Ira Robinson's Blog, page 5

Chains – NaNoWriMo Day 6 Story

It’s too late for my mother.

I know that, even as I watch her being taken from the cage across the darkened hallway. Her eyes are already glazed from the deprivations she’s endured, and I am not sure if she can see me, but I stand straighter as she is dragged away from the cell one step at a time.

I cannot let her see me cry; it’s the last thing she would want. If I have learned anything in my thirteen years on this miserable world I was born into, it’s to be strong, and I want my mother to know she’s taught that lesson to me well.

My sister weeps beside me as we watch mother being forced down the hall, the two men at each of her sides tall and bulky, their metal armor gleaming in the few lights there are here. They step slowly, knowing mother doesn’t have much energy left to her, but the long rifles in their hands, pulsating with the deadly power contained within, show they will brook no dissent and would kill her here and now if that’s what they had to do.

I would spit curses their way if I was not biting my tongue to keep from crying out. I would, if I could, reach my hand into my chest and fling my still-beating heart across the filthy floor if it would have made any difference to the fate the hands of the gods had written for my mother. They, too, remain silent as she is taken, content with yet another sacrifice, apparently.

My sister is weeping beside me, to young, really, to understand the need for silence in this moment, the show of strength we should be giving to mother as she is taken to the fire. I reach my arm around her and try to comfort her, to be the thing she needs to help her get through, as is my duty as the eldest, but I, too, want to join her in her depths of despair.

I taste a little blood, my sharpened teeth cutting into the flesh of my tongue just enough to distract my shredding guts as one step after another is taken down the long hall, past the many other cages lining it in the depth of this place of hell. I swallow it down, allowing the blood to mix with the bile seeping up from my stomach into my throat.

It’s too late for my mother. I know that, but I would still fling myself upon the barrels of the guns these alien beings carried if I had the chance, as I would have for my father and brother. They, too, were taken to the fire only days ago.

Or had it been months? In this place, time really means nothing, one moment to the next filled with the moans and cries of those who are surrounding us, occupying the cages I can just barely see. Even here, this close to the edge of the bars, I can make out hands reaching through, trying to touch the captors in a bid for mercy, some compassion, perhaps, from things that have no capacity for humanity.

What a word. What a foolish, stupid word. Humanity had given us nothing, only death and despair as the fires rained down from the skies on that day the invasion began. Desperate tears gave us nothing as people died in the streets, people stepping over each other in a bid to get away from the chaos and savagery that took over everyone.

Acts of “humanity” happened even then, I suppose, but led only to being captured as the troops began to land. Those who dropped their compassions and ran for the hills were the only survivors, and even those fell one by one as the beings moved out from those cities they landed in, seeking out the refuges quickly made.

Mankind was decimated in hours and even those like my family, those who had lived on the fringes, those on the edges of civilization, were soon enough rounded up and taken to places much like this, if not destroyed then and there.

Oh, those days were horror, one depravity after another taking away everything that once made us humans being and turned us into animals, fodder ready to feed the continuous need for energy, the need for resources… the need for food.

Yes, that, too, was the fate of those taken in those days. The beings that had removed our burdens of daily life and replaced them with twisted purposes used us for many things and who knows what else? Rumors abounded, of course, words pressed into ears huddled together in the darkness of caves and self-made strongholds, desperate and furtive glances tracking each movement from outside with fear embracing every nerve.

“They’re here to kill all of us,” some of the rumors said, and that has been proved quite well now, though some might say otherwise. After all, they need some of us alive as cattle, don’t they? Newly birthing those under their complete control is, I suppose, another of their goals, though for those of us on this row of cages, I think it’s a different purpose.

“They’re here to save us,” said some of the rumors, back in those earliest moments. They were silenced as rapidly as the jolt of laser fire coming from the ends of the rifles the beings carried, as they went out to meet the ones who would ‘liberate them’ from their lives.

Those, and more rumors, spread like wildfire, but none were as insidious, as horrifying, as the revelation we humans were food.

All of the history, all of the desperate clinging to civilization our ancestors did, clawing our way to the top of the food chain on earth brought to nothing in an instant as the apex predators of the universe decided to test out the meat of our bodies and found it good. Thousands of years of our people being the dominator left to dry as the dust of our bones rots in great cavernous maws of the ground, left to decay away as the flies feast on the traces of flesh.

I hold my sister closer to my side as she trembles. I cannot see my mother anymore, her form faded away as the beings took her down the long stretch of hall to another part of their base. No one returns from there, and I shudder as bile once more enters my throat.

My stomach heaves and I know I would throw up if I had anything in my guts to spew across the dirty floor.

Once, while my family still held out hope of salvation from the torment this earth has had to endure, there was a man among the group huddling together, an older one who was weakened and wasted, sickened from lack of food and exposure. He passed on in the night, his spirit no longer able to cling to the flesh he’d occupied for so long. Had he been “someone” in his life? Perhaps a business man with wealth unimaginable, or a doctor, even, who was skilled in the ways of healing?

All brought to naught, dust in the wind, as the old phrase says, on a cold winter night surrounded by people tenuously holding on to life, themselves.

Desperation causes agony, and agony causes one to do things unthinkable.

My father held us back as the others tore into the flesh of the man who died, slicing away bits of his body and slurping them down while there was still a shred of warmth left in it, for fear a fire would attract attention of the invaders.

He did not want us to fall into that trap, into the depraved act of consumption we were witnessing before us, but as one bite after another slid down the throats of those I saw before me, the glints of blood still remaining on the teeth of the consumers, my stomach growled, grumbling at the lack I, too, had endured.

The remains of the man were taken outside, left near the entrance of the cave we struggled to stay alive within, its embrace a comfort to those who had nowhere else to go and the knowledge that to step away from it into the forest surrounding would mean death. They left him there, most of him gone.

I lay awake, as the snores of those around me entered my ears, and my stomach groaned, the pangs worse than I had ever felt before. My body was thinning, consuming itself to stay alive for yet another day.

I was able to sneak, creeping softly across the rough, cold stone to the entrance and braved the breeze wailing across the hole. It did not take me long to find what was left and, as I tore away a bit of the flesh and popped it in my mouth, the iciness of it numbed my tongue.

I swallowed, though, the gobbet of it sliding down my throat and hitting my stomach like a bullet. It galled me, the ease with which I was able to force myself to do it, and it chills me, still, to know I did it, but, as I said, desperation causes agony, and I could not take it any more.

I ate until I was full, then, the cold night air sucking away the little warmth I was able to cobble together with the three coats I wore. There was plenty of clothing laying about, after all, and we had gladly taken as much as we thought we would need when we started the trek up the mountain.

Am I evil for doing it? The thought does haunt me still, as it did in those moments it took me to slide back into place next to my sister. She hugged into me, then, as she does now, seeking warmth and comfort in a desperate time, and I wrapped my arms around her, sharing with her my heat rekindled by the consumption of flesh I had partaken in. Am I evil? Perhaps, but I think it’s a relative term these days.

Are the aliens evil for doing it? Or are they now, like I was then, desperate to survive? Can I condemn them for doing something I, myself, am guilty of?

Or is their guilt greater for forcing me into the sin to begin with?

That, too, is, I suppose, up to the gods to judge, if they so deem it necessary, though I do not even know if they exist at this point. If so, they have abandoned us to an unkind fate and are just as damned for doing it.

How many wasted breaths have I let slip from my lungs in prayer to them, holding out hope that faith would see me, see us, through this hell unleashed upon us? Thousands, millions, of others, I am sure, released the same prayers, sure from the scriptures and the dusty books that they would be released from captivity, saved from deprivations and dread, yet the only answer to come back was more invaders landing, their great ships descending from the skies with a rumble and a quake as they lit upon the ground beneath.

For all the wonders of the armies on the earth, all the power humanity’s science had created, there was nothing that worked against them. No, not even the incredible heat of the fire that rained down from the heavens as missiles carrying atom splitting death did anything to them, the shields around their ships unbreakable by the conventions of man.

Nukes did nothing, prayer did nothing, all dust against the technology of these beings who had come.

Only dreams, only useless hope.

My sister is crying again, and I wish I could join her. I really do. I fear what was left of my tears, though, has been burned away from me, and I cannot even give her the comfort I once was able to.

Comfort is something in short supply in these cages as we await whatever fate the beings have in mind for us, be it the fire for their fuel or the fuel for their bodies. Or other things, but if there are more, I am not aware.

We were captured because of stupidity, but isn’t that always the way? That cave, that place of safety, had become too comforting, I suppose, assuaging our fears and lulling us into a sense of security where none had the right to exist.

Someone had gone out to forage, and with the coming of springtime, there was a little more available to help soothe the empty bellies, at least for the children who were left. There were not many of those left, my sister and I among them, though I was old enough to no longer be considered a child in these times.

Everyone knew the rule. It was the cardinal rule, the one thing that had to be obeyed above all others. If you are spotted, go the other way. Let yourself be captured if you have to, but never come back.

My own brother was the one to break that rule, as he walked along the edges of the mountain trail seeking out something he could bring back to fill our stomachs.

One of them saw him. Whether it was by a patrol walking along that same trail or one of the smaller ships the greater ones carried within, he was spotted, and when he came back to the cave, the terrified look on his face told us all we needed to know.

We frantically tried to get things together so we could flee, but it was already far too late. Our place had been marked, databased and collated in the computers of the creatures, and great numbers of them came for us.

We did not even have time to step out of the cave’s mouth before we heard the screams of the engines.

We were dragged from that place, the stink of the many humans huddling within, dirty, feces covered and desperate, was left behind as we were put, one by one, into the bellies of the ships and carted off to these cages.

Our fates were sealed in that moment.

It’s too late for my mother. I’m not sure who will be next, but, I know, it’s already far too late for me, too.

 

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The post Chains – NaNoWriMo Day 6 Story appeared first on Original Worlds.

Choice – NaNoWriMo Day 5 Story

The trouble with giving people the freedom of choice is, sometimes, they make the wrong one.

It was just another election in yet another year that most people paid no attention to. The day to day grind of work, play, and sleep can really wear down the senses and lull one into a lack of care for anything of the outside world.

One day after another, the cycle of politicians spouting their rhetoric on television screens across the nation kept those who did pay attention to such things rapt with the constant hammer fall of this issue or that, and, of course, accusatory words flew from people’s lips as the blame game was played.

Dirty tricks and dirtier politics made the headlines as this revelation or that came out about the electees and, one after another, they dropped from the races they were in, crying foul and taking no responsibility for their actions or their constituents they let down.

Oh, they would come on the stage of the nation’s media, carting their dutiful families in tow, including the wife who shed tears as she looked with forgiving glances at the husband who betrayed them, while promises of “doing better for my family” drifted from their tongues. Those kept the people of the nation the most intrigued. After all, the media, itself, lives by the adage of, “Sex sells, and if it bleeds, it leads.”

They were always pros at making sure those scenes played out for the masses, one cavalcade of smut and aggression after another.

People tired of it, of course, and as the weeks became months, the constant drum beat of hateful talk and baleful would-be tyrants the amount of those who could keep up interest dwindled considerably. When it was only weeks away from that final moment, the day on which the die would be cast and the chosen ones would make their way down the streets in parades, something new came on the scene.

Something that would alter everything we knew and held dear.

Something that would force a choice that we can never go back on.

Maybe it was one politician too many spewing hateful rhetoric. Maybe it was done on behalf of a giant conspiracy that wanted to change the world in their own way. No one really knows for sure, and by this time, I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

It was such a small spark, a tiny echo that became a storm that destroyed everything we knew and changed us all.

For the better?

