounds, and in their midst a terrible cacophony of moaning and wailing, like tortured children. I squinted into the darkness trying to identify the source of those sounds and suddenly my blood turned to ice, for there on the ground, not ten rods distant, I beheld what at first looked to be a mound of gray, writhing flesh. I crossed myself, then closed my eyes and opened them again quickly, hoping to dispel the illusion. I was to be disappointed, however, for still the vision persisted, and beneath those other terrible noises my ears picked up the unmistakable sound of slurping, like hogs gulping swill. I shambled several tentative steps closer to the illusion, wanting to dispel the image as quickly as possible, for I felt strongly that my very sanity was in grave jeopardy. I froze solid in the silence-shattered darkness, for there, beneath a bevy of small, malformed, human-like bodies, lay the coach’s driver, arms and legs splayed out as in death, blank, lifeless eyes staring toward the heavens, as those terrible little inhuman things fed upon him. I backed away slowly, an unwitting moan of revulsion wrenching from my throat, and I continued to moan for the horror that I was witnessing.

I have no clear memory of all the events that followed, for something in my mind must surely have given way. The next several minutes were like a waking nightmare. My moans of terror and revulsion drew the attention of those small, hideous feeders for they all turned their terrible gazes upon me. Their eyes were glowing yellow orbs that seemed to burn with some terrible alien life, each a small sulfurous fire. Their tiny mouths—filled with small, incisive teeth—were clogged with torn flesh and covered in the blood of their victim. I stumbled back several steps, suddenly aware of the screams that were convulsively exciting me as those hideous little monsters deserted their feast and began slinking in my direction, moaning and writhing as they did so. I could not find my legs, frozen as I was with abject terror.

The rest of what happened comes back to me now as if in a dream.

From the corner of my eye I saw movement. I whirled and to my great and utter astonishment, up from the very bowels of the earth not twenty rods away from the cursed monolith, a man appeared, tall, thin, and white of hair and smooth of complexion. The pupils of his eyes, which I could see quite clearly, were slit like those of a cat and they seemed to burn with a cold, green fire. He stood for a moment on the topmost of what appeared to be a smooth, pewter-like step watching the moaning and writhing advance of those hideous little yellow-eyed monsters before shouting some sort of terse command with a deep, masterful voice in a language I did not recognize. Although they seemed reluctant to do so, the little monsters stopped their advance not two rods from my quaking body. They stood for a moment writhing as if in agony, then slowly turned and began to retreat.

My legs suddenly gave way beneath me and the last sight I remember seeing is a sort of black streaking mass; and then hands were groping me, and my head was filled with the sounds of suffering and anguish, like tormented souls burning in the fires of some unspeakable hell.

For another spell of time I remembered nothing. Then gradually there came the vague beginnings of consciousness. I found myself again lying face down—this time on an unyielding surface—and I remember trying to turn my body over. Everything inside of me ached. I heard what sounded like water dripping in a great hollow place. I finally managed to struggle onto my back and open my eyes. The light was very dim, like a room with the shades drawn. At first I could not be sure of what I was seeing. Then, as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light I noted that high above me, suspended in the midst of some titanic stone well-like structure there was a vast nest of sorts. The webbing that made up the nest was akin to a giant spider web, only much more dense and complex in its configuration. There were literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of strands of webbing going away from its epicenter, which attached themselves to the walls of the vertical cavern in large clots. At the center of the nest rested a worm-like thing of massive proportions, wrapped as if in a giant cocoon. And the cocoon was writhing as if it contained some huge, bloated creature of unnamable origin caught in the throes of some ghastly metamorphic transition. From the body of the thing there dripped large clots of repugnant smelling fluid, viscous in consistency, which splashed the cavern floor all around me. And to add to my utter horror, with each splatter of fluid, a hideous transparent creature of sorts was born—the likes of which I could never in my wildest nightmares have imagined. The creatures closest to my position eyed me balefully with hideous glass-like eyes before scuttling off into darkness on clickety-clackety claw-like appendages.

The sensation of heat suddenly turned my attention away from those terrible things, and over near the cavern wall, not six feet from where I lay, some sort of alien-like vessel the size of a small coffin pulsed as though it contained—or perhaps more fittingly, was—a beating heart. And with each beat it would swell to perhaps half again its size and its color would turn from midnight-black to the most repulsive crimson I have ever imagined. In retrospect I now believe that its colors were not of any known spectrum on this earth. And the heat coming from it was like the heat of fever and sickness, of despair, of something far worse than death. I was reminded suddenly of the story I’d read in the Boston Herald by the ship Witchcraft’s first mate and of the vessel he had described the stranger carrying aboard on that ill-fated night. Could it be the same object? I will probably never know the answer to that question.

At that moment, however, I honestly believed I had died and that this place was most assuredly Hell. I tried to stand but was unable to find my legs. I began to scream in abject terror as the mass above me began to descend on creaking filaments, and I screamed as the vessel near me began pulsing frenetically like a stressed heart that might burst at any moment. I screamed and screamed, until finally my mind shut down completely.

An all-encompassing pit of darkness swallowed me for what seemed a very long time.

When finally I awoke I felt drowsy, lethargic, disoriented. I found myself in a large bed covered in fine linens, the room around me lofty with tall arched windows and draperies the color of ox-blood. A quick moment of panic seized my heart for my first thought was of that wretched vertical cavern and the horrors it had contained. But I forced myself to stay calm. This place was quiet and serene, very much unlike that well of terrors.

I was startled to see that there was a man standing above the bed, watching me with sharp, intelligent eyes. He said nothing; just watched me without expression. He was tall and thin and handsome. Could this be the same man I had seen exit the ground near that strange monolith prior to witnessing the hell of all hells? I watched him carefully. No, I concluded finally, it could not be, for the eyes, although sharp and intense were brown in color, not green slits like those of a cat. I stared into those eyes, and in them I saw a cast of something terrible and tragic, as though through life’s journeys, this young man had been hardened beyond his years.

And suddenly I knew who this person must be. “Captain Ellis?” I cried out, my voice hoarse and uncharacteristically week in my own ears. “Are you not Captain Nathaniel Ellis? What is happening to me? Please, I beg of you.”

A general pause ensued and I began to wonder if my summons had fallen on deaf ears. The gentleman wiped his brow thoughtfully then turned and without giving me the courtesy of a reply walked purposefully from the room.

I know not who the gentleman was, but other than the marked difference in the eyes, I suppose he could very well have been the man who’d exited the earth near that strange looking monolith. But I am not completely certain of anything anymore. I have seen too many horrors to be sure that any of them are real. In this place dreams and reality have become too closely linked and it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between them.

I have seen the same man from time to time over the past several days. It is usually when I awake in delirium, the vestiges of those terrible dreams of the suffering, cannibalistic children, the loathsome pulsing vessel and the horrible metamorphic worm still in my head. There he will be, standing over my bed staring worriedly down at me. I do not understand why he refuses to communicate with me. I am here, after all, by his invitation.

“Where is Captain Ellis?” I keep insisting. “If you are he, then please speak to me.” Alas, I receive the same answer of silence from both the strange gentleman and the Negro servant, Williams.

There is something else that I should mention. Upon awakening, I find my arms dull and aching from numerous small pinpricks, and do not understand where they are coming from. As time passes I am becoming more and more resigned, however, and have begun to believe that I will never be allowed to leave this place.

I am weary with this writing. I do not wish the fever’s return. I believe it is well into the night by now, although in this place, it is sometimes hard to differentiate between night and day. The two seem to run together as one all-encompassing void. Now the strange and terrifying noises that have become synonymous with this draughty old mansion have resumed. I shall hide my journal beneath the feather tick once again and try as best I can to find a few moments of precious rest amongst the cacophonous bursts of hair-raising shrieks and the delicate, almost hypnotic allure of that soft, silvery laughter. I have been thinking that I might try and break out of this stone prison, eventually, but it seems the longer I am here the more those kinds of thoughts desert me. Ah, well, perhaps when I am stronger. Right now I am finding it quite difficult just keeping my eyes open. Sleep beckons and I will not keep it waiting, for with it comes that dark void that allows me to forget—if even for a short time—where I am and what I am becoming.

John J. Tittleman

July, 1897

Afterward

Although “The Manor” is, on its own, a stand-alone story, one cannot hope to grasp its full significance without reading my 2003 Bram Stoker recommended novel, “The Lost Village”. Although “The Lost Village” takes place in modern times, it harks back to the terrible events described in the preceding tale.

Though John J. Tittleman’s fate will never be realized, other parts of the tale will come full circle. For a complete synopsis of “The Lost Village” please got to my homepage and read “The Lost Village Synopsis” in the right hand column just below the book cover image.

Thanks again for your continued support and infinite patience,

Mark

6:16 PM

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

New Fiction: "The Manor" Part 1
Category: Writing and Poetry

Again, because of the limited amount of space these blogs provide, I have been forced to post a story in two parts. However, instead of spreading parts 1 and 2 out over the period of a week or more I have posted them both simultaneously.

Foreword

It would be an injustice to publish the following story without first giving a nod to two of the most influential—not to mention two of the greatest—horror writers of all time. Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft.

Not surprisingly these two writers also happen to be among my favorites.

The aforementioned tale entitled “The Manor” takes place in the late nineteenth century, and in its flavor I have attempted to capture the pros style of that era. I also attempted to combine the polite, measured English solemnity that was Bram Stoker’s trademark with the intense and frenetic paranoia of H.P. Lovecraft’s delightful pros. I will leave it up to the reader to judge whether I have succeeded or not.

Following the story you will find an afterward. Rarely does a short story need either a forward or an afterward. If you will excuse my indulgence, I believe this particular tale requires both, for reasons that will hopefully become apparent once the tale has been told.

So, on with the story.

The Manor

Part 1

From the Journal of John J. Tittleman

July 1897

It is with great trepidation that I, John J. Tittleman, in the year of our Lord 1897—a prisoner it seems in this huge and draughty stone manor named for its indomitable owner and builder, Captain Nathaniel Ellis—commit to posterity the events of the past several days. Please forgive the incongruities of speech and rhythm for I am not entirely clear of mind, and thus would not swear with absolute certainty that all words contained herein are, or should be construed as gospel. After what has occurred, this writer’s very sanity is in serious self-doubt.

I am feeling slightly better now, the fever seems to have broken, but the head still aches ferociously, and it causes within me an utter and almost complete sense of unreality—

Sorry for the sudden interruption but Williams has just fled from the room. It is uncertain as to whether Williams—a strikingly handsome Negro—is the gentleman’s proper name or merely his title. No matter. It is the appellative he has asked me—in his exotic sounding tongue (probably a mixture of West Indian and Creole)—to address him by. He entered—without announcing himself, which seems to be the custom here at Ellis Manor—carrying a bowl of bland porridge, startling me as I wrote, and I was forced to hastily tuck my journal beneath the bed’s massive feather-tic. It is quite probable that he witnessed the act for he glared balefully at me with those large, intelligent brown eyes of his, before turning abruptly and literally fleeing as if being chased. He seldom speaks, and when he does his manner is curt and businesslike.

He is gone from my presence now; nevertheless I get the disquieting feeling that the walls here at Ellis Manor have eyes, and ears.

I have eaten the small helping of warm porridge—which strangely had a slight red hue to it—and although it tasted bland and sits heavy and burdensome in the pit of my belly, it seems to have satisfied—at least for the moment—the gnawing hunger that has gripped me since awakening from the fever. Perhaps this is a good sign. That said, I shall begin anew.

Such an account would not be wholly adequate without first relaying the events that brought me to this particular place in time.

It began with newspaper accounts; that of a ship, a China Clipper to be exact, captained by one Nathaniel Irving Ellis of James Village, Maine. The vessel, commissioned by aforementioned captain and built by sturdy stock with locale materials, was a particularly large Clipper, some 1,200 tons berthen, and christened with the name Witchcraft. According to this reporter’s sources, Witchcraft had been round the horn on a number of global voyages and had made significant inroads as a China-trade vessel.

Why Captain Ellis had christened her with such a vile name as Witchcraft is any man’s guess. There are those, of course, who’ve made ill claims of the good captain’s morals and intentions. Some have asserted that he nurtured a life-long romance with the occult, others have said that he literally worshiped the dead. I cannot attest to any of these assertions, however appealing and scandalous they may be to the readership at large, having as yet—to the best of my knowledge—never met the man.