That is yet to be seen.

It happened in Chicago. Have you heard of it? Maybe. I know there are whispers of the old names sometimes in the dark, people telling stories of how things used to be.

Some years before all of this began, a bomb had gone missing. Oh, this was not just any bomb, dear one. It was something massive. They called it a suitcase bomb, of all things. A small package with devastating consequences.

When it went off, it caused damage, of course. But the real problem wasn’t the structures that fell or the people who were killed, though there was a lot of that.

No, the real issue was what else was in that bomb. A large vial was embedded in it, which threw out great amounts of a liquid that in turn contained small things.

Bacteria. You’ve heard of that, of course, I know you have. It’s what we have to watch out for when you get a scrape or sick. Little creatures that fill up your system and make you dead.

That was what happened back then, too, you see? Tiny creatures, so small you’d not be able to even look at them without something special on your eyes, those got into the air and started to spread.

By the time it was done and it had burned itself out, the great town that had been known as Chicago had been taken out completely, left to ruins for fear of anyone going there starting it all over again.

That fear became so great, in fact, the next, harsher option was decided. The town had to go, the risk too large for things to ever resolve.

Oh, the politicians screamed about it, in those weeks leading up to the election. They talked at great length about how Chicago was a symbol. Both sides claimed this, of course, but one was sure that the rebuilding of that once-majestic town would be the pinnacle of strength, a show of force to prove that the nation’s spirit was indomitable and sure.

The other side, the more popular option, was that it had to be cleansed in a sacrifice, to show strength lay in resolve to do what was necessary for the sake of the nation’s heart. To throw it into the pit of sacrifice was the ultimate expression of security.

The leader at the time, a trembling and fearful fellow, really, decided to make that choice, and sparked off the terror our lives today have become.

It’s all about those choices, see? The first was to allow the rhetoric of hateful people spewing their disease across waves of air to be broadcast to begin with, but that was all for the sake of the money they held so devotedly to then. People sat in their chairs and watched the flickering images, all while advertisements for one stupid product or another danced across the screens in between, and the cash registers churned out more money to give more luxury to those who already had it all.

The next choice was the person, or group of people, perhaps, who decided the best course of action to take in response to it all was to detonate something fantastic and horrible, the culmination of all of mankind’s dedication to the god of science.

Choice. Sometimes the wrong choice is the only one, especially in a world gone mad, drunk on its own blood and iniquity.

The other nations saw the fall of Chicago and the subsequent detonation of another device in its center, to eradicate any trace of what might be left hidden in the ruins, as a sign of the bleeding out of the country.

They had been waiting a long time to see her limping, the smell of blood high in the air too much for their ravenous hearts to resist.

They pounced, on the day the election happened, twenty countries combining together to strike a final, massive blow to her heart.

She was not as frail and toothless as they thought, however, and soon enough her own missiles were flying.

One after another took to the sky, spreading death across the world. Oh and the nation was not the only one to take part in this choice. No, many others did, as well, retaliations and preemptions sought out the throats of everyone they could, and old grudges were resolved in the heartbeat the flashes took to end it all.

We huddle, now, at the fringes of places once thought unsurvivable, we thin groups seeking warmth and anything left to scavenge to fill our bellies.

And we tell each other these stories, reminding us of the past that once was and never shall be again, so we can, perhaps, make the right choices in the future.

You, child, are my own choice, bringing you here into this circle of the light of the fire to talk about what our fathers did to us, and, some day, you’ll have to make your own choice of telling your child.

Now don’t be frightened. Let’s see, do you want the venison, or the corn? There’s not much left of either, but we’ll see what more we can find tomorrow.

The post Choice – NaNoWriMo Day 5 Story appeared first on Original Worlds.

Strangers – NaNoWriMo Day 4 Story

This time of year is always hard for me.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. The holidays are difficult for a lot of people, especially in this world we lived in, people disconnected from the roots that were once so important, and traumas became easier to understand.

A lot of depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, and longings for home strike people in a big way around this time of year, and I can understand what they are going through.

I, too, have depression, and more than a little post-trauma that I have to deal with. And, yes, I do have longings for those days in my past that my family would spend every moment together, enjoying the love that is so important to a budding young girl.

But there’s so much more to it than that, and as I sit here listening to the knocking on the door, I am filled not with the sense of love, knowing my family is there, but with dread so deep it makes the shotgun sitting in my lap a tempting offer and hard to resist.

You see, every year, my family comes home, and I have to do everything I can to keep them out.

Two years ago, it was a different story.

I was seventeen and full of myself. I’ll be the first to admit that I had problems, not least of which was attitude.

Thanksgiving had passed and we were gearing up for Christmas, only a few days away. My father adored the Yule time, making a spectacle out of it from the earliest memories I have.

He would go out and find the “perfect tree”, as he put it, the one that would fill up half the living room and send the scent of pine and wood throughout the whole house. Sap would inevitably get everywhere and I would hear momma complaining aloud about how hard it was to get out of clothes once it was stuck to them. But he would not relent, taking on his quest to find the one that would be the best, like some hero looking for a mystic sword.

We – that is, momma, dad, myself and my little brother, Jake – would then spent an entire day decking the thing out with the huge boxes full of decorations he had taken years to collect. Some of them were really old, antiques passed down from others in the family or things he had picked up at a store. The lights on strings were his real pride, “Italian twinkle lights” he called them, that looked like icicles hanging from the branches.

By the time the big angel went on the top, we’d have spent hours making it as perfect as we could, and fall into our respective chairs around the living room, exhausted but proud as we stared at the glow that filled the whole place.

The outside of the house, too, was festooned with lights and deco, and I wondered sometimes how much dad must spend in electricity by the time all of it was said and done. He didn’t seem to mind, though. As I said, this was his time of year, and he loved it with a passion I admit being jealous of, sometimes.

I asked him, once, why he was so heavily into it, and he said it was because his own dad always wanted to do things like it, but could never really afford to. My dad worked a pretty good job, being a factory supervisor, and made enough to pay the bills and still have enough left over every month, and he wasn’t one of those types who are jealous of their money. He was happy to spend it, if it meant putting a smile on someone’s face, as long as his family had been taken care of first.

That was probably why he felt okay with letting the guy come inside that day.

Dad believed in the kindness of strangers and would reach out to help whenever and wherever he could. I can’t tell you how many times I waited in the car, bored to tears, as he helped someone change a tire on the side of the road or how many meals we passed out down at the rescue mission.

That was fine for him, and Jake seemed to get into it, too, but I just never understood. I thought it was a waste, especially since there were so many things I needed.

You know, like that new game that came out, or some clothes that were in trend.

Jesus, how stupid was I, really?

This whiskey really burns going down, but I tell you, it’s about the only thing that relaxes my nerves any more. I’ll have to see if I can find more of it by the time next week comes around.

If next week comes around.

We had gathered around the tree that year, at the end of the day. Momma finished up baking some of the cookies she loved to do up, making enough to last for a couple of weeks after Christmas.

I really miss those.

When the knock on the door came, I jerked my head up, half asleep the moment before while starring at my phone. I didn’t even realize how tired I was, but I guess it was an after effect of staying up so late the night before talking to Judy about Steve. That jerk cheated on her again, and I was trying, as I had three times before, to convince her to drop the guy like a lead brick, but she just would not listen. The guy was an ass and treated her like crap, and to then cheat on her on top of it

Worthless.

But Judy was convinced she could change him and said how much she loved him, and I did my best to console her through tears she had cried so many times before.

By the time that was done, it was four in the morning and I was desperately tired.

I clicked my phone off while dad got up and went to the door, his own tiredness evident in how slow he was moving. The turkey sandwich he finished off just a bit before probably didn’t help.

Momma, too, got up but stayed back with us kids.

Dad opened the door and the cold from outside swept in quickly, bringing the temperature down with a draft so hard goosebumps went down my arms and up my spine beneath my tee-shirt. Light had faded almost entirely from the setting sun but there was enough from the strands of decorations on the porch to illuminate a guy with a long beard and heavy clothes standing in the doorway.

Now, our house was one at the end of a long drive, and there was little else around for about half a mile. Dad bought the place specifically for that reason; he hated apartments and wanted to “be close to nature,” in some kind of way. So someone showing up at the door meant they had to either be there specifically for us, or were lost. Salesmen rarely came and, with as late in the evening as it was getting, plus being so close to the holidays, it likely was not the reason this guy was there.

“Hello?” my dad offered, his strong voice passing through the living room as I sat up in the chair more, trying to peek around him for a better view.

The man was a little younger than momma and dad, probably in his late twenties or so, and not all that bad looking, if you can get past the beard. He had a parka on and a thick pair of jeans with boots that looked like they could see a lot of snow before getting overcome.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he said, barely audible over the sound of the wind outside. A snow was coming, maybe. “I need … help.”

His voice was jilting a little, hesitant and hard to understand without really perking my ears up. Momma took another couple of steps toward the door and dad, but she put our her hand behind her to indicate for us to stay where we were.

I squinted, taking in the guy and the way my dad raised his hand to the door, unsure of what might be going on.

“With what, mister?” dad asked, his body in the doorway so the man could not just walk in.

“My… wife,” the man responded, still slowly, as if his breath were caught in his throat. “She’s sick. Got lost.”

Dad craned his neck a bit, looking behind him and nodded. I stood up and looked past him, as well, spotting the double headlights of a car of some kind down the driveway to our house. From the distance, I could not tell what kind it was or if it was on, but the headlights were lit and shining at an angle away from our home.

“Sick how?” dad asked as he reached for his jacket on the coat rack near the door. “You’re a long way from the hospital.”

“Oh, no,” the man replied, his shoulders sinking down. I could see, then, a gauntness to his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before, dark edges rimming the sockets like he was completely exhausted or hadn’t seen sleep in days.

Maybe that really was the case.

“Be right back, hon,” dad muttered with a glance behind him at momma, sliding his jacket onto his back and strapping up the laces.

He put his feet into his boots, still dripping wet from when we were outside decorating and stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind him.

Momma went to the door, herself, and stared out the small window embedded into the wood, while Jake and I got up and ran to the windows in the kitchen, pulling the curtains aside to see what was going on.

I could see the pair walking through the few inches of snow that remained on the ground from the last time it came down, trudging slowly and carefully. The man’s steps seemed unsure, the hesitancy of his voice matching that of his feet, and it took them some time to get to the car, which I could now see was a sedan of some kind.

The man opened the back door and dad ducked down to look inside, his hand on the roof of the car to support himself. He stayed there for a few moments, and I thought he was, perhaps, talking to someone inside, or maybe to the man, himself.

Finally he stepped back again and gestured to the car, and the man reached into the interior with both arms.

He helped a woman get out, her body doubled over onto itself, as she clutched at her abdomen. I heard momma gasp when she saw it, and all of us watched as the trio came back to the house, one cautious step after another.

I glanced over to Jake, whose eyes seemed wide and, perhaps, a little scared, and I have to admit I felt a touch of it then, too. What was going on? Who were these people?

Most importantly, what was wrong with the woman?

Their boots crunched across the ice on the porch as momma opened the door, stepping aside as the wind once again came into the house.

I moved into the archway separating the kitchen from the living room and watched as the strangers came into our home.

The woman was younger than the man, I think, but her face was so wracked with what I took to be pain that it was hard for me to tell. She was moaning as she kept her hand on her stomach, her face twisted and contorted from whatever was going on.

“Tom?” momma asked, her eyes wide as she took in the pair or strangers.

“Call the ambulance, Jean,” he said as he helped prop the woman up on one side while her companion held her on the other.