There are those as well who pronounced Witchcraft doomed from the very beginning of her life, based on speculation that she was somehow christened with blood. It seemed the skeptics were wrong, however, for as years passed, Witchcraft and her crew completed voyage after successful voyage, and it appeared that she was not cursed at all. On the contrary, there seemed to be an angel of mercy resting on her bow, for in all the years of successful voyages Witchcraft lost nary a single hand.

Then came that fateful voyage four months passed.

As I have already stated, I cannot in all good conscience swear that the reports set forth in this account are wholly accurate, for I was not aboard Witchcraft on said voyage and therefore did not experience first hand the terrors which purportedly ensued. The task set forth for reporters of news in this modern day is a wholly clinical one, which leaves no room for embellishment. Thus stated, I will pronounce the facts without embellishment, as accurately and as skillfully as the information at hand will allow.

What follows is an account verbatim by Witchcraft’s first mate, Joshua Whitney, following the strange and untimely events on board said ship while en route to England in March, the year of our lord, eighteen hundred and ninety seven.

As reprinted from the Boston Herald, April 16, 1897.

“We sailed from Philadelphia on February 9, loaded with grain and lumber and bound for Liverpool. On the morning of the twenty-seventh a sea boarded us, sweeping the decks clean, staving all boats except for one, and smashing things generally. The Witchcraft, a sturdy vessel, had withstood worse in her day, and Capt. Ellis was certain she could hold up under whatever nature saw fit to throw at her. The men were not so sure. There had been a feeling of unease amongst the crew from day one of this particular voyage, and slowly, as the storm encompassed us, that atmosphere blossomed into something near dread.

The reason for the crew’s unease, besides the gale, was, of course, the presence of Mrs. Ellis herself, the captain’s wife, who was nearly full term with child. No man in his right mind puts to sea with a pregnant woman, but the captain’s word was law and the crew dared not question him. Also aboard on this voyage—which was not unusual—was the captain’s Negro servant, known to the crew and myself merely as Williams.

It was early afternoon, March 3, six days into the tempest. We were floundering, not making much headway. The men were exhausted. I was in charge. We hadn’t seen the captain in nearly twenty-four hours.

There came a series of agonizing screams, a keening uluation, the likes of which I had never before heard. We all knew that they were coming from the captain’s quarters and that Lady Amelia must be the one making the racket. Rumor was that Lady Amelia had gone to term early and was delivering the child prematurely. We learned later that the lady in question had indeed given birth, but had died in the process. We were all quite grieved by this terrible news. The child was saved, however, but none of the hands ever saw the purported baby girl.

Rumor spread like fire amongst the crew and it told of a cursed child.

That very afternoon the storm began to subside somewhat and we were all grateful. What we didn’t realize was, we were in the eye of the hurricane. A ship was spotted several hundred yards to leeward. She was listing badly, but after heaving to and signaling, it was determined that she was a ghost ship (which in modern seafaring terms means that she had been deserted some time ago) because no return signal was forthcoming.

The captain had come above deck by this time and he looked drawn and pallid. His eyes were dulled, and haunted. He did not speak much and no one dared approach him.

Well, the captain surveyed the ghost ship with his glass and determined that there was a lantern aglow on her decks. How a lantern could stay lit in such a gale was beyond me, and I told the captain so. But he just looked at me in that odd, dull way and I knew in that moment that he must be suffering greatly with the loss of Lady Amelia..

After a brief—and somewhat heated—consultation between the captain and myself it was decided to heave too for a second time and go to the assistance of the ship which was drifting far to leeward by then. Just before dark we had worked up as close to the stranger as we dared—given the uncertainty of the tempest—and we hove too under a goose-wing main topsail.

We ran across her stern, hailing as we passed, and sure enough, a lone man appeared on her deck just standing there motionless in the midst of that gale.

It was evident that we could not dally a moment longer, for the storm was once again burgeoning and the ghost ship was now taking on heavy amounts of water and listing severely to starboard. It was determined that she would not last the night. At any rate, Captain Ellis immediately sent the lone whaleboat under my command to the sailor’s relief. By this time night had fallen. It was pitch-dark and to add to our misfortunes, a sudden ice storm set in. Seas were twenty-five feet and we were unsure if the whaleboat would even hold up under such conditions. We slowly bridged the gap between the Witchcraft and the ghost ship, however. In time she could be seen as a dark shadow in the roiling cauldron of the sea. We hailed the stranger but to no avail. If indeed he had ever had a voice, it was now silent. I made the decision to stay with the whaleboat while the other five hands went aboard in search of the man. We managed to grab a dragging line. I tied her off and the men scrambled up her listing hull, deck-side.

After a time my men were back, sliding back down the rope, and with them, the stranger, who carried with him a rather large vessel of some kind. At first I thought it was a seaman’s chest, but the more I gazed at it the more un-convinced I became of its identity. The look of it was quite disturbing. Whenever I chanced a glance toward it I got this most dreadful feeling. The shape wasn’t exactly right either, and to be truthful it seemed to change its shape with each passing scrutiny. Some sort of strange animal-like hide seemed to be stretched over it, scaly, like that of a reptile, black and deep purple in color, and the illusion was that it pulsed like some terrible beating heart, as if it contained something alive. But in all honesty, I cannot now swear to any of these assertions. It was dark, the tempest was raging and I was very tired and frightened.

The vessel appeared quite heavy and cumbersome, but the gentlemen did not seem at all burdened by its weight or mass. He stood straight and undaunted by it, sliding down the rope with one extraordinarily long arm looped around its massive bulk while using the other hand to descend. When two of my men came to his aid and offered to help him the man shook his head resolutely but did not utter a single word. Instead there was something in his eyes that made us not wish to challenge him. He was an odd-looking fellow, quite tall and thin, light complexioned, with skin like wax. He did not speak, but kept to himself, and after that first encounter would not meet my eyes directly. I became quite nervous. From the moment he and that strange vessel came aboard the whaleboat I felt something was not quite right. The men had also become edgy with the stranger aboard and there were looks in their eyes that had not been there before departing the whaleboat, strange, almost haunted looks.

We made our way back to the Witchcraft safely and the captain greeted our guest with standard protocol. There were words exchanged between the captain and the stranger but the storm was noisy, I was busy setting the riggings and I did not catch what was said. The stranger was shown to his quarters—not once relinquishing the massive trunk to any of the men—and then he was back with the captain—evidently leaving the trunk behind. It was decided that explanations could wait till morning, for the storm was burgeoning with a fury we had not yet seen. All that night the stranger worked silently beside us, and just before dawn he slipped away. Nobody saw him again.

In the morning, the captain’s beloved Amelia was buried at sea. The stranger did not appear. Later two men were assigned to find him. Those two men became sick with fever and died. Neither the stranger nor the odd-looking vessel of which he’d carried aboard was ever again seen.

It was said that Williams had stayed below to care for the captain’s newborn child, for he was not seen again until the end of the voyage, when he hastily left the ship carrying a bundle that might or might not have been a child.

One thing was certain, however. The voyage had become cursed. Following the death of the two hands, Captain Ellis decided to make way back to homeport. The next night three more hands became sick with fever.

A terrible disease ensued and burial at sea became commonplace. Some men on board had taken to praying that Witchcraft would never reach her destination. And they were right in doing so, for no one wished to carry this strange and deadly malady home to loved ones.

Nevertheless, amid ferocious seas and an infuriating tempest that dogged us nearly the whole way we set sail for James Village. It was a nightmare voyage, men becoming sick and dying in the most horrible way. Upon arriving in homeport, all but Captain Ellis, three others and myself were gone. There were twenty-three in all who had perished.

In dry-dock Witchcraft was thoroughly searched. Not a plank was left unturned. But no sign of the stranger and his odd vessel was ever found. The Witchcraft was subsequently scuttled, set adrift upon the surface of the St. James River and burned to the waterline as the families of the dead stood in the glare of the great river pyre, weeping and cursing God for his cruelty.”

Upon reading the account of First Mate Joshua Whitney in the Boston Herald, this reporter made the decision to post a letter to Capt. Ellis who reportedly, since the tragedy, had been holed up at his residence in the small sea-faring hamlet of James Village. Within a fortnight I received a return reply stating that my presence would be welcomed for an interview if so desired. The captain said that there had been so much speculation concerning the ill-fated voyage that he had decided to set the record straight once and for all. The good captain also informed me that he would send coach and driver to the Portland station on specified time and date.

I was delighted, and hastily made arrangements for my departure.

I am delighted no longer. I have been a prisoner here at Ellis Manor for quite a long stretch of time. I am uncertain as to how many days and nights have passed, for the darkness is all pervading and the fever has kept me somewhat delirious and tied to bed. Williams, the manservant sees to my every need. Although he is far from a talkative chap he has managed to make clear some very important details of my residency: a warning against drawing the curtains open in daylight hours, for one thing. I have not been in a position to argue, for with the fever, I have discovered that even a single shaft of sunlight is enough to cause my head to spin wildly with agony. What is this strange and terrible sickness that has befallen me? I pray for deliverance, but as each day passes I fear that I have become infected with the same fever that took the lives of so many hands aboard Witchcraft.

As of yet I have not been granted the promised interview with Captain Ellis. Furthermore I have not laid eyes on the man, although a stranger has been round from time to time. I have awakened in delirium and found him standing above the bed staring curiously down at me.

It seems that, for the time being, at least, I have become a prisoner here in this cold stone manner house, a house that as far as I can determine is both beautiful and strangely disturbing. In the night I hear strange noises from somewhere within the walls of this mysterious place and my fevered dreams are filled with the sounds of silvery laughter, as if from the mouth of a child, followed thereafter by blood-curdling screams. And in my delirium I see flaming eyes, blood-red lips, and sharp, terrible fangs. The only explanation for these strange and horrifying delusions—the only explanation I will allow myself to entertain—is of course, this cursed fever.

I know not how much longer I will be forced to wait here in this nightmare house for an interview with Captain Ellis, but since eating the warm, red porridge my spirits and general health seem to be on the upswing, and I have decided to relate to the best of my recollection the events of the past several days, beginning when the chartered coach entered the village proper, and I will try to convey as best I can the strong sense of fear and unreality that overtook me from that moment on until now.

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

New fiction: My Leona
Current mood:

thankful
Category: Writing and Poetry

"My Leona"©2004 Mark Edward Hall, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.


                                       My Leona
                                            by

Mark Edward Hall

Leona: miraculously young again, curvy, soft; blue eyes glistening; hovering above me, magically naked, like a gossamer goddess suspended on invisible marionette wires. My lovely Leona; rose-colored lips slightly parted, drifting slowly into my open arms. I am yanked suddenly out of the dream by a sound I cannot at first identify. Left gasping for breath, grasping for the Leona that no longer exists.

“What the . . .?” I start to rise.

“Rats,” Leona mutters sleepily beside me.

“What?”

“In the cellar. I think we’ve got rats.”

“Christ!” I squeeze my eyes closed trying to reconcile what I had heard with what I had been dreaming. I lie back down and listen. The noise is gone. It hadn’t sounded like rats to me. But what do I know? In those dreams anything is possible. Perversely I believe in the dreams which are far more realistic to me now than the sterile, bickering world in which Leona and I have grown to occupy. I don’t tell that to Leona, though. And I never tell her about the dreams.

“Go back to sleep,” she says, her voice softly muffled against the pillow, strangely comforting. “You can find out in the morning.”

I do not argue, but neither am I able to recapture sleep, not to mention the vision of my young Leona, the way she once was, the light in her eyes, the parted lips, the soft swell of her breasts; instead I spend the rest of the night tossing, waiting for dawn to lighten the room, and praying that the sound of metal scraping against dry, pebbly soil will not return.

“You’re a crazy, paranoid old man, Harold,” Leona says, when in the morning I tell her what the noise had reminded me of. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Metal scraping on soil? She glares at me through those hideous glasses that she wears and suddenly I feel as mute as a mannequin. Nuts! That’s what she calls me these days, but if I am nuts, it’s Leona that’s making me that way.