Momma blew past me, pushing me aside before I could react, and grabbed the phone from the wall while they took the woman to one of the couches and helped her sit down.

She screeched as her body fell, jarring her face into a horrible expression and the man’s hands held tight to her arm as dad’s own drifted back. He moved a few steps away and glanced toward me and Jake, still waiting in the archway.

I heard the phone beeping behind me as momma clicked it on and dialed 911, while dad asked them what their names were.

“I’m… Greg,” the man answered. “This is Sally.”

“When did all of this start?” Dad reached to the back of the couch and pulled down the blanket we kept there, wrapping it around the woman’s shoulders.

“An hour ago,” he said.

I was a bit shocked by that The woman was obviously in a bad way, gritting her teeth and barely containing the agony she was in, and looked like she had been through hell and back a few times. How could someone look this way after only an hour? Her face was ashy, the eyes that could have been pretty sunken into her skull. Her skin was pulled back making it look as if her fat or muscles had been eaten away inside and left nothing but the shell.

She let loose another scream as momma came into the living room again and told dad the phone wasn’t working.

That wasn’t a real surprise. We lost service frequently in our remote location.

I finally moved, going to the chair I had been occupying before all this began and grabbed my phone from the cushion it had fallen into.

I hit the power button and blinked back as the bright light of the screen shot into my vision and brought up the tiny app that would let me dial a number.

No service.

What the hell?

“Dad, where’s your phone?” I asked as I scrambled toward him.

He pointed to the end table near the couch and I grabbed it up, turning it on quickly.

Nothing. Not a single bar available.

There was a cell tower not far from our house, and not once could I remember there being no service available. It was one of the redeeming qualities of being where we were; remote, but still civilized.

But for some reason, it had been interrupted.

I was about to ask Jake where his was when the power flickered three times and shut down altogether.

“Shit!” I heard Jake mutter, and momma admonished him for his language as she, somehow remaining relatively calm throughout all of this, went back into the kitchen again.

I heard her crashing around in there for a few minutes as the dimness of the light from outside would, I knew, soon fade entirely, though there was a little coming in from the car parked in the drive. Its lights remained active.

“Oh my god!” I heard Sally scream and wrenched my head her direction.

Her body was pulled back against the cloth of the couch and her teeth strained against each other as she started what I thought might be a seizure. She trembled, and after a few seconds it became so extreme the boots on her feet pattered on the floor with an echo that resounded through the the whole living room.

“Hold her down!” dad shouted as he reached for her legs, trying to keep them still so she would not hurt herself. Greg was slower, grabbing for her shoulders but missing as she tipped over sideways and rolled.

Her body smacked into the floor with a slap, the wet fabric of her clothes and the skin of her face smashing hard against the wood grain dad had remodeled a few years before. I gaped as traces of blood quickly began to pour out of her nose and her mouth, spreading from her in a rapid pool.

I don’t know if it was because she had broken her nose or maybe bit her tongue when she landed, but there was so much blood. I gagged when I saw it, having always been sensitive to the sight of it, even in this darkened room.

Dad desperately tried to pin her down, to keep her from shaking herself apart as momma rushed into the room with a couple of lit candles. When she saw the scene before her, she gasped loudly and ran to her husband, trying to shed some light on what he was doing.

“Help me, dammit!” dad shouted, tossing a desperate look at Greg, who was standing there numbly watching what his wife was going through. His gaze seemed distant, almost thoughtful, instead of panicked, and I wondered if he was in shock or something.

When he did nothing, momma said, “Come here,” to me and handed the candles over when I neared.

I held them steady to keep them from going out as Jake started to moan behind me, too young to really comprehend what was happening in the home he thought he knew so well.

Momma bent down and put her hands across the woman’s head, helping dad turn her over so she was on her side, rather than face down on the hard wood. The shaking seemed to be easing but her eyes were wide open and staring into my own from the feet between us. Her teeth were bared as the skin was pulled back from them, receding gums exposing the white beneath them to the light of the candles in my hands. That was quickly overtaken by the blood that kept pouring out of her, though, low guttural sounds emanating from her throat.

Some of the blood poured across momma’s hand as she held Sally’s face steady, and though I saw the revulsion on her lips, she did not pull away.

How many times has the next few minutes played out in my head? A hundred? A thousand?

More than enough. Dear God, more than one person should have to see.

Sally stopped moving as Greg became unsteady, his legs wobbling and cantering backward. One step, then two. His calves hit the end table and he stumbled more, his arms barely moving to steady himself as a darkness came across his face. His body tumbled backward until it fell, in a weird coming sort of way that would have made me laugh if it had been under any other circumstances.

Jake screamed and I dropped one of the candles as Greg went down, his head smacking against the floor with a thump I felt through my feet The wick extinguished at the same time the stranger to our home fell into unconsciousness.

Well, what I took to be unconsciousness.

Seeing someone die in front of you is something that will etch into your memory forever. There’s no getting rid of it, no moving past it. You can, perhaps, come to terms with it and accept that it happened, but even those who deal with it on a constant basis like doctors will tell you of the many nights they wake from the nightmares that plague them afterwords.

If they will talk about it at all, that is.

Greg’s life slipped from him in those few moments, punctuated by the sound of Jake’s screaming and my horrified gasps. Like Sally, he, too, quaked, his arms flapping against the floor like a crazed bird, the meat of his hands tap tap tapping as the bones in his knuckles rapped.

Sally’s own breathing ended at almost the same time, one final giant gasp releasing as the blood spewed out of her, dark and coppery smelling. And something else, too, something more akin to bile and crap, a dank fetid odor that overpowered me and made me spill my own guts across the living room.

Jake sprinted then, finally moving his legs toward momma and dad as he screamed again, calling for them to comfort him.

I’m not sure why I am still alive, really. Those of us who were able to manage surviving that night get together sometimes while the sun is still high in the sky above, and we ask ourselves if anyone has been able to figure it out yet, if anything has come across the few remaining radios that work.

No one knows, really, just like no one really knows what caused it all to begin with. Maybe it was a scientist somewhere who got a little too antsy to get home to their Christmas party and got careless. Maybe it was something intentional, some final act by crazed terrorists with an agenda and a vial.

We’re pretty sure it was something viral, since the infection spread quickly, taking out nearly everyone before finally burning itself out. There are only a few dozen of us in this town that managed to be immune or in the right place at the right time to avoid exposure.

Has it burned out? That’s one of our biggest fears. None of us are sure that the thing is gone entirely from the air. Maybe we’re doomed to start dying again as soon as babies start getting born.

Who knows. So far, no one around here has taken with child. No one wants to risk it, I think, and, as for me, I have no interest in being someone’s beta test.

Besides, we have enough on our hands as it is, dealing with the remnants of that time, the leftovers of that experiment gone wrong or whatever the hell it was.

See, those bodies, those things that were left behind when the spirit of the person went to the great beyond, they don’t rot. They don’t fade away, sinking into the ground. No, maybe the ground is too smart for that and rejects them.

Because the ground doesn’t keep them. They rise up again, every year around the same time as they died, coming back up to suck on the air that once kept them healthy and whole.

They come back home, and they want to come in. They want to “visit” with their loved ones.

I guess everyone wants to spend the holidays with their families. Isn’t that the way it’s always been?

They’re knocking now, those things that once were my momma, my dad and little brother, Jake. They whisper through the doors and the windows I have barricaded as tightly as I can make them, clawing at them ineffectually.

These beings, these strangers, want to come home again, and this year, I might just let them.

The post Strangers – NaNoWriMo Day 4 Story appeared first on Original Worlds.

The Sin Box – NaNoWriMo Day 3 Story

When I was a kid, my parents had what they called the Sin Box.

They were pretty religious, I guess, taking their faith very seriously, and they raised me to have the same kind of respect for the gods as they did. Granted, I might have had a little bit of a rebellious streak in me back in those days, but, overall, I was a dutiful child and respected what they wanted me to believe.

So while it wasn’t often I had to spend any time in the Sin Box, when I would be put there for one offense or another, crying and begging for mercy in my little kid voice, I kept the lesson they were trying to teach me in mind.

One time in particular, it was really bad, but, I guess I deserved it.

I had just come into the house, having spent some time in the woods around our place, carrying some apples I found some distance away. I thought mother would be pleased with my trove, and, maybe even make a little pie out of them for after dinner. We could eat it as father read from his book of scriptures and we could have a nice smile as his words came in his gravelly voice.

Our house wasn’t large, just enough for our family of three. Mother and father had their room, I had one of my own, and then there was the kitchen, living room, and a bathroom that tended to smell really ugly in the heat of the summer. It was all made from wood, hewn from the trees around the clearing our house sat in the middle of, felled by the strong and steady hands of my father, himself. He had, apparently, taken the time over two years to make the place what it was and, even though pride could be looked upon as a sin, according to the scriptures, I sometimes caught a gleam in his eye as he would approach the place he had forged with his rough fingers, even years after.

There were two other buildings in the clearing, made from the same materials. One was a large barn I had helped him build, and the other the Sin Box, itself, which I had no part in making.

That particular time, when I came into the kitchen with the apples, my mother was horrified at the state of my clothes. I had to climb the tree, you see, to get those apples down, since they were just on the edge of being their ripest, and had torn my shirt near the center of my chest on a sharpened branch. I hadn’t even realized it, at first, being so excited at my find, but when I saw the look in my mother’s eyes, that flash of anger and righteousness she shot my way, I cringed in horror, knowing I had somehow fallen out of her favor.

The apples dropped to the floor, rolling everywhere as she grabbed my arm and thrust her finger at my chest, pointing out the rip.

“How did this happen?” she asked, keeping her tone even, but I saw the flash of ire even as the question came out.

My six year old self kicked out the heels of the shoes on my feet, scuffing across the floor with the rubber.

“I was climbing the tree, Mother,” I stammered, the words barely coming out, “and I guess I didn’t see the branch…”

She spent the next hour lecturing me about wastefulness, a deep sin, all the while seeming like she would rather be doing anything else.

Maybe that was true.

She had the book of scriptures in her lap the whole time, tapping it once in a while with that same finger that jabbed my chest, quoting the words of Narana about not letting anything, especially time, go to waste and taking responsibility for the errors of that wastefulness.

When the hour was done, she dragged me, as tears streamed from my eyes and mutters of how sorry I was pouring out just as much, she pulled me to the wooden Sin Box and pried open the door.

The smell in there was strong, and the heat of the summer as it beat down on the wood came out in waves.

I begged, plead with all my little might, to not have to go inside, but mother was adamant. The lesson had to be learned and I had to atone for what I had done.

Looking back on it now, I think there were tears of her own in her eyes, but in those moments I hated her and saw nothing but how much I wanted to run into the woods and never look back.

The door closed behind me and I knew it was useless to try to argue any further.

It stayed dark in there much of the time, the only light in the small, enclosed space from a few modest cracks between slats of wood that let the sun come in. There was just enough room to stand in there, the tightness of it an embrace meant to make you, I think, feel as if the gods themselves were pulling your body into a hug. Maybe that was the case. It’s hard to know how they operate. They are, after all, apart from us, holy things that take their duties seriously.

The scriptures tell of how they care for us, though, and have their eyes constantly upon us, their creations. Their part is to keep us safe, and ours is to give them obedience in all things.

Even with as small as I was back then, there wasn’t room to sit in the Sin Box. It barely gave enough for one to turn around, though if I was careful, I could lean forward and put my head on the far wall and close my eyes, taking rest as I could.

The heat was horrible on that summer’s day, the humidity of our little forest’s distance from the ocean overwhelming. As soon as that door was closed, the temperature started to rise and I sweat like I was in a fever dream.