Things have not been good for us in a very long time. The truth is, I can no longer stand being around her. Looking at her, especially at those awful glasses she insists on wearing, revolts me. They’re narrow with pink plastic frames studded with rhinestones, and they turn up at the ends like the fins of a fifty-nine Cadillac. But the glasses aren’t the only antiquated things about Leona, although they’re probably the most repulsive. She refuses to have them updated. She says they fit her style perfectly. I suppose she’s right. Her style is drab, boring. Her hair has gone gray (she won’t even consider having it colored) and most of the time she wears it pulled back in a tight bun. Left over from her days as a school teacher. She retired two years ago. Her body has lost its curves. Now she’s thick through the middle, shapeless, and I never see her in anything but faded housedresses. It’s no wonder that dream haunts me.

Leona’s not afraid of much, but she’s afraid when I drink, I can tell, although she never says anything about it. Just stays out of my way, glaring balefully at me from around corners. Lately I’ve been drinking too much. Even I know that. I’ve been retired five years and there doesn’t seem to be much else to do except drink, wander around the house and wait for that dark void to come and claim me.

These days, my only saving grace seems to be the dream of Leona when she was young. I can’t explain why it has taken over my life. In reality, the dream woman is far better than the young Leona I once knew. I should not kid myself about that. Inexplicably the dream seems to have sexual undertones. I don’t understand it. For a very long time now sex has been virtually non-existent in my life. Could it be a subconscious last-ditch attempt to capture a dynamic that never really existed between us? I don’t know. Christ, nothing seems real anymore. Except that noise, of course. The sound of metal scraping against dry, pebbly soil.

“They’re rats,” she insists, although I haven’t challenged her. “They’re chewing on something. Electric wiring or worse. You’d better do something about it soon, Harold before all hell breaks loose.”

I just stand there looking fixedly at her, sorry I’d mentioned it. Sorry I’d gotten out of bed. Sorry I’d been born.

I turn and slump away from her defiant stare, trying to come to grips with going down into the cellar. It is a dark and gloomy place. I’ve never liked it much, and furthermore I’ve never been able to articulate those feelings very clearly. They belong to someone else, I think. They come from a place inside of me that I don’t recognize, a place that frightens me even more than the cellar does.

Down there is where we keep our laundry appliances and deep freeze, and I’ve got a wine rack with maybe a hundred bottles on it. I like wine. Especially the hearty reds. They’re supposed to be good for the health. Lately I’ve been thinking about moving the rack up here so that it’s closer at hand. In truth it’s because I do not want to go down there. The dreams of my young Leona and my fear of that noise have become too closely linked. I don’t understand the connection and I fear what I don’t understand. So now I send Leona down when I need a bottle and she’s the one who does the laundry. That way I don’t have to deal with it.

Half the cellar is crawl space; hard-packed soil with a quarter inch layer of dust covering it. The other half, the half with the appliances, the furnace and the wine rack is dug out, lined with rocks, has a cement floor with long jagged fissures running through it. And it’s not deep enough for me. I’m a tall guy. Six-foot-one. I have to bend down like an arthritic, and usually end up cracking my head on a furnace pipe or a floor joist. It really pisses me off when that happens.

I hesitate a moment too long.

“Come on, Harold, be a man.”

She has a way of making me feel smaller than my six-foot-one frame. The anger and the shame meld together. Finally I snatch the flashlight off the rack and go down. Leona stands at the top of the stairs watching me go. At the bottom I switch the light on. It’s not a very bright one. A single bare forty-five watt bulb hanging from two frayed electrical cords. The only thing it manages to do is cast gloomy shadows. I point the flashlight’s beam into the crawl space looking for the source of my fear. There is nothing there, of course. But I wait, nevertheless, biding my time. Suddenly I see something, a quickly-scurrying shadow that disappears almost immediately. “Rats . . .” I breathe with astonishing relief. Leona was right. Thank God. I’m not about to crawl up there, though, through that dust and all those spider webs. I hate rats, but I hate spiders even worse. I decide to get drunk instead. On my way out of the cellar I grab three bottles of wine.

“What did you find,” Leona asks, looking at the wine with circumspect eyes.

“You were right, boss. Rats.” I uncork one of the bottles.

“Well, aren’t you going to do something about them?”

“Later.”

“Have you forgotten, I’m leaving tomorrow?”

“Leaving?”

“Yes, I’m going to Toronto to visit my sister Ruth. You’ve known for two weeks. Are you daft? I’ll be gone seven whole days. When I get back I expect this rat situation to be taken care of. Do you understand?”

I nod and head for the living room with my wine. Relief washes over me; an entire week without Leona. Now I can get drunk and dream of that soft body in peace.

Later that night, drunk, I fall into bed. Leona is already there, snoring softly. She awakens to my touch and brushes my hand away with what feels very much like revulsion. I lay there for a long time staring up at the ceiling, wondering what my life has come to. When I finally do sleep my dreams are filled with shattered images of Leona, the way she never was, the way she never will be, floating above me on gossamer threads. When I reach out to caress her, the face contorts into ridicule. For some unknown reason I feel dirty and so terribly ashamed, and for the rest of the night my dreams are filled with that awful, inexplicable sound, the sound of metal scraping against dry pebbly soil.

Sometime well after dawn I awake with a start. My head throbs with a wine hangover. Leona is no longer in bed beside me. I push the covers aside and step out onto the cool floorboards. My legs are shaky. My head wants to burst. I look at the clock and a deep feted breath escapes me when I see the time. It’s eleven AM.

In the kitchen there is a note on the table.

“I did not wish to disturb you,” the note says, in Leona’s curt and customary style. “See you in seven days. Don’t forget the rats.”

I pick the note up and crumple it in my hand. “Right,” I say, tossing it at the garbage can. “You take care of the rats.”

I am afraid to go into the cellar, so I get dressed, drive to the store and buy wine. I spend the rest of the day doing the best thing a man can do for a hangover: getting drunk. By midnight I fall into bed, and when I sleep my Leona is there, drifting above me, melding into my arms. My beautiful Leona, My soft sweet Leona. Come to me.

I am awakened suddenly by the sound of metal scraping against dry pebbly soil.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

And I am suddenly sure that it is not rats.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

How could it be? Rats do not make industrial sounds. The fear wants to stop my heart cold in my chest. I try not to let it. I lay there all sweaty, panicky, my breath ragged in my lungs. I do not dare move as those sounds completely invade my senses. I pull the pillow up over my ears and scream, but still it does not go away.

It has been nearly a week now and the sound has not stopped.

Scrape, scrape, scrape, it goes, all day and all night in a never ending cacophony of grating noise that fills my senses and has most probably taken my sanity. The image of my young, beautiful Leona has stopped as well, and for that I am sorry. As much as I hate to admit it, I really miss her. The laundry’s piling up and I’m running low on wine. I don’t want to go into the cellar, but I know I must eventually. Something is waiting down there for me; I know that as well, and sooner or later I will have to face it.

Finally, when I can stand it no longer, I get my gun out of the drawer in the desk, and I go to the cellar door, open it, and walk carefully down the steps. At the bottom I switch on that dusty light, glance furtively around me looking for the demon that lives there in the dark bowels of my existence.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

At first I do not see anything because my eyes haven’t adjusted to the dim light.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

But then I look down and see the dried blood on the cracked concrete floor, and the drag marks across the dust that covers the hard-packed soil of the crawl space. And the shovel is there, lying askew in the dirt. And then I see the mound of loose soil where the hole has been dug and refilled, and Leona’s shattered glasses are lying there in the dusty clay as if they have been angrily stepped on. I look stupidly down at the gun in my hand, open the chamber and notice that only five of the cylinders are occupied with live rounds. I look back into the crawlspace searching for that peripheral movement. But now I don’t see it. And finally, thankfully, that scraping sound has stopped. Leona was right about one thing. She said I was nuts, and I refused to believe her, but now, dear God in heaven, I can see that she was right.

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American Gods: A Novel
By Neil Gaiman
Release date: 2003-09-02

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Friday, April 24, 2009

New Fiction: The Comfort of a Stranger
Category: Writing and Poetry

"The Comfort of a Stranger"©2004 Mark Edward Hall, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.

Here's a new story. Hope you like it. I had to make the font small in order to get it all into the space these blogs allow. I didn't want to do it in two parts.

~Mark

The Comfort of a Stranger

By Mark Edward Hall

They met at the ruins of Saint Michael’s Cathedral. The city was razing it to make room for a new subway station. The police had roped the area off and posted guards along its perimeter, hoping to keep the curious away. It hadn’t done much good. The news of the crypt’s discovery spread quickly in the neighborhood and there had been an influx of pedestrians throughout the day. Most had gone away disappointed, however. The authorities were adamant in their protection of the site and maddeningly clandestine about what had been discovered there. Rumor was that they had uncovered a strange breed of humanoids, long dead and forgotten, buried beneath the cathedral.
     Danielle knew that such rumors were easily fabricated and just as easily dispelled; nevertheless she had been perversely drawn to the demolition. She’d gone there that evening after reading a short piece in the morning paper. An earlier rain had ceased and the streets were streaked with silvery puddles. It was late October and a cool wet wind blew around her bare legs. She pulled her wool coat around her and stood staring into the ruins shivering. The site was now deserted. There were no guards, and the excavated catacombs all appeared empty. Sadly she had come too late for any sort of glimpse.
     “A pity, don’t you think?”
     She started and whirled. A tall, thin man in a gray overcoat stood beside her at the barricade staring into the empty catacombs. His features were fine, feline, almost feminine, and curiously unlined. If not for the timbre of his voice, and the slight gray stubble on his chin, Danielle would have had trouble identifying him as anything but androgynous.
     He had appeared out of nowhere. Impossible, Danielle knew. She’d simply spaced out again. It was a reasonable diagnosis. Her grief, coupled with the medication, had recently brought on strange blank spaces, long hours of depression, and spats of daydreaming.
     “A pity?” she asked.
     “That we didn’t get to see the strange beings before they carted them all off.” The man smiled.
     “You heard the rumors,” Danielle said.
     “Oh yes. Hard to miss.”
     “And you believed them?”
     “Why does that surprise you?”
     “I don’t know.”
     “You didn’t?”
     Danielle gave a small, nervous laugh. “No, not really.”
     The man had turned to face her, his hand extended. “Decker,” he said. “John Decker.” His eyes were small and pale, their color indefinable. Danielle took his hand, even though she did not want to. It was cold, as she’d expected.
     “Danielle Gray,” she said, pulling her hand back and tucking it into the sleeve of her overcoat, hoping she could warm it again.
     “Pleasure,” Decker said. “What I meant was—”
     “You believe, right?” Danielle interrupted. “That’s all that counts.” She turned back toward the ruins, as if to dismiss him.
     “I think there are so many things about this life that we don’t yet understand. Don’t you?”
     “Yeah, I suppose so.”
     “You don’t sound very convinced.”
     “I have my own beliefs.”
     The stranger watched Danielle for a long moment. She could feel his cold, colorless eyes on her.
     “Exactly what were the rumors?” he asked. “Do you know?”
     Danielle shivered hugging her arms to her bosom. “Freaks of some kind. The paper called them humanoids. Supposedly they were all small, like children, and not properly decomposed. Something to do with the lack of oxygen beneath the church.”
     “I see,” said Decker. “Is it possible that they were children?”
     Danielle shrugged. “Their physiology was . . . different.”
     “How so?”
     Danielle turned back to the stranger. “Their faces were distorted in some way . . . I don’t know. Like they were all screaming or something. Whenever things like this happen people make up stories.”
     “So you think it was all a fabrication?”
     Danielle frowned. “The authorities aren’t talking. Do you have business here?”
     “No. Just a curious citizen, like you. These dead . . . humanoids. Where do you suppose they took them?”
     “The morgue, I imagine. Look, I told you, I don’t believe the rumors. And I really have to be going. I’m not sure why I came here.” She turned to leave.
     “You were searching for something,” the stranger said, freezing Danielle in her tracks. She reluctantly turned back to him. His colorless eyes held hers.
     “What are you talking about?”
     “Something . . . terrible has happened, some catastrophe. And you were hoping to find answers here.”
     Danielle gave a short nervous little laugh. “That’s ridiculous . . .”
     “Is it?”
     Danielle lowered her head. “I haven’t been well.”
     “Would you like to talk about it?”
     “No.”
     “No?”
      Her eyes were drawn back to his. “I don’t know who you are.”
     “Does it matter?”

     Since the deaths and the recent breakdown she’d been staying at the boarding house in Jackson Heights. It was a room, a place to lay her head down and hang her clothes until she could get back on her feet. Nothing more. These days her expectations were low.
     She’d found a job at the homeless shelter. It only paid minimum wage twenty hours a week but it covered the rent and she got her meals there.
     She’d surprised herself by telling the stranger to come later. She knew that most of the other residents—all of them elderly—turned in early. She’d told him to be discreet, that a few of the more restless had taken to wandering the corridors in the night and she wasn’t sure how they’d react if they saw a strange man. She told him she’d be waiting at the back door. She paced restlessly, smoking a cigarette, wondering if he’d come, decidedly edgy with anticipation. At quarter past ten there came a soft knock. She opened it and let him in.
     They’d gone immediately to her room and had made love. Or rather the stranger had. Danielle had felt nothing. His body, pressed against hers, was cold. Like embracing an emptiness. When he was done he rolled off her. She lay on her back for a long time, silently staring up at the ceiling. After a while she reached for the pack of cigarettes on the bedside stand, tapped one into her hand, placed it between her lips, and lit it with a plastic lighter. She inhaled deeply letting the smoke trickle slowly from her nostrils. The encounter had been her first in more than a year. After what had happened she’d been unsure if she could ever have sex again. She looked over at the stranger. Even though she felt no sexual attraction, something about his soft, almost feminine features and his coldness attracted her.
     “Was it all right?” he asked her.
     “It was okay,” she admitted, wondering if he would take offense at her candor.
     The stranger frowned. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “I’m just curious, you understand.”
     She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just to see if I could. It’s been a while.”
     “I see.”
     “You’re hurt.”
     “No.”
     She took one last drag on her cigarette and stabbed it out in the ashtray. She rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow facing him. “How about you? Did you enjoy it?”
     “Yes, Danielle,” he replied. “I enjoyed it very much.”
     Danielle stared into his colorless eyes, blank and featureless. She was shivering. “Back at the ruins,” she said. “You mentioned some catastrophe. You said that I’d gone there in search of answers.”
     “Ah.” Decker nodded sagely.
     “How did you know that?”
     “It was a lonely place. You were alone. What other conclusion might I have drawn?”
     She stared at him. “No. It was more than that. Somehow you knew.”
     He was staring at her breasts as if he was trying to read something from them. Feeling cold and self conscious she pulled the sheet up to cover herself.
     “You’ve had children,” Decker said.
     “It’s that obvious, huh?”
     “A woman’s breasts tell a lot about her. How many?”
     “Three,” she said, and began to weep.
     “That’s what you were doing at the cathedral ruins,” Decker said. “Searching for your lost children.”
     Danielle stared at Decker in awe. How could he know such a thing? How could a complete stranger know the secret heart of another? He was right, of course, but until this very moment even Danielle had been unaware of why she’d been drawn to those ruins. What could that place possibly tell her about her children? Decker shifted his weight and the sheet fell away from his body. He was white and thin, androgynous. His ribs shown through stretched skin. His shrunken penis and miniscule sack lay limp against the paleness of his flesh.
     “How did they die, Danielle?”
     “I left them at home with a babysitter to go out for the evening. There was a . . . fire. It was nobody’s fault. Something with the wiring. The babysitter had fallen asleep.”
     “You say it was nobody’s fault, yet you blame yourself?”
     Danielle nodded, unable to reply. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She wondered where they were coming from. She thought she’d lost the capacity to shed them.
     Decker looked at her with concern. “It must have been a very traumatic experience.”
     “Yes. Yes it was.”
     “Please, tell me exactly what happened.”
     “I don’t really know many of the details. The entire episode is rather sketchy in my mind. They tell me I had some sort of breakdown. It took me months to convalesce. Upon my release I was handed an urn of ashes. I was told that the fire burned with such intensity that individual bodies were unidentifiable. The ashes of what I was told were my babies are buried in a single grave in the old Cross Cemetery at Arlington Heights. I go there as often as I can and put flowers on it.”
     “I see,” said Decker. “You’ll have to take me there sometime, show me.”
     “What on earth for?”
     “I like places of death,” he said. “I always have. Cemeteries have their own kind of charm, don’t you think? Some of the finest properties have been used to bury the dead. Tombs, mausoleums, some of the finest architecture. That says something about man’s reverence for the lost.”
     Danielle did not know how to reply. She wasn’t sure she shared the stranger’s enthusiasm for death.
     “What were you doing the night your children died, Danielle?”
     “I told you, I was out for the evening.”
     Decker nodded. “Yes, that’s right, you did. But what were you doing?”
     Danielle stared at Decker for a long moment, understanding somehow that he already knew the answer to his own question. “Who are you, Mr. Decker?”
     “Please, call me John. Now that we’re intimate . . . well . . . I think it would be appropriate. Don’t you?”
     “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
     “I think you are, Danielle. Come now, confessions can sometimes be good for the soul.” The stranger smiled, and for the first time Danielle got a good look at his teeth. They seemed very small, like those in the mouth of a fish. Danielle was suddenly repulsed.
     “I’ve done enough confessing for one night,” Danielle said, getting out of bed. “I don’t think I’m up for any more. Please, I’d like you to leave now.”
     The stranger got out of bed and dressed in silence. Danielle, the sheet still wrapped around her, watched him. After he left she felt sick, and ran into the bathroom to throw up.

     It began to rain lightly again before dawn. Unable to sleep, Danielle got out of bed, dressed and went outside.
     She drifted uneasily along the rain-slicked sidewalks, depressed by the drab storefronts and apartment blocks that flanked the street. All the buildings seemed empty, windows blanked out against dark, silent rooms. As dawn rose, cold white light engulfed the city, washing away all other colors.
     Danielle was mildly surprised to find herself back at the ruins of St. Michael’s. She’d had no real destination in mind when she’d left her room. Nothing had changed here, she saw. The workmen had not yet returned. The catacombs were still empty.
     Danielle closed her eyes and remembered walking aimlessly away from the police station the morning after her children had perished. The city had been hidden under a soft veil of mist. Much like today. She’d gone to the park and had sat on a bench wet with dew, feeling the rain run through her hair and down her cheeks like tears. She’d never felt so vacant. She’d left the bench and had walked into the deepest part of the park. Glistening leaves left wet smears on her skin as she wandered aimlessly through the undergrowth. The silence was like the city holding its breath. Everything seemed empty, nothing alive. She came to a small lake and began walking into it, feeling nothing, wondering how long it would take for them to find her body.
     She’d come awake in a hospital. A passer-by had found her floating and had saved her life. Months of therapy and rehabilitation followed.
     In time she’d been informed that she was healing well and could return to a normal life whenever she felt capable. A normal life? That was a laugh. How could anything about her life ever again be normal?
     Turning her attention back to the ruins she decided to duck under the rope and go in for a closer inspection of the empty catacombs. The mist had begun to abate and she knew that at any moment workmen would begin arriving and her chance would be missed. There was something else here besides her. An emptiness that felt somehow alive. She could sense it. Behind her . . . or just ahead. She couldn’t quite see it but she knew that it was here, nevertheless. Danielle stood gazing into the empty crypts, concentrating, aching, knowing.
     “You feel them, don’t you, Danielle?”
     Danielle was not surprised at the sound of the stranger’s voice. She supposed that some part of her had been expecting him to show up.
     “What am I supposed to be . . . feeling?”
     “Something,” said the stranger. “Anything. It’s been so long since you’ve allowed yourself to feel.”
     Danielle turned to the stranger. “What’s going on? How do you know what I feel or don’t feel? Who are you?”
     “You came here in search of answers,” Decker replied. “I’m just trying to offer a little comfort.” He raised his arm and pointed into the ruins. “They’re here, you know. You just have to go in and find them.”
     Danielle shook her head, backing away. “No!” she said. “You’re crazy.”
     “Are you absolutely sure that everything happened the way you think it happened, Danielle?”
     Danielle turned and hurried away from the stranger, not looking back, but she heard his laughter, like the sound of breaking glass.

She’d made it only halfway down the block before curiosity got hold of her and she stopped and glanced back. The stranger was still standing in the midst of the ruins staring at something she couldn’t see. She tried to see the expression on his face. She thought for a moment that he was screaming, but the city had come to life and with its noise she could not tell. Everything seemed so twisted, so uncertain.
She looked at her watch, surprised to see that she was late for work. What the hell would she tell them? Oh bullshit! Who cared what they did. They could fire her. She hated the job anyway.
     A Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the curb and Danielle recognized the man sitting behind the wheel. He kept glancing at her through the window, a look of astonishment on his face. She tried to ignore him and kept walking, but the car kept pace.
     “Hey, Danielle,” the man called through the open window. “Is that you? Jesus, I thought you were dead. What happened? Where have you been?”
     “Working at the homeless shelter.”
     “What? Are you kidding me?”
     Danielle shook her head.
     “Well, when are you coming back to work for me, girl?” The man’s voice sounded hurt, almost pleading.
     “When hell freezes over.”
     “Oh, don’t be that way, Danielle. You were one of my best girls. One of my best money makers.”
     “I don’t give a shit about you or your lousy money, Jimmy. I have a new life now. So fuck off.”
     Jimmy laughed. “Life?” he said, his voice filled with incredulity. “I haven’t seen you in months and now you tell me you’re working at a homeless shelter. I’m finding this really hard to believe.” The car stopped abruptly. Jimmy got out and swiftly approached Danielle. “You better not be holding out on me, girl—”
     Danielle pulled a hand gun out of her coat pocket and pressed the muzzle against Jimmy’s forehead, cocking the hammer with her thumb. “I paid with the lives of my children because of the things I did for you, asshole.”
     Jimmy backed away, his hands in the air. “That fire was an accident, Danielle. Jesus Christ, it wasn’t my fault.”
     “If I’d been at home with my children instead of out with one of your perverted tricks, they might still be alive.”
     Jimmy’s face crumbled. “You’ll pay for this, you bitch,” he said, his voice filled with hate.
     “What will you do, asshole, kill me?” Danielle laughed. “If you try you’d better make it good. I’ve got mental problems now, you know. I’m certified. I could blow your ass away and walk within a year. So, if you’re smart you’ll get back in that piece of shit pimpmobile of yours and get the fuck out of here.”
     Jimmy did as he was told, stumbling toward the driver’s door, his face purple with rage. Danielle’s trembling hands held the revolver pointed at him. “You’re dead, girl!” he screamed. “Dead! Dead! Dead! Do you hear me?” The sound of his voice was like syncopated hammer blows in Danielle’s ears.