Hours passed into the twilight of the setting sun and still no one came for me in the Sin Box. I didn’t expect them to, really. Atonement takes time, after all, and what I had done was something near the top of the list of things one can do wrong. All I could do was contemplate, thinking not only of the scriptures my mother quoted to me before being placed in the small space, but others, as well.

Narana was merciful, however, having given us all the information we needed to fulfill what was necessary for his service, and Tikana the Punisher, his bride and pride according to the scriptures themselves was there with me in the Sin Box, chiding me of my wrongs.

This time, however, the Sin Box seemed to have more in mind for me than simply teaching me to do better, and I came away from it much different for it. I’m thankful for it, really, but at the time I didn’t really understand.

I had just finished relieving myself, letting the precious water out of myself and into the funnel built into the splintering wood floor, the scent of old residue wafting up into my nostrils and filling the enclosed space with its headiness, when I noticed the light.

Now, mind you, the sun had already passed below the horizon at that point, Narana carrying with him the lamp that lights the world, and not enough time had passed for his golden chariot to come back again. So, where was the light coming from?

It seemed to be in the wall, itself, starting out as a tiny pinprick and growing larger in just a few moments time. It was white, but tinged with a reddish hue at the edges and, as I stared into it, I became very afraid.

Never, in any part of my young life, had I experienced something like this, the glow of it passing through the empty air of that small space and washing across my dirty, tear stained face. The scriptures spoke of men having visions, and I wondered, is that what was happening?

The light brightened, filling up my whole vision like a reverse tunnel until it washed over my body. My head hit the wood behind me as I started to tremble, fear and dread careening through me. The burst of pain from the strike was strong, but I made no noise as this silent light became everything to me.

I think a seizure struck me, then, as my body completely locked up and my mind froze, teeth gritting down hard enough to crack one of them a bit.

Then, it was all over, ending as quickly as it had begun, the light disappearing with a wink. There, whole and intact one second and gone the next.

I blinked as the black encompassed me once more, the Sin Box taking the place of the light and embracing me with its heat and stink.

One singular word filled my mind as my mouth went agape with awe, causing the pain in my tooth to flare up even more.

Narana.

He had come to visit me in that place of atonement, I was sure of it. He had come and granted me his atonement with his enormous light, letting me know that, though I was a sinner, I was forgiven of it.

I was, truly, his, well and worthy enough for him to come and personally take a hand with.

When mother opened the door the next day, I was filthy and sweaty, stinking of the rot of decay from the septic below the Sin Box and my own odious body, but I was smiling.

She could see it immediately, the way I carried myself out of the box and into her waiting arms. Her look, stern upon the opening of the door, softened as I came forward to her and, when she took me back to the house and gave me the blessed gift of the water, I knew all was going to be okay.

She helped me change out of the clothes and put the ruined shirt into the fire she used for cooking in the kitchen, telling me that all was to be forgotten.

I had paid the price and had been washed clean of my sin and it would never be brought up again by her.

That was the right of things, the way it should be. The gods, after all, are the ultimate judges, as it says in the scriptures.

I spent the day helping mother in the kitchen, weakened from my time in the Sin Box too much to train with father, as I usually would do. That evening, we had the apple pie for dessert after dinner while he read from the book and I smiled, knowing everything was exactly how it should be.

I didn’t have to spend any more time in the Sin Box for a long time after that, though, to be honest, I sometimes thought about doing something incorrect so I could see if Narana would come once more, but I knew better than that. That could lead to disastrous consequences and even incur the ire of the gods.

A couple of years later, father and I were away from the house doing training, as we so often did. Now that I was older, I could be trusted more with the holy weapons, though I was still not allowed to go into the basement area with the shrine to them. No, that precious duty was for father, alone, as the scriptures spoke of how important the man is as head of the house. It is his duty to protect and secure, an extension of Narana’s hands of guidance.

The holy guns he put into my hands were done for me to learn my own place for my future, and I would take them with the reverence they deserved.

I was not as good as father, of course, having less experience in their handling, but I liked the smaller one the best, the righteous way the cool metal felt in my fingers as I stroked it, and the heat it would emit after the bullets were fired. It was magical, those moments with that searing hot pressed against he flesh of my fingers, and I knew, when the time came and the forces of Hokkai the Destroyer descended upon us, as it was prophesied, I would revel in that heat.

The runes etched into its frame would empower that scathing lead spouting from it to rain righteousness upon those enemies of all that is sacred and holy.

Hokkai the Destroyer would know the ire of Narana that day.

When the day was done and father sent me back to the house to cleanse the residue of our training from my body, he told me to take all but one of the holy weapons back with me. That one, a long rifle, he kept for himself.

I told mother he would return later, as he instructed me to do, and made myself clean from the sweat the summer heat in Georgia inevitably brought. Mother helped, of course, though I thought, then, I was close enough to a man to not need it.

Still, scripture demands obedience to one’s parents, even if they are the mother, though she is not the head of a man.

I was given leave to read from the scriptures if I desired and spent the rest of the evening poring over the large leather bound book, hoping to glean something new from its pages.

By the time night had fallen and the last of the candles were lit, father still had not arrived home. That wasn’t too odd, since he sometimes spent time away from the house on his own to think on the scriptures or to complete a hunt for food. The forest around us was filled with game, but some days they were harder to catch than others.

I went to bed, contemplating my place in the world and what Narana might bring into our lives.

The next morning, father still had not come back, and mother was, I could tell, beginning to fret. But she held her peace and did not say anything to me of her concerns, going about her morning cleaning and cooking the meals for the day. I caught her sidelong glances out the window, though, a dark look on her face.

I stayed around the house until mid-afternoon when she called me in for lunch. We prayed and thanked Narana, as was righteous, for the blessing of his meal and ate in the silence that fell afterward.

The crunches of footsteps outside drew both of our attentions and mother dropped the metal fork onto the porcelain as she rose up and ran to the door.

I followed, a little slower, unsure of what the noise might be. I glanced to where I had left the holy weapons against the wall, carefully set aside so father could put them back into their proper places upon his return. I definitely did not want to break the rule stating I am not allowed to go near their retainers.

Mother glanced through the small peephole in the door and gasped. She grabbed the knob and spun it, swinging the door wide with a smile on her face.

I looked past her and saw father approaching the porch, just entering into the shadows it cast across the front of the house. A serious look was pinned on his face as he pulled along behind him a girl, her hands tied with a rope that he carried in his free hand.

She was a little younger than myself, smaller, and had long blond hair. I couldn’t see her mouth, since it was covered by the handkerchief he had put on her lips, probably to keep her silent. Her clothes looked strange to me, not in a dress as I always saw mother in, but wearing pants and a teeshirt with an odd design on it. Pink flowers wrapped with a braid of thorns, of all things.

“Welcome home,” mother said as she stepped out of the house and embraced him in a one armed hug. She barely looked at the girl trailing behind him, though I could not keep my eyes off of her.

Blue eyes. They were so strange to see, as I had never seen anyone with anything other than brown, those being the color of mother and father. My own were brown, as well, from what I could tell by looking into the soft spots of the river that eddied and mirrored the sky above.

Mother took the end of the rope from father and dragged the girl away from the front of the house. I heard her whimper and she gave me a look, something like desperation, as she disappeared from my view.

Father came inside, then, and told me that I was not to speak of the girl. She was not really there, you see, more of a ghost at that time, because she was unclean and needed to be purified, brought into the faith as the scriptures proscribed.

I didn’t really understand it, but father was clear that I was to have no thoughts of her, as thinking about evil is not to be done. I wanted to ask him how he had been able to touch her, to bring her to our space, if she was so evil, but knew better than to voice that kind of thing.

She seemed to pretty, so simple, even with those strange clothes and fiery eyes. How could she be evil?

I heard the door of the Sin Box slam shut, as father gathered up the holy weapons from where I had left them and made his way to the basement stairs.

When mother returned, she was smiling, so I knew everything, though it might have been confusing for me, was right.

I didn’t want to raise her ire by asking her any questions, and father had made it clear I was to keep to myself, so I sat back down and finished my meal, not wasting a drop of the lettuce and beans. That would, after all, be wrong, and there was not room enough in the Sin Box for two.

That night, mother took a candle and a plate of food outside with her, holding the book of scriptures beneath her arms. She didn’t come back in for hours, and, though I was curious about what might be happening, I couldn’t see anything of the box from my window. I heard her creep back inside and go to her room with father eventually. They talked for a little while, but I could not hear the words they said, no matter how much I kept my ears perked.

I went to sleep with the eyes of that little girl in my mind, wondering what was going on, unable to restrain my curiosity no matter how much I prayed.

I think father knew this, and was trying to save me from myself by taking me out the next day into the woods, carrying the holy guns with us as we went. We went far away from the house, and I wondered if mother was going to spend the day teaching the newcomer the ways of faith while we were gone.

Father talked to me of man things that day, as we walked through the woods. We kept as quiet as we could, his soft voice barely carrying through the air as he talked. I think the guns were with us as an excuse that we were going to hunt, but our larder was full and if we did catch something, it would likely end up going to waste.

So we did no actual hunting, but I spent the long day being taught that the man is always the head of the home, but the woman is there to guide and temper him, to restrain him when his anger threatened him into sin or his faith began to shake.

The next month was spent in that way. I would go with father in the morning out into the forest, sometimes to actually hunt, sometimes to fish, and sometimes to work at storing up the wood that would be needed to help us get through the winter months.

Mother, on the other hand, spent much of her time at the door of the Sin Box, speaking to the small girl inside.

I thought how hot it must be inside of there, and crinkled my nose at how much she must stink by that time, knowing how it was after even a day of being trapped in it. Who was she? What was she there for? What had she done that was so evil that she had to be in there for as long as she was?

I prayed to Narana that he keep her safe and, maybe, grant her the same atonement he had given me so long ago.

It helped, I think, because she was finally allowed to step out of the Sin Box.

The day it happened was a day I will never forget.

Father and I stayed home that day. Fall was not too far off and, thought the heat was still oppressive, especially inside the house, he told me that we’d be remaining there to help.

When I asked with what, he told me to wait.

Just after breakfast, which mother had gotten up early to fix, she disappeared out of the house and came back in after an hour, opening the front door wide.

She stepped aside and there was the girl, her clothing barely held together after so long in the Sin Box, and looking so much thinner than I remembered her being. The smell of her struck me hard, already wafting through the house as she came a hesitant step inside.

She smiled a little beneath her blue eyes, but it was weak and she shook a bit as she stepped, so emaciated that she reminded me of some of the dead animals I had spotted sometimes in the woods.

“Welcome, Kara,” father said, a smile on his face. He didn’t approach her, and I kept my seat as the girl gave her wan smile to him, as well.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” mother said as she walked next to her through the living room toward the bathroom. The girl said nothing but nodded, plodding quietly across the wood floor.

“Kara?” I asked father, raising my brows.

He nodded. “That’s her name. Just like yours is James.”

I was shocked at that, because I had never heard the word before.

“James?” I asked, the word rolling off of my tongue. Never before had I heard it, having only been referred to as “Boy,” if they said anything.

“You’ve earned it,” he replied and smiled even larger.

I nodded, understanding the seriousness of what he was implying with his tone, despite the smile. I knew one day I would be given a name, but the surprise of it and the girl being welcomed into our home on the same day was overwhelming and I wasn’t sure how to take it.

When mother brought Kara from the bathroom, she was transformed, the smile on her face genuine and sure, and she tore into the plate of food and water she was given with a gusto I’d not seen before.

“Hello, Kara,” I offered as she ate. “I’m James.” It seemed to weird to use my name, the unfamiliarity of it in my mind not set in yet.