Danielle went back to her room. She paced back and forth across the floor, unsure what to do. She lit a cigarette, hands shaking. There was a small cubby at the foot of the bed, too small to be considered a closet. She opened the door and pulled out a small cardboard box. She sat the box on the bed looking at it for a long time, waiting— thinking. She dropped the lit cigarette onto the floor and crushed it out beneath her shoe. She sat down on the bed and opened the box. Inside there were drawings her children had made and given her. They were the only things salvaged from her other life. The only evidence her children had ever existed. It had been more than a year since she’d looked at them. She carefully lifted the sheets of paper out of the box smoothing them with her fingers as she did so. One by one she put the sheets to her lips and began kissing them as though she could taste her children on them. She pressed them against her face, hearing the noise her eyelashes made as they scratched against the paper. Tears flowed from her eyes and onto the drawings. But the wetness from her tears seemed to be distorting the images. What once had been happy moon-faces with wide smiles and bright eyes now looked like demons with black gaping mouths. Each nose had become a jagged red gash; the eyes were dark sinkholes of despair. And the twisted faces seemed to be screaming in abject agony. The more Danielle wept the more the images morphed into visions of horror and despair. Danielle could almost hear their shrieking voices. She began pulling more sheets from the box, looking at them, spilling tears on them. Now they were all the same. Tortured faces with gaping mouths and abysmal eyes. Was this some new pathos she would have to endure, or had the images been this way from the beginning? Had she just refused to see the truth?
     Are you absolutely sure that everything happened the way you think it happened, Danielle?
     She quickly put the images back in the box and buried it beneath some old clothes in the closet. She sat on the bed smoking cigarettes until nearly all the light had drained out of the day.
     She kept thinking about herself and the stranger, how his cold body had pressed against hers, feeling like an emptiness. They were like two dead things floating on the surface of a lake.
     Twilight came on the heels of a cold, dry wind and clear skies. The dampness had moved on across the Atlantic Ocean to settle into someone else’s bones. She approached the ruins just as evening’s shadows began to descend over them. She stopped at the rope, gazing into the heart of the partially demolished cathedral. It was as if the workmen had totally abandoned the project. Everything seemed exactly as it had earlier, abysmal, depressing, an emptiness unto itself. She ducked under the barricade making her way toward the heart of the crypt. Footsteps followed her, keeping a short distance. She did not turn to identify her pursuer, confident as she was in his identity. She stopped where the catacombs began. There were square indentations in the earth where bodies had once lain. She stared into them.
     What sort of bodies had they been? Human? Something else?
     In the darkness just beyond the catacombs she saw three small standing forms, unmoving. She could see no individual features, however. They were just ghosts, shadows cast by the very same darkness that had plagued her life for so long.
     “Why?” she asked.
     “You needed comfort,” said the stranger.
     “And you were the one sent to offer it.”
     “You needed to see what you have refused all along to see.”
     “That my children are dead?”
     “No, Danielle. You’ve always accepted that.”
     “What then?”
     “Remember the day at the park, the morning after your children . . . well.”
     “Yes, the day I walked into the lake . . . a man came along and . . . saved . . . me.” She stared at the stranger, studying him. God, why had she not recognized him sooner? She’d felt it in his coldness, seen it in the paleness of his flesh, in his thin, nearly emaciated body. And she’d heard it in his words. Yes, every one had been a clue, but she hadn’t had the sense to pick up on it. “It was you.”
     Decker gave a short bow. “At your service, Danielle.”
     “But you didn’t save me,” Danielle said. “You didn’t even try. In fact you dragged me under. Why, for God’s sake?
     “I was sent to give you comfort.”
     “Comfort?”
     “From the moment your children died you were wracked with grief. You blamed yourself. You wanted death. It is why you walked into the lake, is it not?”
     “But I lived.”
     “Are you absolutely sure about that, Danielle?”
     “Who are you?”
     The stranger stared.
     “No,” Danielle said, backing away. “I don’t believe you.” She closed her eyes, now not wanting to see. She wondered what she would find if she returned to her room. Would there be a lock on the door? A sign that said vacancy? Would there be a box filled with children’s drawings hidden under a stack of clothing in a cubby that wasn’t large enough to be a closet? Had everything that had happened in the past year been some colossal and twisted deception?
     “Open your eyes, Danielle. See the wonders.”
     Danielle obeyed the stranger. She opened her eyes and stared. The ruins were filled with death, she saw, dozens, perhaps hundreds of small creatures occupied the vast space there. There were black gaping mouths and sunken eye sockets. Each nose was a jagged red gash; the eyes were dark sinkholes of despair. And the twisted faces seemed to be screaming in abject agony. Just like in the pictures her children had drawn and left for her to discover and shed tears over. Had they somehow known about this? Had they known that this is where they would end up?
     “The children have gathered here for centuries,” Decker said.
     “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
     “You needed to see for yourself. Now, sadly they are being disturbed and they need a guardian to show them the way.”
     “But I don’t know . . . how.”
     “I think you do, Danielle.”
     Danielle stared into the ruins, at the carnival of wickedness that had gathered there. It was a veritable festival of rot and suffering, absurdly beautiful in its grotesquery. Her children were there among them, of course, the architects of her demise, all three of them, standing at the forefront, waiting to be taken home.
     “There, see what you’ve been missing,” Decker said.
     “Yes, I see,” Danielle replied. “Life only allows us a partial glimpse of what actually exists, doesn’t it?”
     “Ah, now you believe.”
     “I have finally found my children. That’s all that counts.”
     The stranger nodded and gave a slight smile. He was death, of course, his business here finished, at least for the moment. But death would soon again beckon in all its myriad complexities and peculiarities, and he’d be off to usher it forth. It was the way of life, after all. Why had it taken her so long to see this simple truth? Danielle took hold of the stranger’s cold hand and together they moved into the heart of the ruins toward the shadows that awaited them on the other side.

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Part 2, The Hero of Elm Street
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creative

Although I call myself a horror writer, horror is not all that I write. There does, however, have to be a certain measure of magic in all of the stories I write.

The following tale is close to my heart. It is basically a ghost story with elements of magic and wonder. It is a longish story, just shy of 10,000 words, a lot to ask of someone who is sitting and staring at a computer screen. For those who choose to take the leap of faith and read it, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope the magic infects you. For those who don’t, I thank you as well, for bearing with me through all of the stories on this blog and for those that are yet to come.

Note: This is Part 2. If you’ve stumbled across this blog and are a little bit confused, just go to Part 1 and I promise it will all make sense.

Mark....

The Hero of Elm Street

Part 2

“The very next night and exactly two weeks before Jimmy’s coming home party, I had a vision. It was the strongest vision I’d had the whole winter. I awoke in the night and Jimmy was standing at the foot of our bed, and he said, “‘Lulu, on the day of the party I want you to go out back, open the barn door and fashion a ramp up into the barn. I’d like to surprise everyone at the party with a grand entrance.’

“For a moment I didn’t understand, and then, suddenly I remembered the motorcycle Jimmy had bought before he’d gone off to war and I realized what he must be planning. I was a little uneasy about the way he’d communicated the message to me, mind you. It wasn’t unusual for me and Jimmy to communicate telepathically, but I will admit it was the first time I’d ever actually seen his image.

“But I did as he asked, trusting the image as only the blind can trust their remaining senses. I went about the task of organizing the party and inviting all the guests, and I never told a living soul about my vision, not even my husband.

“The day of the party finally arrived, and what a crowd it was. All of Jimmy’s brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces were in attendance. Frank and Dotty Hyde were there as well, and old Mary Simms from over on ....Pleasant Street..... Poor old dear, the rheumatism had made her spine rigid and she was bent forward so drastically she was forced to look straight down at her feet all the time. Had to be led along by her daughter, Stephy. I remember the sound of that old hickory cane she carried, tapping down on the sidewalk as she shuffled along. She was the nicest lady in the world and she wouldn’t have missed Jimmy’s coming home party if her life had depended on it.

“A lot of the kids Jimmy and I went to school with came as well. It was such a happy occasion. Jimmy was so well liked.

“Snow still lay in dirty little patches here and there around the dooryard even though it was nearing the end of April. The waters had subsided somewhat but the river still rushed by out back, brown and murky, carrying with it the remnants of an overly-healthy spring freshet.

“Like I told you before, that was the same spring Henry Ives slipped under the ice trying to get his smelt camp off. Poor Henry. It happened so quickly nobody even saw him go. One moment he was there, bigger than life and the next, he was gone, that old river swallowing him like the huge writhing snake that she is. She’s a hungry mistress you know. If you don’t treat her with the respect she deserves she’ll devour you quicker than you can say ..Androscoggin...

“So, there was a memorial service at the congregational church two weeks later, after Henry’s widow, Estelle finally accepted the fact that he wasn’t coming back. But I don’t think she ever really accepted it, if you want the truth. I remember months later, long after the last ice jam had melted and the high waters had receded, Estelle would stand down on that riverbank just staring. I’ll admit there were those who thought she had bees in her bonnet, but most folks understood what she was feeling, and they had empathy for her. Nobody knew how to help her though. Sure, there were a lot of kind, reassuring words, but there weren’t many psychiatrists back in those days.

“So, everybody was there that day, everybody except for poor Henry Ives of course. Estelle came, though, surprising the daylights out of all of us.

“Why, Estelle,” I said taking her wrap. “It’s so good to see you out and about.”

“‘Yes,’ she replied in this small, wistful voice. ‘I wasn’t really feeling up to it. But when I woke up this morning Henry was standing at the foot of my bed, and he told me that I should come. He said it would be the neighborly thing to do. He told me that Jimmy would want it that way, that he was expecting everybody in the neighborhood to be here.’

“Estelle smiled this tight little smile and sort of stared off into space and I just nodded at her. We all knew what she’d been through in the past month and folks back then made allowances. But I wished I’d have understood then the meaning of that statement. I like to believe I could have done something to change the inevitable. But of course I couldn’t have. It was already too late. I didn’t understand. There was just too much magic in the air for me to believe anything in my cozy little world could go awry. So I wished Estelle a good party and went off to attend some of the other arriving guests, not giving what she’d said a second thought.

“Elmer Hall came wheeling up in that fancy new wheelchair he’d gotten at the hospital down in Boston, that big old gin blossom of a nose of his looking like an over-ripe strawberry. You see, ever since Elmer’s accident he had taken pretty heavily to drink, because he said it helped to relieve the pain. Every once in a while you’d see him pull a silver flask from beneath his coat and take a nip. Nobody could blame him, I suppose.

“Even though there was still a lot of mud and patches of melting snow around, it was the first real lovely day we’d had all spring. By ..twelve noon.. the temperature had climbed to a whopping sixty-five degrees and Earl and I had decided to take the party out into the back yard. It couldn’t have been more perfect for what Jimmy and I had planned. The two of us had that special secret, see. A secret that had been conveyed across the great distance of time and war by some sort of magic that for lack of a better term I will call a psychic bond.

.. ..

“There was this huge cake. I’d made it the day before with help from Dotty Hyde. We’d written, ‘Welcome home, Jimmy, We Love You,’ on the top with dark green frosting. It was set up just as pretty as you please on the picnic table along side the punch bowl.

“Earl sat in his big overstuffed chair which a couple of the boys had lugged out back for him. His big masculine voice could be heard booming loudly over and above everybody else’s, telling those stories of his, his favorite pastime, and as usual he was surrounded by a group of enraptured listeners. I was flitting around here and there trying to be the good hostess. Everything was just perfect. The only thing missing was the guest of honor.

.. ..

“It is here that I will try as best I can to convey the strange sense of unreality the entire congregation experienced on that sunny April afternoon. It began with a sound. At first it was a distant droning sound beneath the festive chatter of the guests. But it grew louder with each passing second until all voices had ceased and all ears were cocked in the direction of that sound. From the back yard of Earl’s house we could see up ....Elm Street.... for nearly half a mile until a radical twist in the road blocked all view. As the droning sound grew louder a tiny black speck became visible, and it was moving down the street toward us. Everybody had stopped in mid-stride and they were staring toward that sight and that sound, and for the next few seconds it was as if we were spectators to some great and magical phenomenon. Nobody at the party could imagine what they were seeing. Motorcycles were a relatively new thing in 1918, at least in ....Topsham.., ..Maine.... they were. Most of those people were boat builders, farmers and lumbermen and didn’t get out to the big city very often. Such sights were as rare as hen’s teeth.

“Well, the machine disappeared for a few moments, behind some houses, but the sound grew louder still until it had become an angry roar. When it reappeared again it came around the corner of the house and was right there in our midst. You can imagine everybody’s shock and surprise as they stared in awe at this big and roaring two-wheeled machine that looked like an oversize bicycle with a grudge. And sitting atop her was this fellow wearing Buck Rogers goggles and one of those brown leather caps the old bi-plane pilots used to wear, with the little ear flappers blowing out in the breeze behind him. At first everybody just stood speechless, mouths wide open in shock. It was like a picture frozen in time. And you know, for a few fleeting moments it seemed that time did stop. The moment stretched out into infinity. I can still see the whole congregation in my mind, standing stark still, just like one of those moving pictures on still frame. And then suddenly everything began to move again. That’s when everybody simultaneously recognized the fellow that was piloting that strange contraption, and they all began hollering at once, ‘It’s Jimmy! It’s Jimmy! God have mercy, it’s Jimmy. Jimmy’s home.’ I was so proud I thought my heart would burst. And you know, as years pass and I recall that instant in time I truly believe that it was one of the grandest moments of my life.