She beamed as father nodded.

“She’s to be your sister, James. She will be here to aid us when Hokkai comes. Do you understand?”

I nodded, though I didn’t really.

It would not be long, though. Hokkai would be coming, of that we were sure, the evil of the world descending upon our little family of four.

Looking back on it, I knew mother and father always had the best thing in mind for us, from the day they brought me to the house bound in a rope of my own. That was my first experience with the Sin Box, and, though it had been so hard to be in there for those long weeks, the days blending into each other unendingly, they were just doing what the scriptures provided them to do.

The time would come, and soon, for the four of us to take up our holy arms and bring righteousness to the forces of the Evil One, Hokkai the Destroyer, in the name of Narana the Creator.

We would be his justice. We would be free.

The post The Sin Box – NaNoWriMo Day 3 Story appeared first on Original Worlds.

The Itch – NaNoWriMo Day 2 Story

I reach behind me again, trying to get it to stop, but the interminable itch just will not go away.

At first, it was just a small thing, a little distraction in the middle of the day while I was at work, but it’s kept getting worse as the days go on and, now that a full week has passed and it’s shown no signs of letting up, I am really beginning to wonder what the hell is going on.

I tried to talk to my wife about it, but she ignored me, telling me if it bothered me that bad to go see the doctor, but that guy is, I swear, a quack above all else and I hate going to him. I mean, the last time I went, he told me the reason my leg was paining me was because I was “just getting old” and I would have to learn to deal with it.

Did he listen to me when I said it felt like something was crawling around inside of it? Nope. And yet, a couple days later when the first bug popped out of a hole it dug into my skin, what did he have to say, then? “Oh, my!”

Yeah. That’s it. What a crock.

The last thing I wanted to do was spend money my family didn’t have to have some guy tell me it’s all nothing and to put on some damn cream or something.

I know somethings wrong, I just can’t put my fingers on it.

Literally.

It’s right there in the center of the back, between the shoulder blades. That kind of spot that stays a mere inch, maybe less, from the edge of your fingernails, keeping out of reach enough to make you mad.

I’ve tried to figure out why it started. I have the when. One week. Seven days of constancy that can make someone go a little nuts and a lot grumpy.

Like I said, at first, it wasn’t too bad. Just a spot that seemed to get a little worse by the day until, after a few days of it, it started to feel like it was burning. Yeah, I used a back scratcher on it. Hell I bought one just for the purpose of trying to free myself of it, but that did about as much good as sitting in a bathtub full of cold water.

Relieved it for about a half a heartbeat, only to have it come right back when I was done.

When Martha finally deigned to look at it, she said she didn’t see anything other than the redness of my skin where I had been digging it raw.

“How can that be?” I asked, knowing every time I scratched at it, I swear there was a lump of some kind. “Can’t you see anything at all?”

She just rolled her eyes and kicked the blankets over herself tighter.

That’s my Martha. Ever the Florence Nightingale. She’d given me her answer and that was that for her.

When she turned off the light and I started trying to scratch it again, she pushed me out of the bed and told me to go sleep on the couch if I was gonna keep it up. I did what she wanted, as I almost always did. No one can say I am not an “obedient husband” to her.

Wish I could say the same about her, but that’s not the point.

I didn’t end up with much sleep that night, and that’s how it’s been for the past week now. I’m more tired than I can ever remember being, and this damn itch just keeps getting worse.

It had been a nice day seven days ago, the kind of day right between summer and fall when you can walk outside without a jacket but still have that balance between being cold and hot. Perfect day, really.

I decided to make use of the day by going for a walk and, as it often did, that meant going into Peterson’s woods.

Now, most people avoid those woods, what with the thick brambles that tend to grow in it making treks through it difficult. Pretty much the only ones that do go in there are hunters looking to catch a deer unaware (if they can get by without the Sheriff noticing), or small game guys looking to do in a few rabbits for their winter pots.

It’s usually hard to get through, but I knew of some paths through it that made it easy, as long as I kept my eyes open for those crawling vines that sometimes scattered themselves across the empty spaces, looking for the newest and best light they can get hold of. The occasional root might stick up, especially after a big rain washed through, removing some of the top parts of the soil, and I’d have to watch not getting tripped up, but mostly it was good enough that I wouldn’t have to do more than the cursory glances down once in a while.

Other than that, it was just me and nature, as God designed it to be, or so my mom might have said. Man in the wild, even if I did have a suit and tie on.

Of course, after these little excursions of mine, Martha would get ticked ff at me for the state of my clothes, claiming she’d have to clean them up again before I could wear them to work, but, hell, half the time she doesn’t even manage to do it herself, and has the dry cleaners take care of it. She keeps herself too busy with the Ladies Group she’s in.

When those hens start clucking there’s no work that gets done.

So, there I was, enjoying the nice day beneath the boughs of the trees and thinking how nice it would be to maybe get a couple of the guys together to build a shack out there, something I’d dreamed about for a long time. I know it’ll never happen, since, like I said, most people tend to avoid Peterson’s woods like the plague, but, still, it made for nice thoughts.

When I heard the weird fluttering sound, I, at first, didn’t pay it any mind. I thought it was a bird in the trees above me going from bough to bough, or, hell, even a squirrel trying to find its next meal or something. But when it seemed like it was actually following the paces I was making through the woods, I started looking up to see if I could spot whatever it was.

There wasn’t anything there that I could see, though. Just this strange flit-flit-flit as I walked, like an almost silent helicopter hovering way up in the sky. It was wings of some kind, of that I was almost positive, but whatever was making it I just couldn’t get my eyes on.

That is, until I got to a clearer place in the woods, a little break in the trees that spread out into a clearing.

Now, you might think I was, or am, drunk for saying what comes next, but I am god’s honest telling the truth here.

The whole place seemed to dim. It was like a veil of some kind just sort of whooshed over the whole clearing, or an eclipse, maybe, even though the sun was still up there in the sky.

It was the nature of the light, I guess, that is the weird part. Instead of the usual yellowness of it, it ended up taking on this cast of gray. If you’ve ever seen what water looks like after it’s gone through a dish washing cycle, it was similar to that. Milky, almost, chalk turned to dust and mixed in.

My feet stopped moving and I just stood there staring for what must have been a full minute, wondering if a storm was coming up quick and how I might find some shelter from it if it did.

Everything around had fallen into silence, even my breaths, which I realized I was holding in for far longer than I should have in those first few moments in the clearing.

The usual chattering of the birds and small critters doing their thing in the midst of the trees had gone dead, and I thought I had gone deaf, but the breeze was still going and I could hear it in the leaves, so I knew it couldn’t be that.

Then the flitting sound began again, in earnest this time, and I whirled around to see what was happening.

There in front of me, right there at the edge of the break of the trees, was something I could have never imagined. Or, rather, not since I was a little kid still holding on to my mom’s gown while trying to fight off going to sleep.

It was a fairy.

I swear to God, a real-life, genuine fairy, hovering with her wings flapping in rhythm as she looked dead in my face with a smile as big as the outdoors.

She wasn’t big, at least in her body. She was a tiny waif of a thing, real thin spindly limbs and long, brown hair that matched the bark on the trees around me. That hair hung down to her knees, I think, though the dress she wore made it hard to tell in those first couple seconds of me staring with my mouth agape.

Her wings, though, those were huge. They reminded me of a butterfly, only more translucent, and they made a rainbow pattern as they wafted back and forth, keeping her body afloat.

I didn’t say anything. Hell, I couldn’t say anything as I stood there staring like I was stupid into the bluest eyes I had ever looked at before. My brain just couldn’t process it, couldn’t come to terms with the fact that here I was, a middle aged man with a beer gut gazing into the eyes of freaking Tinkerbell in the middle of god-forsaken nowhere. What the hell do you say to something like that?

I raised my hand, though, in a weird wave of sorts, rather embarrassed at my condition in front of this creature that had to come from magic or something. I mean, where exactly do they come from? Does anyone really know? There’re all kinds of myths about them, but who knows where they really originate from?

She smiled at me, the grin getting bigger as she saw my gesture, and raised a hand to her mouth like she wanted to hide behind it.

I wasn’t sure why she was showing herself to me. Wouldn’t she be better off showing up to some kid, changing their life in some kind of mystical way or something?

My mind was locked up, and I just couldn’t think straight. There were so many things I could have said in that moment, questions I could have asked this awesome being out of the imagination, but nothing came out other than a little clearing of my throat. Probably an overload of shock.

Her wings started to move harder and she kind of turned a bit, making like she was going to head off into another direction and disappear from me. Finally, my voice unlocked.

“Wait!” I shouted, breaking the silence of the clearing and snapping that magical moment asunder.

I regretted it instantly, not wanting to damage whatever chance I had to explore all of this strangeness further, but she didn’t panic and fly away. My sinking heart rose back up again as she turned back toward me, that grin still plastered across her beautiful face.

“Wait,” I said again, much quieter this time. “Please don’t go.”

She didn’t say anything, had made no noise at all other than the flapping of those gorgeous wings on her back. She came closer, though, pushing herself forward with the strange method of flight she had.

She pointed behind me, still saying nothing and, for a moment, my eyes stayed locked on hers. I didn’t want to turn, sure in my heart that she would disappear if I did, and I didn’t want that moment to end. I wanted it to go on forever, just me and this beautiful creature together in a spot in the woods made for just us.

She was insistent though, gesturing wildly without vocalizing at all and I finally capitulated, curious as to what she was wanting.

When I turned away, the fluttering of the wings grew frenetic and much closer than they had been.

Before I had a chance to whirl around again, a sharp pain struck me in the center of my back, just between the shoulders. It wasn’t much, really, a needle pricking the skin like you’d get when a nurse draws blood.

There for a split second, then gone again.

Well, I managed to get myself turned around all the way and saw her backing away with that smile still on her pretty face. A long length of tail that reminded me too much of a scorpion was sliding back up inside of the dress hanging off of her thin body, coiling up inch by inch until it disappeared completely somewhere within her.

My eyes widened as she laughed and fluttered her butterfly wings more rapidly than my eyes could really see, and shot up high into the air, racing across the tops of the trees.

Within a few seconds, she faded completely from my sight and I was left alone in the darkened clearing, wondering what the hell I had gotten into.

Or, more specifically, what had gotten into me.

That damn itch is just so hard for me to reach, and I am not sure how much longer I can take it. I know there’s a lump there, growing every day, and I wonder, as I lay awake in the middle of the night, unable to sleep at all because of the terrible ache it’s giving me and the terror that is growing, how much more time will pass before whatever that damn beautiful demon creature did to me is fulfilled.

Am I going to become one of them? Is this how they created a new one of themselves? Am I in the middle of some transformation into a fairy, myself, becoming some weird middle aged paunchy fairy, myself?

Or am I merely the shell for an egg that’s hatching inside of me as I write these words, nothing more than an incubator feeding the coming child?

This damn itch is just getting worse. I guess I’m going to find out soon enough.

The post The Itch – NaNoWriMo Day 2 Story appeared first on Original Worlds.

A Survivor’s Story – NaNoWriMo Day 1 Story

For NaNoWriMo this year, I am challenging myself by writing a story a day! This is the story for Day 1.

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My eyes fluttered open and met nothing but darkness.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the kind of haze on your brain after a long night of drinking, but it’s not a fun experience. The headache can pound and you feel like you’ve been run over by a pile of dogs that decided to use your face as their scratching posts.