“I remember Elmer Hall bellowing out from his wheelchair, ‘Lord in Heaven have mercy,’ waiving that flask in the air, drunker’n a sow in the apple squeezings. And Estelle Ives standing out there fanning herself furiously with her hand, acting like it was a hundred degrees in the shade rather than only sixty-five in the sun, looking like she might faint any second. And old Mary Simms screaming, ‘What is it? What is it?’ Because of course the poor dear couldn’t look up and see like the rest of us. It was that darned rheumatism that prevented old Mary Simms from witnessing the same supernatural phenomenon everybody else at the party saw that day.”

.. ..

“This is what happened. Jimmy just drove slowly past everyone, drifting like he was on a cloud, heading for the barn, just like we’d planned in our psychic moment more than a month before. He lifted his right hand up off the handle bar and waved, and you could see his mouth turn up into a big confident grin. That’s when the entire crowd erupted into cheers and applause.

“But as Jimmy passed by me the smile went from his face just as if somebody had passed over it with a chalk eraser, and I could see that there was an awful sad look in his eyes. I can still see it now, behind those goggles, and it makes me weak in the knees and all misty every time I think about it. Then he began to move his head back and forth slowly, as if he was trying to relay some kind of private message to me alone. I tried to decipher it, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to convey with that simple, sad gesture. But something about it made me feel all queasy inside.

“I stood frozen like a stone statue in my yellow spring dress and bonnet, watching that motorcycle pass me by, and as it went, some part of me went with it. I swear it did. Something that I’ve never been able to get back.

“Well, the next thing you know, that big old Harley Davidson machine was charging up the barn ramp like an angry bull, its rear wheel spinning on those slick boards I’d put there per order of Jimmy’s vision. Then it was gone, disappearing into the darkness beyond. All noise suddenly ceased. I swear you could have heard a pin drop. Everybody waited. All eyes were trained toward the opening in the barn waiting for Jimmy to appear, so they could all cheer and applaud the hero of ....Elm Street..... Finally Earl hollers out in that big, booming voice of his, ‘What in tarnation is that boy up to? Jimmy, get out here so everybody can welcome home the war hero.’

“I began to feel this terrible dread creep into my belly then. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what it was. From the moment Jimmy had pulled into the yard on that big motorcycle machine I’d felt that something was off center. It’s hard to explain properly being the uneducated person that I am, but I think it was that telepathy between me and Jimmy, but now it was like a radio signal that wasn’t quite on the station.

“I was trying to decide what my next move should be, when suddenly this authoritative voice spoke up and said, ‘Is this the home of Mr. Earl Coombs?’

“Everybody’s head snapped around at the same time as if they were all set on rubber necks, and who should be standing there but three men in military uniforms.

“‘Who’s asking?’ Earl said in that big, masculine voice of his.

“‘Colonel Saunders, United States Army,’ the man answered. ‘These two are my assistants, Lieutenant Judd and Sergeant Tillbrook. Are you Earl Coombs?’

“‘That’s right,’ Earl said and his eyes drew down on the colonel, and I could hear the apprehension creep into his voice. My own heart began to flutter like it might leap out of my chest any moment.

“‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Mr. Coombs,’ the colonel said. ‘Could we talk in private?’

“‘Anything you’ve got to say you can say right here in front of these folks,’ Earl said, his chin thrust forward in defiance. ‘They’re all my people.’

“‘All right,’ the colonel replied and looked around a little uncomfortably at all the staring faces. ‘It’s about your son, Lieutenant James Coombs.’

“‘Lord in heaven,’ Earl said, getting up out of his chair now and facing the colonel. ‘What’s that boy done?’

“The colonel took off his hat and was twisting it nervously in his hands. ‘He hasn’t done anything sir. You see . . . I’m afraid he’s dead.’

“Earl’s mouth began to work but there were no words coming out of it. His eyes had begun to swirl back and forth in their sockets like the eyes of a scared plow-horse. His head snapped toward the barn entrance and then back to the colonel. You could see he was confused. Everybody was confused. There was absolute silence around that yard, everybody’s mouths standing wide open.

“Again the colonel glanced around the yard at all the staring faces. “You see, sir, there was a final push against the Germans,’ the colonel said. ‘Somewhere near the River Somme. Your son was wounded in action, and later, while in the hospital he was stricken with pneumonia.’

“‘I know that,” Earl said irritably. ‘We got the letter.’

“The colonel nodded. ‘He was scheduled to be sent home but they were short of men and in the last minute he volunteered to go back behind enemy lines. He had friends there that he thought he could help protect. His commanding officer was reluctant at first, but considering the shortage of men, he decided at the last minute to honor the young man’s brave request. And, as it turned out, he . . . he . . . didn’t make it out, sir. Your son died a brave man.’ The colonel lowered his eyes to the ground, almost in embarrassment. He held a paper out to Earl who just stood there looking at it. ‘This here is a recommendation from Lieutenant James Coombs’ commanding officer,’ the colonel said. ‘Your son is going to be given the Congressional Medal of Honor. You should be very proud.’

“Earl just stood there with his mouth working in that awful way, unable to find words. As for me, I didn’t hear anything else that was said. I began to feel this hysterical little laugh starting to build up inside me and make its way toward the surface, because I knew that Jimmy couldn’t be dead. He was in the barn, for lord’s sake. We’d all seen him go. But at the same time all I could think about was those sad eyes and that smile being wiped from his face by an invisible hand. And you know, that laugh never did make it to the surface. Instead I lost control of my composure and bolted for the barn, and all those rubbernecks snapped right back around and followed me. And when I got inside and finally saw the truth I went down on my knees, my closed fists pressed against my mouth, trying to stifle the sobs. Earl came silently into the barn behind me and stood with his trembling hands resting gently on my shoulders as I sobbed. That poor, wonderful man. He had lost a son and he was the one comforting me.

“Jimmy was gone, and there was no way to ever get him back. He’d died on the very night I’d seen his vision at the foot of my bed.

“I heard Estelle Ives begin to bawl like a baby outside the barn, and all of a sudden the dream she’d told me about came back to me. And I began to understand what it meant. Henry, Estelle’s dead husband must have somehow known about Jimmy. Perhaps there’s some sort of place where the departed get together and talk about these things. I don’t know, but somehow he’d known that Jimmy had passed on, and that he would be making a final appearance at his own coming home party.

“Jimmy was a very loving, caring man, and he was magic, and I believe the reason we saw him that day is because he did not want to deny those guests their do. The party was being thrown in his honor and it wouldn’t have been proper if Jimmy hadn’t made an appearance.

“Well, as you can very well imagine the party was over, but for several hours afterward, some of the children searched every corner of that old barn looking for Jimmy and that great big Harley Davidson Motorcycle of his. Nobody could quite believe that what they’d seen had been a ghost. But of course, that’s exactly what it had been, larger than life.

“I told you that some of the folks thought Estelle was a little bit nutty because she would stand down on that river-bank waiting for Henry to come back. Well, now she had company, because presently I took to doing the same thing. We’d stand there together not saying a word and just gaze out across that sullen water. We were participants in each other’s pain and healing, I suppose. They say it’s better when grief has company. And you know something? There wasn’t a soul around who ever chided us for it. And there’s a very good reason for that. You see, most everybody in the neighborhood had seen the ghost of Jimmy Coombs on that day.”

.. ..

Frannie looked up from her knitting with an uncertain little smile on her face, as if to say, that was a cute story, Ma, but now let’s set the record straight and tell everybody you made it all up.

“Wow,” Eddie said. “That was neat, Gram.”

“Yes,” Gram said. “It was, but it’s not the end of the story.”

“Oh, lord,” Frannie moaned. “Ma, you are going to cause these kids nightmares, I tell you. I swear, you’ll be the one getting up and comforting them, not me.”

Luella held up her hands in mock defense. “Just another minute, Fran. I promise. I just want to set the record straight about something.”

Frannie shook her head and sighed in resignation.

.. ..

“Just because Jimmy had gone from this world didn’t mean that he had gone from our lives, and it didn’t mean that the psychic bond we had between us had vanished. Far from it. For years after that day I kept the barn door open and the ramp in place. I’ll tell you why. Earl never questioned me on this either. He’d lost his favorite son and I’d lost the best friend I ever had. I suppose there was a little bit of wishful thinking inside both of us. But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was because I began hearing that droning sound. That’s right. At first it happened only late at night while I was lying in bed beside my husband unable to sleep. I discovered if I listened very carefully I could hear the sound of a motorcycle coming down ....Elm Street...., and somehow I knew instinctively that it was Jimmy. I began getting up and going to Jimmy’s room after that, and waiting. One night the motorcycle left ....Elm Street.... and pulled around back where it drove up into the barn and disappeared. I was flabbergasted. The next morning I went down and searched but found no evidence of it. Well, I thought I was taking leave of my senses when it happened again a week or so later. And then it began happening with more and more frequency.

“And it began occurring in broad daylight as well. I spent an awful lot of time in that upstairs room after Jimmy’s death. Your grandfather and I left it just as it was, filled with the souvenirs of Jimmy’s great adventures. We turned it into a shrine of sorts, and after the congress awarded Jimmy his medal of honor, that went up there too, in a frame where it hung on the wall with the rest of his mementos. I’m not really sure of all the reasons we did those things, but the best one I can come up with is it was a way for us to heal our hearts.

I would hear that motorcycle approaching and I would run upstairs to Jimmy’s room and look out the back window. Sure enough there Jimmy would be, dressed exactly as he had been on that sunny spring day in 1918. And as he would ride by he’d look up and see me standing behind that glass and he would smile that handsome smile of his and lift his gloved hand and wave. I would wave back and feel this awful sadness in my heart.

“Then, one rainy spring day more than five years after Jimmy’s death, the strangest thing happened. I heard the motorcycle approaching and I was standing there waiting for him to drive around the path when I felt the gentle touch of a hand on my shoulder. I whirled around in that silent room and there stood Jimmy, big as life.

“‘Let it go, Lulu,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t you think you’ve grieved long enough? Go and be a good wife to your husband and a good mother to your children, and when you think of me, I want you to smile, and if you can manage it, a little laughter would be nice, for the times we had were worth it, don’t you think? If there are tears in that laughter then so be it. Just don’t be sorry anymore, Lulu, for it is joy, not sorrow that sets the dead free.’ He came forward then, and wrapped his big strong arms around me, and I hugged him back, and I swear he was as solid as any mortal man. Tears coursed down my cheeks and Jimmy softly kissed them away. I blinked and the tears were gone and so was Jimmy.

“You know, I didn’t realize until that very moment that in all the time since Jimmy’s death I hadn’t laughed once. And in not doing so Jimmy had become a prisoner of my grief. It wasn’t fair to him, but mostly it wasn’t fair to those who loved me and who depended on me every day. Jimmy was gone from this world and now I had to let him go from my heart. Jimmy Coombs, in his short time on this earth, lived a noble and wonderfully rich life, and he would never be forgotten. What more could one ask for? And the lesson in all of this is, you can’t ever go back, you can’t ever recapture those old times. You’ve just got to take the good memories and hold them dearly in your heart forever and hope you never lose them. If you could go back you might do things differently, and I suppose that’s why you can’t. Some things aren’t meant to be done over.

“After that day I never again saw the ghost of Jimmy Coombs. I guess you could say it was because I didn’t need him in my life anymore, and I suppose you could even say that it was all in my head or maybe in my heart. Although I swear that everything I’ve said is true, there are those who would tell you that memory gets a little fuzzy as the years wear on. Time is like a gentle companion we take with us on our journey through life. And sometimes it plays funny tricks on us. I don’t know. I can only guess about these things. What I do know is this: keeping Jimmy in my heart all those years was a way for me to hang onto the unspoken dream that we shared, a way for me and Jimmy to stay bonded even beyond this wonderful life we’ve all been blessed with.

“And as you children grow up I hope you take this little lesson along with you. There may, indeed, be ghosts in this world. There are so many things about this life that we don’t understand. But the most important things are the relationships and the love we make while everybody is still here, alive, healthy and happy. Cherish those moments, for they are fleeting.”

.. ..

Later, after the children had been tucked away in their warm beds, Frannie turned to the older woman and said, “Thanks, Ma.”

“Heaven’s sake, what for, dear?”

“For ending that story the way you did. I’m sorry I get so upset with you about your stories. The children are always going to remember you fondly for them. Maybe some day one of them will even write some of them down. I guess maybe I’m just a little bit scared of what lies ahead.”

The older woman hugged Frannie warmly. “We’re all afraid of what lies ahead, Frannie. But not knowing is better, trust me. If we could read the future we’d miss the most wonderful things this life has to offer. That’s why we can’t.”

“Ma, you remember earlier when I had that scare? I said I saw a face in the fire.”

“I was going to ask you about that.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the kids but the face I saw was Dan’s.”

“I think you were right about one thing, Frannie,” the older woman said with a nervous little quaver in her voice. “I believe the storm’s got you spooked.”

“Yeah,” Frannie said. “That’s got to be it.”

.. ..

The storm began to subside as the night wore on, and neither Luella nor Frannie slept much. Around four in the morning the older woman was startled from a light doze by the sound of a vehicle coming down the drive. Danny, she thought to herself, then she stirred restlessly, turned over and went back to sleep.

In her dream a terrible fear went into her heart. She heard the car go up the ramp and into the barn and then she heard the sound of the barn door being drawn shut on its metal pulleys. It was the sound of a tomb door being slammed shut. She searched frantically in and around the barn for the car and some sign of Danny, but he was lost, like so many other good things in her life had been lost. She awoke with tears coursing down her cheeks, and they were tears of sorrow not joy, but hadn’t they always been? Hadn’t her tears of laughter always been a shameless smokescreen? She remembered telling the children why she didn’t cry, that all the things worth grieving over were gone. How wrong she had been. Her life was filled with good things. Things worth grieving for when they were lost. The trick was to know when to stop grieving and when to get on with the business of living. Life was a constant renewal of goodness if you just opened your heart and let the goodness in.

Luella got dressed and went downstairs to a bright new day. Danny was there, of course, along with Frannie and the three smiling children, and everything was okay. The storm had passed, and along with it another dark night and another story that might never again be told.

.. ..

Luella Coombs died quietly in her sleep in the spring of 1972 at the age of eighty-four, and she was laid to rest on a hillside overlooking the river, in amongst the graves of her husband, two of her children and a host of friends, relatives and acquaintances. Jimmy Coombs would have been there too, but his body was never recovered from the ..Somme... If you could have asked Gram she would have said that he was there in spirit, and that would have been good enough for her.

Although she never made any huge contributions to society, Luella Coombs enriched the lives of the people she touched. And for her and those people this was contribution enough. It would have been enough for any mortal soul. She had been a good wife, a patient and understanding mother, a loyal friend and confidant, and later on in life, an unforgettable grandmother. She was a magic woman, brimming over with stories and wonders. If she had written those countless tales down she would have been famous, but the idea of that, for her, would have been the ultimate in tear-spilling belly-laughs. Fortunately some of those stories haven’t been lost, for as Frannie had so offhandedly suggested on that stormy night in 1956 while Hurricane Camille roared thunderously up the eastern seaboard of the United States, one of the grandchildren did think to write some of them down, along with some stories of his own, inspired no doubt by the legacy of his grandmother. And some stormy night while the lights are turned down low, and shadows dance in spooky little patterns on the walls and ceilings, if you’re very, very good, he just might tell you another one.

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Friday, March 13, 2009

New Fiction: The Hero of Elm Street
Category: Writing and Poetry

"The Hero of Elm Street"©1999 Mark Edward Hall, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.

Although I call myself a horror writer, horror is not all that I write. There does, however, have to be a certain measure of magic in all of the stories I write. ....

Note: It seems that the myspace blogging system doesn’t allow for the posting of pieces more than about 7000 words, so I will post in two installments, about a week apart.

Mark....

THE HERO OF ELM STREET

By Mark Edward Hall

Part 1

“Jimmy Coombs was the undisputed hero of Elm Street,” Luella Coombs told her daughter-in-law and her three grandchildren on that stormy October night in 1956. “He was my husband’s son, but I loved him as if he was more than that, I loved him as if he was more than a step-son who happened to be the same age as me. What we shared is hard to put into words. I don’t believe I ever felt quite the same way about anybody before or since. Jimmy was a very special person in my life.”

The three children, Maggie, Eddie and David, anticipating a story, stared up at their grandmother with wide, expectant eyes, while Frannie, their mother, abruptly dropped the knitting she’d been working on into her lap. She was looking at her mother-in-law a little anxiously.

“Good Lord in heaven, Frannie. It wasn’t like that,” the older woman burst out, seeing the distressed look on her daughter-in-law’s face. “Not like that at all. What on earth are you thinking, for goodness sake?”

Frannie did not answer Luella’s question, just continued to stare stonily at the older woman. That’s when Luella Coombs threw her head back and began to laugh uproariously. A voluminous flood of tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her seamed cheeks. The woman guffawed heartily, her large-bosomed chest hitching up and down, her old Boston rocker working back and forth a mile a minute, creaking at every seam and joint. The children, not having the slightest idea why their grandmother was laughing, watched her in puzzlement. After a time the old woman managed to get herself somewhat under control. She pulled her glasses from her face and dabbed at her wet cheeks and the corners of her eyes with the hem of her apron. “Oh my,” she said, barely able to stem another fit of laughter.

“Why do you cry when you laugh, Gram?” eight-year-old Eddie asked. “You always cry when you laugh.”

“I’m told that laughing is nature’s way of healing all of the heartaches this life has to offer,” replied the older woman. “I’m not sure that’s exactly true, but I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve got first hand experience with heartache. In my lifetime I’ve had more than my share.”

Eddie’s expression fell into a puzzled frown. “Yeah, but you cry when you laugh. Why?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it properly,” Luella said. “But I’ll try. You see, I gave up crying a long time ago. And someone who doesn’t cry has got to find an outlet for his or her emotions. I do it by laughing. So in a way I get two for the price of one.” The old woman smiled, but it was a distant look that didn’t seem like a happy gesture at all.

Eddie now looked even more confused. “Well, why did you give up crying?”

“I just can’t bring myself to do it anymore, little Eddie. I suppose I got it all out of my system years ago. The heartaches are all gone now and good riddance to them. When you get to be my age all the things worth crying over have passed. There are only so many cries inside a person, you see. And after they’re all used up you cry only when you laugh.”

The boy nodded in understanding but Luella could see that he was just patronizing her, that he didn’t understand at all.

Frannie continued to stare stonily at the older woman, her mouth slack.

“Why are you so shocked?” Luella asked her. “Earl was my husband, and I loved him! You know that. There was never a man could compare with him, even though he was thirty years older than me. But Jimmy . . . Jimmy and me shared a different kind of love. It wasn’t exactly a brother and sister thing either, although I suppose that was a little bit of it. You know how siblings sometimes sense one another’s moods? Especially twins? Well, it was sort of like that with us. But Jimmy and I weren’t related in the physical sense. We were linked in a special way instead, in a way that can’t be explained in ordinary terms. It’s a bond that only happens to a person once in a lifetime, if they’re lucky. You see, Jimmy and I were able to sense one another’s thoughts and moods, even from across great distances. I guess you could say we were joined at the soul. And I know this to be true, because that joining remained long after Jimmy had passed out of this life.”

“Is this a ghost story, Gram?” Eddie asked, his eyes lighting up with anticipation, but his grandmother didn’t answer him. She just sat there rocking, that faraway look in her eyes, a fond little smile creasing the corners of her seamed mouth.

“Mom,” Eddie said, turning to his mother now. “Is this a ghost story? Gram said she was gonna tell us a ghost story.”

“I’m not sure this is a good night for a ghost story,” Frannie said, looking nervously toward the window.

That very morning Hurricane Camille had thundered ashore in the ..Carolinas.. and was now roaring mightily northward, destroying most everything in her path. And although the worst of the storm hadn’t yet reached the coast of Maine, it was on a collision course, and the wind was already blowing at gale force. More than two hours had passed since the electricity had gone out. Candle flames and hurricane lanterns fluttered and guttered in and around the shadowy kitchen where Gram, Frannie and the three children had taken refuge near the comforting warmth of the old cast-iron cook-stove. Outside the wind pushed the sea thunderously against the headland and tree branches lashed at the windows like cold, dead fingers.

“Nonsense!” Gram Coombs snapped. “This is a great night for a ghost story. The best kind of night, I suspect.” She sat forward in her old rocking chair and leered down at the children who were congregated in a semi-circle at her feet. “Besides, this isn’t just any old ghost story, this one’s true.”

“Is it really?” ten-year-old Maggie asked, her eyes sparkling with wonder.

“Now don’t you go scaring these children with your nonsense, Ma,” Frannie said, going back to her knitting. “I don’t want to be up all hours of the night comforting nightmares.”

“Lord in heaven, Frannie, this one’ll tickle their funny-bones more’n anything else.”

Frannie shot the older woman a distressed look. She’d stopped wondering years ago where her husband, Dan had gotten his streak of mischief from. In her day, Gram Coombs had probably been a worse hellion than any of her kids. The evidence was there in those sparkling green eyes and that mischievous little smirk.

“I sure wish Dan was here,” Frannie said, suddenly missing her husband very much. “I warned him the storm was coming, but he wouldn’t listen. I can’t believe he went driving all the way up to that damned Air Force Base on that damned stupid electrical job with that shyster he works for. Lord knows, they’ll be caught right in the middle of this mess.”

“Ain’t gonna do no good to worry yourself sick over it, dear,” Gram said. “Dan can take care of himself. He’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

“I’m not worried so much about Dan as I am about us,” Frannie said, but Luella suspected this was a lie. Her love for Dan was more like obsession, Gram knew.

“What kind of a ghost story is it?” little David asked his grandmother.

The old woman’s eyes sparkled. “It’s special,” she told the boy. “It’s about a special bond between two people . . . a bond and a friendship that will never, ever be lost.”

The boy pouted. “I want it to be scary,” he said.”

“Oh, it’s scary,” the woman solemnly replied. “Like all ghost stories should be. Anything beyond our understanding is sort of scary, in a way. Don’t you think?”

David nodded. Frannie sighed in resignation.

The old woman sat back in her creaking chair and a long contemplative sigh escaped her. “Let me see,” she said. “Where to begin.” Her eyes became a little unfocused and a small smile softly kissed her rouged lips, a sure sign that she had been transported back in time to the world of her younger years. Her mouth finally opened and the story began to unfold.

“It was 1918, and the Great War was raging in ..Europe... I remember it like it was just yesterday. Spring set in that year wetter and colder than any spring in recent memory. We were living on Elm Street then, in the town of Topsham—in the old Coombs place—keeping the woodstoves stoked up and trying as best we could to stay warm.

“On April 12th the biggest Nor’easter of the new century buried most of New England under eighteen inches of heavy, wet snow. The roof on the old Franklin Mill collapsed under the weight of it, killing half a dozen workers outright, and sending another three-dozen to the hospital. Terrible tragedy it was. And for the next three weeks following the Franklin Mill collapse the spring melt set up by that freak storm went about the task of transforming the entire countryside into the biggest pit of mud anyone had ever seen. The river rose above its banks that year, taking out the railroad bridge between James Village and Topsham and drowning out half the cellars on Elm Street. Henry Ives got swept up in it trying to get his smelt camp off and was carried downstream. Poor dear was never seen again. He never should have waited that late in the season to take his shack off the ice. Henry was a good man but he had a lazy streak and it ended up being his demise.

“So, all-in-all it was a terrible spring. The old-timers said it was the worst flooding since the spring of 1888, the year I was born. I should have taken all those terrible happenings as an omen of things to come, I suppose. But I didn’t. I was terribly naïve back then. I believed that nothing could penetrate the insulated life I had so successfully constructed around myself. You see, it was only a week later that I saw the vision of Jimmy above my bed and the very next day the letter arrived from the war department. I’ll never forget the way I felt when I saw that postmark. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. I should go back and explain the events leading up to that day in April of 1918, the day of the coming home party.

.. ..

Like I said, the Great War was raging over in Europe, and Jimmy Coombs, your grandfather’s son by his first wife Elizabeth had joined up for the cause. We were all mightily sad about it but knew in our hearts that it was a duty that could not be denied. Patriotism was in everybody’s hearts then, and it was such a good feeling to put God and country first.