I had that going on, and more, but the thing is, I hadn’t been drinking. Not a single drop. Haven’t for years actually. That’s one of the side effects of growing up with a whiskey drunk for a father. You either swing the way he did by inundating yourself with as much booze as you can get hold of or run the other direction and not touch a bit of it. I went the way of avoidance.

So why did I feel like I just had the biggest bender of my life? And where the hell was I, anyhow?

The darkness was not quite absolute, as the waves of dizziness wafted through my skull. I guess you could say there was a bit of ambience to it, a tinge of dull orange and tan somewhere ahead of me. It wasn’t bright enough to really count for much, but as my eyes adjusted, it *was there.

I clawed my way further into consciousness, trying to shrug off the after-effects of whatever had been in me. That’s when I noticed movement.

Not mine, not directly, anyhow, but the sensation of swaying was there. It was subtle, at first, but as I came more into awareness, it seemed to increase. Maybe that’s just because I was waking up. That way became accompanied by a low hum, a rumble just at the edge of my hearing for those first couple of moments. That, too, increased as the seconds grew longer and I started to notice it had the distinct feel of an engine, or what you might hear from the tires as your car goes along a highway.

I cleared my throat a couple of times and smacked my lips, trying to bring up some bit of spit to quell the dryness on my tongue and made to lift my hand to wipe at my eyes.

It wouldn’t move.

Well, more specifically, it twitched inside of whatever had tied it in place to the other hand, a piece of fabric or maybe a rope rubbing along my skin as I tried to get it to shift.

What the hell?

It ached as whatever was moving around me jostled a bit and pulled my arm at a weird angle, but thankfully that pain was small. Compared to my head, it was nothing, really, but it worried me. Not just because it hurt, but because I had no idea how I came to be wherever I was or what was going on.

The anxiety rushed through me and my stomach grumbled with nausea as adrenaline began to surge. I curled my fingers together and pulled at the fabric, twisting them and my wrists around as much as I could to break myself free from the binding, but whoever tied them together had done a good enough job that all I seemed to manage to accomplish was making the cinches tighter.

My legs could move, though, and I managed to get them beneath me enough to sit up straight against a hard surface behind me. My butt was on a cold metal floor of some kind and now that my not really small frame was up, the swaying really increased. It just added to the nausea running rickshaw through my guts as my panic increased.

Where the hell was I? What was going on? The last thing I remember before waking up in this place was John begging me to go out for a bit with him. I didn’t really feel up to it, so I told him no and hung up the phone, getting ready to walk out the front door at work to get to my car.

I squinted my eyes, the weird orange-tan glow shadowing as I did. Was there a bit of pain when I went through the door?

Yea, actually there was. Right along the back side of my neck. A poking sensation like a needle at the doctors office or something. Just real brief, and then the next thing I know I was there in the darkness.

I gasped as I realized someone must have been behind me, maybe coming around that shadowed corner I always told the damn boss he needed to get some lights on. Cheap bastard wouldn’t do anything about it, and now look who’s paying the price for that.

Isn’t that always the way?

When I gasped, it came out as more of a groan, I think, that thickness in the back of my throat just not wanting to clear.

That’s when I heard a low moan coming back into my ears from somewhere else and I realized I was not alone.

I froze, the haze in my head clearing more as I listened hard, trying to glean anything I could out of that dark space. When nothing else came, I raised my voice.

“Who’s there?”

Simple enough question, really, and I almost laughed to myself as a flash of memories of watching horror movies kicked into my head. How many times had I argued with the fool girl on the screen who talked when they should have kept quiet, or stumbled every single time they tried to run from the monster serial killer? And yet here I was, trapped in the darkness moving along in some strange vehicle shouting into the void, giving away my position to whatever might be waiting beyond the shadow’s edge.

I got an answer, though, in the form of another moan. Whoever it was, they were a little ways from me; it was higher pitched than my own groans and I thought, perhaps, it was a woman.

“Who’s there?” I asked again, this time a little louder. Sweat was pouring down my cheeks now, the cool metal against my butt and back doing nothing to fight against the nerves wracking through me.

“Oh, God,” I heard the voice say. Yeah, it was definitely a woman. “What the hell?”

“Hey, can you hear me?” I didn’t know if her words were meant for me or if she was just coming awake like I had been and was confused.

But I needed answers, and, stranger or not, having another voice in that darkness that seemed to be going through what I was gave me a comfort I can’t really describe.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice strained. I could hear shuffling now, as I assume she struggled against binds of her own. “What the hell do you want, you bastard?”

Oh man. I realized she must think I am the one that tied her up and drugged her.

“I’m over here,” I offered weakly. “I’m tied up too.”

Another jostle, much bigger this time, seemed to shake the whole place as whatever we were being carted in hit a bump or something. The back of my head slammed into the metal behind me and I’m not ashamed to admit I yelped. It echoed through the chamber and came back to my ears, sounding like a puppy that got thwacked for pissing on the floor or something.

It spun my head around for sure, as if it didn’t already ache enough from whatever got put in me. What had dulled down to a respectable roar spiked to a sledgehammer and for the next few minutes, I was pretty out of it.

When it finally calmed back to an ache I could deal with, the woman was talking. I didn’t catch the first bit of it, because I was too concerned with keeping myself coherent enough to stay conscious.

“… such an idiot. Where am I? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I managed to get out. “Some kind of truck, maybe.” I wanted to keep her talking, needed to hear a voice in that swaying darkness, some kind of link to sanity in a world that had gone distinctly around the bend. “Who are you?”

“Janet” she answered, her high-pitched voice carrying through the black pit of a void my surroundings had become. “Janet.”

“Well, Janet,” I said, “I’m Bryan.” I twisted my hands again, trying once more to get the bindings loose, but they were strapped in tight and wouldn’t budge. It was starting to become a little painful, and I had a feeling I was cutting off some of the flow of blood, because there was a worrying numbness beginning in the tips of my fingers. “Are you tied up, too?” I asked, and got the answer I was expecting.

“Yeah,” her voice quietening. “Can’t believe I was so stupid.”

I smacked my lips and cleared my throat again. “What do you mean?”

“You never take your eyes off your drink,” she replied, but it seemed she was talking more to herself than to me.

I’d heard about girls having to learn from their friends that hard lesson.

Another jostle and this time there was a change in the low tone of the hum around me. A shifting sensation happened as the machine carting us slowed and a rumble vibrated through the metal against me. Another jolt as the speed increased again made my heart freeze inside of me. It settled back into a steady rhythm again, but there were frequent bumps lifting me up and putting me back down again as the road beneath us must have turned rougher.

Janet, too, fell into silence as we waited to see what was happening, but when the engine roared back up to speed again, she said, “What’s happening, Bryan?”

I could hear tears in that voice, the strain with which she was holding them back, trying to keep herself calm, and my own broke within me. “I don’t know,” was the only reply I could offer, and it terrified me that I had nothing more to give.

Why me? Why was I here? I was just a guy who tried to do the right thing, going to work every day at a job I couldn’t stand to make sure the bills got paid, and I’d never done anything to hurt anyone. Not intentionally, anyhow. I had no idea why someone would want to stick me in this state. I didn’t have any enemies that I knew of, and I didn’t even know this chick sitting in the dark with me. I’d never even met a Janet before, let alone do something that would wind up having both of us like this.

So why me?

She was crying in full, now, and I wished I could give her some kind of comfort, but I couldn’t even see her, let alone do anything with my damn hands tied behind my back, trussed up like some stuffed pig waiting for the slaughter.

That thought froze my veins again and I gaped my mouth wide.

Why, really, was I there?

Oh God.

The engine roared again and I felt the whole thing jerk hard as a fast turn was made, pulling me sideways some. I slid across the floor, my back scraping against the metal at least a few feet. Other things slid with me; I could hear crates or boxes shifting as the turn settled back out again.

Incredible pain burst through my hand as my finger was pulled further back than it had a right to, the pinkie nearly breaking in the process. I yelped again as the scrape of a bolt or something sticking out of the wall pried open my skin and hot blood began to ooze. I clenched my hand into a fist and gritted my teeth, hissing through them as I wrenched my eyes shut.

It was a good few minutes before the pain even started to ease and by that time, the vehicle we were in was slowing down.

The rumble of the engine came again as the brakes were hit, gliding us to a stop.

Janet moaned as the engine caterwauled as whoever was driving hit the gas a final time before switching it off.

The quiet of it disturbed me, the vibrations along my body no longer happening though I had almost become accustomed to it. It took a few seconds for me to adjust to not feeling it.

My brain tossed it aside quickly though as the sound of a door opening came to my ears and when the slam of it closing again rattled through the metal I leaned against, my heart pounded anew. It was so hard, I could feel it in my neck and my breath trapped in my lungs. Panic rolled through me like a steam engine, my legs quaking to the point my shoes tapped against the metal floor.

Loud rattles to my right and I shot my eyes in that direction. A second later, bright white light lasered into my pupils and I wrenched my sight away from it as the door there was opened, letting in the high sun.

Janet screamed and I pried my lids open again, adjusting to the blur as more adrenaline surged through me. Instinctively I backed away, edging from whoever was there at the door.

A heartbeat later, the distinct cocking of a shotgun pierced my ears and I stopped moving. Janet, too, fell silent, though her breaths gasped still with tears.

“That’s right,” a deep voice said. “Just keep yourselves calm, now.”

The figure there was shadowed, the bright light behind them blocking out any distinct features, but they were definitely taller than average, their chest wide.

The trees behind them played a nice counterpoint to the shotgun in their hand as they took a step back and became clearer, the lines becoming more distinct.

It was a guy, long beard hanging down nearly past the center of his chest. The baseball cap on top of his head was dirty, looking nearly as old as the man himself. He bore a toothy grin, the pasty skin around it pulled back to show the white and yellow, but they looked strong and sharp.

“Well, now,” he muttered, a subtle southern tinge to his words. “Let’s see what we got here. Two little worms all ready for a nice trip?” His strange question seemed to be amusing to himself, and he laughed a little as he said it.

I stayed quiet, watching this strange man as he took another step back and spat on the ground.

“Yeah, two little worms, all nice and packaged. I bet we’re gonna have some fun!”

He held the shotgun out, a wicked looking thing that had a magazine underneath it. I didn’t know about guns enough to know if it was some kind of custom job or if he bought it that way, the extent of my knowledge of shotguns being what I saw on the Playstation. He tapped the tip of it against the metal frame in front of him.

“Right, out of the truck you go, and mind your step, hear?”

He backed away a few more paces and waited with his left hand resting on the barrel.

A truck? Things made a little more sense now. We had been brought somewhere inside a semi, this creep dragging us who knew how far to do with us whatever he wanted.

I glanced toward the other side of the trailer and saw the figure of what I took to be Janet laying along the other wall. I couldn’t see much more than her legs, though, at first. They were free of rope like mine, but she was still fully on her back.

“I didn’t mean to come for Sunday breakfast,” the guy said, his voice turning dark. “Move your asses.” My eyes flicked to him again and saw him gesturing with the gun for us to come.

I shifted my legs again, trying to find some purchase on the slippery metal surface of the trailer and finally managed to get them underneath me enough to move. It was hard to shift upright, though, and I fell back down again too hard. The ache flared as my rear protested the abuse, but when I looked and saw the guy coming forward with the gun pointed at my head, I moved faster.

Janet, too, was coming to her feet. I could hear her harder soles tapping on the floor as I wormed my way to my own and together we stepped forward toward the bright light of day and the trucker with the gun.

“That’s right,” he said, “just walk slow. There you go.”

We reached the edge, and spared a glance at each other. Her long, brown hair was matted in some places, though it did not look too bad for the wear against the floor of the trailer. She was young, perhaps a few years younger than my own mid-twenties, and had a pretty face, though it was marred by a scar that went across her left cheek. I had no time to wonder how she might have gotten it, though, more concerned with whether or not I was going to make it through the next few minutes.