“I’d married Jimmy’s father in the summer of 1907, and at that time your own father was twenty whole years away from being born. Can you imagine it? Earl, your grandfather, was my schoolmaster and I’d fallen head over heels in love with him in the summer of my seventeenth year. It was the same year I graduated from high school. He was such a handsome, gentle man, so kind, and so romantic. We courted for two whole years before I finally allowed him to take my hand. We were married in the spring of that year. He was forty-nine and I was nineteen. It was the most scandalous thing that had ever happened in the little town of Topsham, and the tongues were wagging something fierce. It was all such good fun. There was a wonderful kind of magic in the air back then.

“Earl already had a whole passel of kids from his first wife Elizabeth who’d died in 1905 from consumption. Most of those kids were older than me. Jimmy was the next to the youngest and my age. We’d been to school together and had become close friends years before I ever fell in love with his father.

“Jimmy never married. I’m not sure why. He could have if he’d wanted to. He was very popular with all the ladies. There were at least half a dozen as far as I know vying for his attention. Perhaps he just hadn’t settled on the right one yet. Lord knows he was just as handsome as his father. As handsome as your father is today.

“There could have been other reasons, too, I suppose. Jimmy was a complex man. There was this restlessness inside him that drove him beyond the realm of ordinary men. He was an adventurer, and he had style. He kept a room at his father’s house but he stayed there infrequently. Usually he was off somewhere in the world climbing a mountain, trekking through a jungle or rafting down some great wilderness river. I remember once reading an article in the Boston Globe that told about Jimmy Coombs and his courageous climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. And you know, he never bragged about his conquests. That was one of his charms. We were all so proud of him. Jimmy Coombs was, indeed, the hero of Elm Street.

“And true to Jimmy’s style, when America joined The Great War he was among the first to volunteer.

“What you have to understand is, the world was different back then. I believe it was a better place to live in at that time in history. Even with all the heartache and tragedy of war it was better. You’ll never convince me otherwise. It’s one of those things I suppose I’ll never be able to explain properly. You would have to have lived in those times to understand the magic. There was more mystery then, more adventure. Great discoveries were being made every day. The ancient world was being uncovered in Egypt. Aviators were attempting trans-continental flight. Men were climbing great mountains and there was a race on to conquer the South Pole. The world was shrinking by degrees, and still, there weren’t any paved roads, no television sets. People around here were more innocent, and more neighborly. If someone got sick—like that time Elmer Hall broke his back pulling stumps out in Job Fosters wood lot with Betsey, that cantankerous old draft horse of his—people came from miles around to the Grange Hall with their covered dishes to help. Everybody pitched in all summer long to pay for Elmer’s operation down in the big city of Boston. Folks just did what they had to do then, and were proud of it. We took care of our own. Today the world is too impersonal. Neighbors don’t help neighbors like they did then. The world did, indeed, grow smaller, but through it all, people somehow seemed to grow apart. I don’t understand how that happened. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. It makes me sad to have lived to see those changes.

“But in 1918 I hadn’t yet reached the ripe old age of thirty, and most of life’s triumphs and tragedies were still to come. I remember my life stretched out ahead of me like the blank pages of an unwritten book.

.. ..

“So, a full year before the incident at the coming home party and only a couple days before he left for the war, Jimmy and I were upstairs in his room talking, and he was telling me about the new motorcycle he’d bought. As I’ve already stated, Jimmy didn’t stay at home much but when he did we always managed to get together for some good conversation. He was such a wonderful, generous man, so rich with life and possibilities. He always made time to be my friend, and I’ll love him forever for that.

“Our psychic bond began as a game, back in our school days, before we realized there was a serious side to it. We both soon discovered, however, that our psychic link—our ability to communicate beyond the physical—was no game. It was a unique gift, something we couldn’t even begin to understand, so we treated it with a quiet kind of reverence. Meaning that we didn’t broadcast it around. Folks back then would have called us romantic, or even crazy. So it remained a private thing, and we guarded our wonderful secret vehemently.

“And during those long periods when Jimmy was away our thoughts and emotions would sometimes cross. I can’t explain what magic caused it to happen. Only God knows the answers to such questions. I believe it was a way for Jimmy and me to keep the doors of communication between us open. Writing wasn’t always possible, you see, considering the lack of post offices in the exotic places he usually traveled.

“When he came home, the first thing he would say was, ‘Lulu, tell me where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing?’

“I think he would do it just to confirm in his own awe-struck mind the fact of our special bond. And more times than not I would get it right.

“‘Lulu, you’re a miracle,’ Jimmy would say and then he would embrace me fondly. We spent an awful lot of time together during those stays at home. I don’t suppose I can explain it properly without making it sound like more than it actually was. We loved each other, yes, and I’m proud of it, but I want to stress here that it was different from the romantic love your grandfather and I shared. That’s really all I have to say on the subject. Love is a complex thing and in the end only God can sort out the details. Your grandfather was a kind and patient man. He knew Jimmy and I had been close since childhood and I don’t believe he ever suspected any hanky-panky. It wasn’t in his nature. He needn’t have worried anyway because Jimmy’s and my relationship was so special we never would have let anything like a little hanky-panky spoil it.

“Now, as I was saying, Jimmy and I were up in his room. I was sitting cross-legged on his bed and Jimmy was sitting on the edge with his feet resting on the floor. He was telling me that he’d gone over to ....Lewiston.... to that new motorcycle dealership and he’d bought himself a brand spanking new Harley Davidson motorcycle.

“‘It’s a shiny black one,’ he said, ‘with these big sweeping handlebars that look like the horns of a mountain goat. Wait till you see it Lulu. It’s got wire-spoke wheels and leather saddlebags. It’s a real beauty.’

“I swear, Jimmy’s eyes were sparkling like a kid in a candy store.

“‘I’m going to leave it at the dealership while I’m away, and pick it up on the day I return from the war,’ he said. ‘That’s how you’ll see me first, Lulu. I’ll be riding that big black motorcycle machine.’

“I felt a little bit sad then. I’m not sure why. Jimmy was a brave man, but if you want the truth I think he was a little bit scared at the prospect of going off to war. What man wouldn’t be? The papers were full of the atrocities of The Great War. What a terrible thing it was. Some of the world’s finest young men were falling in the name of freedom. And Jimmy knew that, and he also knew that he might not be coming home, and I believe that motorcycle was sort of like a talisman to him. A bright and shining thing for him to focus on in those months he would be gone. The unspoken reality of the great war was that a lot of men didn’t come home, and I suppose buying that machine and leaving it here to savor, to dream about on those cold and endless nights was Jimmy’s own way of mortgaging a little piece of his own future. I leaned forward and hugged him then and cried and I did not want to let him go.

“But it mattered not. He left two days later. It was ..June 7, 1917, and within a month the letters began to arrive. We would all sit around the table after supper, Earl, me and the children, and Earl would read Jimmy’s letters to us. Jimmy was a diplomat and he rarely put anything bad in them, not wanting to frighten the children, I suppose. But I could sense an underlying tone of despair in those letters.

“And at night I began having these dreams. It was Jimmy’s and my psychic bond at work. I began picking up images from him. And none were very pretty. Most were images of trench warfare at its most gruesome. I could sense his emotions, his fear, his courage, his hunger and cold, and the worst emotion of all; loneliness. And I felt so helpless. And eventually, over the course of several months, those images began to overtake my life. Night after night they would haunt my dreams. I never told Earl. Through it all I did my best to be a good wife and mother. But it was oh, so hard. The images were so draining. I was so afraid for Jimmy’s life. I began to secretly curse the power that caused them. Why did I have to be blessed with such a terrible burden?

“Well, this went on throughout that long year of 1917 and into 1918, without letup. Somehow I managed to keep my wits about me. I wrote Jimmy once a week and filled him in on all the neighborhood gossip, updated him on his father’s activities and told him what was happening with the children. But I never told him about the visions I was picking up. I didn’t want him to lose focus and get careless. I desperately wanted Jimmy to come home.

“And then, on ..March 15, 1918.. we received the letter from the War Dept. We all stood in silent agony while Earl took the letter opener and slowly began slicing his way up the side of that envelope.”

.. ..

“The storm’s getting worse outside, ma,” Frannie interrupted. “I sure wish Dan would call. I’d feel a whole lot better.”

“Phone lines are probably all down, Fran. Why don’t you go check?”

“I’d better put some wood in the stove anyway,” Frannie said dropping her knitting beside her and getting up. “Anybody for hot chocolate?”

A strong chorus of excited yes’s erupted from the children.

Frannie went over to the cubby beside the kitchen counter, picked up the phone and listened.

“Finish the rest of the story, Gram,” Eddie said.

“When your mother comes back with the hot chocolate I will. Why don’t you children go see if she needs a hand?”

Maggie and Eddie got up and scrambled for the kitchen.

Frannie put the phone down again. “Ma, you were right,” she called from across the room in a small defeated voice. “Lines are down. Damn,” she cursed under her breath.

“It don’t sound like no ghost story to me,” David said dourly. He was still sitting cross legged on the floor at his grandmother’s feet frowning severely.

“You’re such a serious little boy, David,” Gram Coombs said fondly. “You keep that up and I swear you’ll have crow’s feet around those eyes of yours before you’re ten years old.”

David giggled. Gram tousled his hair.

Frannie filled the teakettle with water and put it on the back burner. She picked up a length of stove-wood and lifted the front plate with the hand iron. In the next instant, she let out a strangled little scream, jumped back and dropped the plate. It landed on the stovetop with a loud metallic clatter.

“Lord of ....Jerusalem...., Frannie,” Gram said jumping from her chair and hurrying over to the younger woman. “Did you burn yourself?”

Frannie had backed away from the stove a couple of steps and was looking at it as if it contained a demon. “No,” she said, her eyes huge and staring.

“Well, what is it then?”

The children had gathered around their mother. They were looking up at her with fear and uncertainty glistening in their eyes. Outside a strong gust of wind rocked the two hundred year old colonial house.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Frannie said finally. “Just my own silliness. I think this storm’s got me spooked. You know, for a moment I . . . I thought I saw a face in the flames. It startled me, that’s all. I guess I’m just being silly.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said with a nervous little laugh. “Silly. Mom’s silly.”

The phone dinged. Everybody jumped. Frannie picked it off the cradle and listened. “Just the wind on the lines,” she said softly. Outside a gust moaned along the eves of the house and fluted low discordant notes into the rain gutters.

The teakettle began to sing loudly. “Okay,” Frannie said. “I think we ought to get back to the hot chocolate and Gram’s story. What does everybody say?”

Another chorus of excited yes’s erupted from the children.

A nervous little look passed between Frannie and Gram.

“Now, where was I?” Gram asked after everybody had settled back into their respective places, mugs of steaming hot chocolate in hands.

“Grandpa Coombs was opening the letter from the war department, Gram,” Maggie reminded her. “And you were all so scared.”

“Oh of course,” Gram said.

.. ..

“We just knew what it was going to say and there was apprehension in our hearts and tears in our eyes even before the letter opener was halfway up the seam. Well, Earl finally fumbled it open and began to read aloud. It said that Jimmy had been wounded at ..Somme.., that his injuries were serious but not life-threatening. The cold weather and wet, muddy conditions had, however, complicated things and he’d contracted pneumonia. He was resting in a field hospital somewhere near the front and was expected to make a full recovery. Earl, the kids and I grabbed hold of one another then and did a circle dance around the kitchen, tears of joy now spilling from our eyes.

“After the shock of happiness had warn off Earl went back to the letter. It thus stated that Jimmy had been wounded while saving the lives of fellow soldiers and that he had been decorated for valor. We were all so proud. Jimmy Coombs truly was the hero of Elm Street.

.. ..

“Almost two weeks passed without a word, and finally, on April first we got a letter from Jimmy stating that he was being discharged from the Army and that he would be arriving home on April the twenty-first. There was no explanation beyond that. I don’t have to tell you how happy we were.

“Well, I wrote him back—not having any idea whether the letter would arrive in time or not—and told him we were planning a coming home party for him and that if the weather permitted we would take the party out into the back yard and we would see him there on the twenty-first. And that was the last word we got until we all saw him the day he came home.

.. ..

Stay Tuned for Part 2

4:28 PM

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