I was only a couple of feet from the edge, the man giving us a wider berth to be able to get down without being within reach of him. There were a ton of trees behind him, along either side of a dirt road that went straight on for quite a while in the distance. It was bright, the shining sun hot with the midsummer day and, if it weren’t for the trucker pointing the weapon at us, it might be one of those perfect kind of places to just get away to.

Secluded and alone.

Perfect for whatever this guy had in mind, too, I guess.

He gestured again with the gun, pointing it down toward the ground to indicate for us to get out of the trailer. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it with my hands tied. It looked like a good few feet of a drop and the slight vertigo looking down at the gravel gave me didn’t help matters any. Janet seemed to have a better time of it, though. She hopped down with more athleticism than I expected from her slight frame.

The crunch of the gravel beneath my soles was loud, but at least there wasn’t the crackle of a bone breaking to accompany it. My teeth rattled in my head on the landing and I bit the inner part of my lip a little, but that was nothing compared to the pound it made in my head, still swimming from the drug this guy must have injected into me.

The nearest part of the trees was some distance away, maybe fifty yards or so. I thought I was surreptitious in my glance toward them, wondering if I would be able to make a break for it before the guy had a chance to level his gun at me, but the shaking of his head told me he had noticed.

“Nah, son,” he growled. “You’re not gonna make it. If you wanna try, that’s your life.” He laughed that strange cackle of his again. “I wouldn’t bet on it, though.”

He stared down the two of us for what must have been at least a couple of minutes, and I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to antagonize the situation any more than it already was. Janet, however, kept spouting out questions and demands, all of which he ignored.

“What’s going on? Why are we here? You’re not going to get away with this!”

The guy barely even glanced at her, though. There seemed to be something almost distant in his eyes, as if he was listening to music or something in his head instead of holding a gun on two strangers in front of him. I can’t really explain it, but it was like he wasn’t fully… there.

Perhaps it was part of his madness. He had to be mad, right? After all, he pulled two strangers off of the streets, seemingly at random, and dragged them off to the hell knows where. Why, unless he was crazy?

I mean, if someone is angry or upset about something, you can deal with that, right? You can come to some kind of terms with them and work it out. You can find some kind of common ground and walk away from each other without animosity.

This guy, though, was something else, entirely, and unless you’ve come face to face with true insanity, it’s hard to describe what it’s like. A disconnect is there, something missing from their humanity, maybe, and trying to reach into that and come away from it untouched is impossible.

She was trying to get something rational out of an irrational situation, and I didn’t know if that was something even possible to do. I certainly couldn’t see how in those few moments there in the middle of nowhere with nothing but trees and dirt for company.

“We’re gonna play a little game,” he said, finally breaking the silence. Janet fell quiet, almost surprised when he spoke. “We’re gonna see what you’re really made of, deep inside.”

“Just let us go, man,” I said, hoping now that the guy was back from wherever he was in his head I could maybe get something out of him. “I won’t tell anyone. I just want to go home, okay?”

The laugh again as he looked into my face. “Why would you want to do that, when you’ve got all the world to see?” He spun around, a strange little dance of sorts with the gun held above his head. A husky ballerina doing a quick pirouette or something.

“Nah, boy” he continued as he brought the gun back down again. “We’re gonna make something of you you never thought you’d be!”

“What’s that?” I asked, pulling my wrists apart a bit to get the numbness under control.

“A survivor!” He cackled and danced again.

When he told us to turn around, I was sure that was the moment. It was the time of my death. When he made us get on out knees, I knew the last sight I would see in this life was the back end of a filthy semi truck and a bumper sticker that read, “How’s my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-CRAP.”

I glanced over at Janet who had tears streaming down her face and was mumbling a prayer under her breath, hoping I would be the one to go first so I wouldn’t have to watch what happens when a shotgun shell goes through someone’s brain.

Just make it quick, and don’t miss, if you’re going to do it, I thought. Don’t leave me half-dead in this hot sun.

A jerking at my wrists, though, flared new pain in my nearly broken pinkie as the snick of a knife cut the rope binding them together and I gasped as the blood instantly began to flow back into them. The pins and needles started in and I brought them to my front and rubbed them together near my chest.

I looked to my side and saw him using a pocket knife to release Janet, as well, and wondered what the hell this guy’s game was.

“Now, don’t you two move,” he said, backing away again. The crackle of the gravel under his thick boots was loud and he stopped about ten feet from us. “The next few minutes, we’re gonna see whether you’re good enough,” he said, his serious tone different than the half-joking manner he had before.

“For what?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder. The stones beneath my knees were cutting into my skin a little and I had to shift to get it to stop.

“To survive,” he intoned, and then threw the gun as hard as he could behind him. I heard it skitter across the dirt path.

“The hell?” I asked, shock giving me the push. My heart pounded as I thought I might have the chance to actually get out of this. He was unarmed now; I could take him!

“It was never even loaded,” he said, the laugh coming again, but this time it was punctuated by something else entirely. A low, rumbling growl skittered across the end of the cackle, and that was when my eyes flared wide, the sunlight above reflecting off of his white teeth.

Those teeth grew longer as his face changed, his skin becoming darker and the length of his beard thickening in a strange way. He bent a little, then, and a crackling sound echoed through his bones as they, too, lengthened, his hands extending outward, flaring wide. At the tips of his fingers, two inch claws sharpened to a fine pinpoint arced through the air.

It took only a moment for the change to occur, as the strange man turned into a horror I could have only imagined in my deepest nightmare, something out of the legends passed down from my ancestors as they huddled around a fire, praying to the gods they would be safe for another fall of the dark.

I couldn’t tell you if it was a vampire, or a werewolf, or if it was something else entirely, then, but I knew, in that moment, whatever else you might call it, it was death incarnate.

And it had it’s eyes on my throat.

I screamed. I lost it, then and there, urine streaming down my pants and into the dust covered gravel on the ground, the pain in my head and my hands and my knees gone as I stared into that terror. His maw opened and rows of teeth glinted in the sun as his body grew larger, the shadow coming over me like an eclipse.

“Ten…”

The word was guttural, barely audible as coherent. My mouth opened as the scream continued.

“Nine…”

It clicked in my mind, somewhere deep within, that the words were not merely a growl, but a countdown.

To what?

“Eight…”

Run you fool! Get off your knees and effing *run!

My body started to move.

“Seven…”

I pushed myself to my feet and skidded across the gravel, my legs carrying me ahead without a thought of where to go. Just get moving!

Janet seemed to do the same, her own feet, leaner than my own, forced up and shifting hurriedly.

The creature behind me laughed, and it carried somewhat of the same tone as it had before, but growling, unnatural and drooling, underscored it.

“Six…”

I heard it almost as a shout as my legs hauled below me, carrying me toward the nearest trees. Janet’s own body was beside me, limbs flailing as she kept pace, her breath loud already.

“Five…”

How was I still able to hear the thing? The voice was so loud, almost like it was in my own head, but a quick glance behind me showed he was still there, standing near the truck with his legs bent down and claws extended, readying his own body to pursue us.

I passed through into the first stand of trees and prayed I could find some way through all of this.

“Four…”

This time he shouted it, his voice carrying over the distance as I picked up the pace. My own breathing was already flagging and I wished I had taken better care of myself before all of this. I hoped I wouldn’t get the same stitch I always seemed to get in my side whenever I ran. It’s why I avoided it to begin with.

I couldn’t hear the thing anymore, but I was sure it was still behind me, somewhere on that road counting down the numbers until it was able to come for us, following the rules of some sick game that insane mind had come up with.

Janet was in better shape than I, barely out of breath and keeping stride without much issue, or at least so it seemed in that moment. My own terror wouldn’t let me pay much attention, though, and my eyes roved everywhere I could see, trying to find some kind of shelter I could use to get away from this whole effed up mess.

How far was it to zero? How much longer before those teeth clamped down into my flesh and I was consumed by the monster? Two seconds? Three?

How fast could it be? Those legs looked like they were made for running, made for the hunt by some evolution.

“Come on!” I gasped at Janet as I spotted a heavy line of trees ahead. I sprinted in that direction, hoping she would follow as I made my way there. If I could get into the thick of it, maybe there would be a better chance to hide. I couldn’t keep up this pace for a lot longer, I knew, and if I could get us to a place we could rest, even for a moment, it might make all the difference.

She followed as I broke through the thicket there, the brambles pulling at the denim of my jeans, but thankfully it did not trip me up.

I went further in, and stopped short, my feet skidding across the detritus of leaves and branches on the forest floor as a ditch appeared in front of me. Janet stopped, as well, her hands on her hips as she bent over, breath huffing in and out at the same pace as my own.

The sound of crunching branches somewhere behind us impelled us forward again, diving into the ditch quickly.

There was a lot of cover here, and I held my breath down as much as I could, hoping the ears on the creature would not be sensitive enough to hear from a distance. Janet seemed to take the same cue, huffing through her nose as sweat poured down her face.

“Little rabbits,” I heard the creature groan loudly, the voice echoing through the trees and into the ravine we were in. “Where are you, little rabbits? I’m hungry!”

The way the human voice came out of the monster was horrifying and it terrorized me in ways I cannot really describe. It was like some electronic disturbance interfering with music, causing it to be jumbled and distorted, yet still, if you listened close enough, you could catch the melody.

I reached out and took Janet’s clammy hand, and she grabbed it back hard, both of us seeking some kind of comfort away from the dread cycling through us.

The sound of crunching seemed to filter away from us, heading in another direction than the one we had come and I felt a deep relief as the creature sought us elsewhere.

My eyes flicked to Janet, her thick sweat suit dampened by the effort of her exertion and gave her a wan smile. I didn’t say anything, but I could tell we both hoped the monstrous trucker going another way might mean we were safe at last. If we could hide long enough, perhaps the thing would think we managed to escape to another road or something and thumbed out way out of the situation, or maybe even gotten to a house and called the cops.

Or the Army.

When five minutes passed without the creature coming back, my smile was more genuine and I squeezed her hand gently.

“I think we’re going to be okay,” I offered, my heart relaxing for the first time since I woke up to this nightmare.

“I think so too,” she said, her voice lilting in the shade of the trees, the scent of damp earth and decaying plants heavy in our noses.

“Me too,” came a voice from behind us.

I spun, releasing Janet’s hand as I squealed, my voice caught in my throat.

The trucker stood at the top of the deep ditch, his body back to normal again as he stared down at the two of us, the toothy grin on his bearded face.

“I like him,” he said, his eyes on my own.

“Me too,” Janet answered and I ripped my eyes from the trucker and watched the smile wash across her face.

I tried to back away, scrambling with my back against the dirt, my legs kicking out to find purchase to bring me over the top.

She grabbed my left foot, though, gripping it tighter than I could fight.

I screamed again and kicked out, but I couldn’t find enough purchase to make any headway against her tight hold.

“Congratulations, boy,” the heinous voice of the trucker said. “You’re a survivor.”

“He’ll do just fine, Dad,” Janet said as her face warped into a toothy grin, her skin darkening as the long claws extended out from her fingers. They dug deep into my flesh as she pounced and bit into my neck.

My new family might be strange, but, you know, as the years have passed and we’ve added a few more here and there, I’ve gotten used to the way things are done. There aren’t a lot of us, but the ones we have are great people. We take care of each other, always looking out for what is best for our little community.

We may be few, but we are, after all, survivors, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

The post A Survivor’s Story – NaNoWriMo Day 1 Story appeared first on Original Worlds.

Black Rose Files Book 2 – Revenant is FINALLY Done

Oh my god… it’s finally done.

This book took far, far, too long for me to write. Normally I can complete a 90k novel like this in a month and a half max, but I started this one in February and things just kept getting in my way.

WHEW. I’m glad to have it done. Now comes the editing slog lol

(by the way, for those curious, that’s Earl Grey Tea in the bottle, and all my vaping supplies for when I write lol)

(Also BTW, that’s a Freewrite by Astrohaus, for those curious. Love it!!)

I’ll let you all know when I am finally through the editing stages and have it ready for beta reading.  If you’re interested in becoming a beta reader, please let me know!

 

The post Black Rose Files Book 2 – Revenant is FINALLY Done appeared first on Original Worlds.

The Tagline vs. The Hook – What’s the Difference?

I have been seeing some of my fellow authors asking about the differences between creating a tagline for the stories they are writing, and the hook.

While on the surface they seem like the same thing, in reality the way they work is much different, and I thought I would write this to help them out.

Both of these things are important to help readers get a glimpse in an easy way as to what your story or book is about. The way they come across, though, is different, and some publishers will want you to create your own.

So what is a tagline, and what is a hook?

A tagline is a simple one or two sentence phrase that boils down the essence of your work, giving the reader at a glance the idea behind the story.

A hook works similarly, but it more expanded and is the way you show how your work is different from others.

So let’s look at the hook first.

Let us say your story is about a woman who is out to save the world by finding a magical sword, with which she can slay the evil overlord.

Seems like a straightforward story, right? And your potential readers have probably come across the same type of story many times before. So many times, in fact, that they might just walk away from the book altogether if you were to describe it that way.

What’s different about your story that will engage their imagination? What is the piece of the puzzle that makes your book different from all the rest?

That’s the hook.

So let’s say your lady adventurer not only has to find the magical sword that will slay the evil overlord, she also has to come to terms with the fact the evil overlord is her ex-husband. Or her son.

See? Now the story takes on some new dimensions that make it stand apart from the rest.

The hook claws into the imagination of your reader and intrigues them to open the first page to read more.

A lot of the time, the hook will be a big part of the blurb on the back of the book, making it “in their face” and hard to miss.

Taglines, while being in a similar vein, are different because they have to get the story down to a small bit. A slap in the face in a sentence or two.

Let’s take an example from my story, Penitence.

On the cover of the book, I have the tagline, “When she said no, her terror began…”

I broke down the core of the story into a single sentence, giving the reader a breadcrumb to follow.

I can give another example of both a tagline and a hook with my current work in progress, Little Lost.

 

The hook for the book is this:

“Liz and her daughter, Cassie, have lived alone for a long time. Things were going fine until, one day, her little girl disappears into the woods. What is every mother’s nightmare becomes even worse when she discovers what really happened to the one thing holding her life together…”

The tagline for the book is, “What can a mother do when her child is gone?”

So, you see how I took the central theme of the story – a child disappears into the woods and the mother has to find her – and created a tagline out of that, which can draw a reader in?

When it comes to taglines and hooks, I recommend making use of the fabulous resource that is IMDB. Sounds strange, I know, but Hollywood is extremely good at creating taglines for their movies, and I think, if you were to look through the taglines of your favorite movies, you would see how it can work.

Looking through at a few of my own favorite movies, it’s interesting to see how they broke things down really well.

For instance, The Princess Bride has. “Heroes, giants, villains, wizards, true love.”

Boy, that sure boils it down.

The Lion King: “The greatest adventure of all is finding our place in the circle of life.”

Stargate: “It will take you a million light years from home.”

And for the TV show, Stargate: Atlantis : “A new gate will open. A lost city will rise again.”

Supernatural has : “One hell of a time for a family reunion…”

Many TV shows are great for this type of thing, since they usually come up with a different tagline for each season, but you get the idea.

Take a look through the database available and get a good feel for what makes a great tagline, and I am sure you will be able to do the same kind of thing with your own books and stories.

I hope this has been of some help to you.

 

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The post The Tagline vs. The Hook – What’s the Difference? appeared first on Original Worlds.

Black Rose Files – What’s It All About?

Coming soon! Black Rose Files – Tales of Tanglewood!

I thought I would take a quick minute to introduce some really cool content coming up soon on the website and in bookstores near you!

The Black Rose Files is a new series of ongoing content, in episodic form, about a sleepy little town called Tanglewood.

Located in the remote areas of Louisiana, Tanglewood is a town shrouded in mystery, where the paranormal is normal and the weird comes to live.

See that building over there? That’s the Tangled Treats Bakery.  Elizabeth Barlowe runs the place.  She’s been going through some tough times since her husband left her to raise her daughter alone.  When her daughter comes up missing, the chaos that comes to her life may be more than she can take.

Over on the next block, we have the home of Eloise Thorne.  Eloise is an old lady by anyone’s standards, but she lives alone and prefers it that way.  She just wants to be left alone with her collection of dolls.

And that house over there? It’s rumored that anyone who tries to stay the night ends up dead.

No, nothing is really normal in Tanglewood, and some people prefer things that way.  Others, like the Black Rose Society will do anything it takes to make sure what happens in Tanglewood stays in Tanglewood.

The Black Rose Files will be opening soon.  We can only hope what’s written in them does not change the world for the worse…

 

Stay with us, folks! It’s going to be a hell of a ride!

 

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The post Black Rose Files – What’s It All About? appeared first on Original Worlds.

Haunted: Finding an Explanation for the Unknown – Free Chapter

You can purchase Ira Robinson’s fiction book at retailers worldwide or by clicking one of the following links below. [image error] Neely Worldwide Productions, Inc

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

 

If you enjoyed reading this free chapter, you can purchase the book at booksellers worldwide, or through the website here at Original Worlds.

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope that you enjoy the world, and the story within it, that i have created for you.

 

When you hear the words “haunted house,” what is the first thing

that pops in your mind?

For most people, the image of a carnival ride or fun house

probably enters their head; with memories of running through

as the mirrors make your body dance around in strange ways

sparking your imagination.

Perhaps something more classic comes to mind, with the image

of the house down the street hovering in your memories.

You know, that’s the house where that old lady lives. The kids

might spend Halloween walking up to it and daring each other

to knock on the door, all the while getting ready to run away.

One of them might be pressed into stepping forward, while the

others are behind them laughing away at their distress.

The button is pressed and they all tear away into the night,

laughing about the close encounter they had. Meanwhile, the

poor little old lady holding the bucket of candy in her hand

wonders why no one comes around anymore, and how she

could have come to this stage in her life.

Sometimes, the idea of a haunted house is much more dramatic

than an actual haunted one is.

Most of the time, a house that has become known as haunted

is nothing more than the simple example above. An urban

legend started by some drunk teenager having a laugh at the

expense of some younger member of the crowd or maybe

brought about by seeing a shadow at the wrong time of day

when the mood was just right. These urban legends grow

exponentially over time, making what started out as a simple

story about a cat meowing in the street morph into a horror show

of epic proportions.

These things have to be acknowledged when examining the

world of the paranormal. The stories, urban legends, and lies

told in the night do more to cloud the study of the subject than

anything else and give leave for those skeptical of the whole

thing to mock those that want to take an honest look at the

possibilities and history existing in it all.

History is truly rife with the stories of the paranormal and, if you

take a look back in time at the way our ancestors looked at the

world, it was accepted as the norm. Granted, some of the things

talked about in ancient texts could be left up to interpretations

by modern man as folk tales and legends as well, but, in many

cases, there is a seed of truth to those old stories.

Pliny the Younger, in the first century A.D., who was a great

Roman author and statesman, wrote in a series of letters an

account of a long-bearded old man haunting his house in

Athens. The old man would rattle his chains and, generally,

scared Pliny quite a bit and, while the truth of it is not known, is

one of the first written examples of a haunted house.

Moving away from the Roman Empire and into historical

England, starting in the 16th century, there have been sightings

of the second wife of King Henry VII and mother of Queen

Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn. She was executed in 1536 A.D. at the

Tower of London, after being found guilty of witchcraft, incest,

adultery and treason. She has been sighted many times since

then in the Tower of London (along with many other ghosts), as

well as her childhood home in Kent, Hever Castle.

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in America, the famous Benjamin

Franklin has been spotted multiple times. The founding father

has been seen the most haunting the library of the American

Philosophical Society, and this particular haunting even includes

the statue of Franklin coming to life and dancing in the streets.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin was more of a party-animal than

history actually records.

Another great historical figure, Abraham Lincoln, has been

frequently seen at the White House in the United States. Abe,

the famous lawyer and statesman from Illinois, has been seen

by everything from queens and prime ministers to simple aides

and tourists over the years. He was seen the most during the

administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt possibly attributed to the

time period FDR was in office. It was a time of war and great

turmoil in the country, much as it was during Abraham Lincoln’s

own time.

Lincoln has also been spotted at his nearby law offices, as well.

In 1936, an 81000-ton ship, the HMS Queen Mary was built by

the Cunard-White Star Line. After it served the British Royal

Navy in World War II, the HMS Queen Mary was retired and

came to rest in Long Beach, California. The plan was to turn it

into a luxury hotel and resort.

Since then, however, it has become one of the hottest spots in

America for spotting specters and apparitions. In fact, more than

50 different ghosts are said to be present there and have been

spotted over the years.

John Smith was the last Chief Engineer of the ship. This

gentleman reported hearing voices and other sounds from the

ship’s bow, the same place a British aircraft cruiser, the Coracoo,

had a hole pierced in it and subsequently sank during a wartime

accident. This incident killed more than 300 sailors on board that

ship, leading to their fate being inexorably entwined with that of

the Queen Mary.

Smith even reported seeing Winston Churchill in his old

stateroom on board the ship.

The swimming pool on the Queen Mary is still frequently used,

but not by guests. Instead, there continues to be a presence of

otherworldly figures in old bathing suits and splashes of water

as the swim continues on. Wet footsteps not made by anyone

living lead off into the distance from the pool, long ago drained.

In the ancient world, there was no doubt the other world existed.

It was treated, in fact, as a matter of honor for someone to be

able to commune with someone that has passed on, at least in

some parts of the world. In others, it was treated with horror.

The Christian Bible, for instance, tells its readers to never have

any truck with spirits, and that to do so would bring doom upon

you.

The story of Saul in the Old Testament is one such tale.

In that story, told in 1 Samuel, the Israelite King Saul was

discomfited by the lack of God communicating with him, so he

consulted a diviner who was said to be able to speak with the

dead.

Although this was forbidden by God, and the diviner thought, at

first, that a trick was being played on her, King Saul pressed her

to raise the spirit of Samuel order to get a message about what

he should do.

Samuel was, indeed, raised up and his spirit, angry, asked Saul

what business he had bringing him up from his rest.

This and many other examples show even the Bible is rife with

stories of the dead and their ability to communicate with the

living world and interact with it in at least some ways.

Many ancient cultures believed the dead were still living, just in

another form, and still required sustenance to survive. Out of

these cultures come celebrations of the dead, days when the

dead and the living could become as one and allow knowledge

to be passed between, as well as sacrificing food, drink and

other things for the dead to “live” on.

Some of these cultural celebrations were born out of ancestor

worship, the belief that the ancestors were still in cahoots with

the living and could not only influence the living world but were

an essential part of daily life. Some cultures, in fact, took it to

such extremes that they would not start their day until the spirits

had been consulted and the pathway for the day’s work was laid

out by them.

Some cultures believed the dead were in this other realm and

that there were specific things about that realm the living had to

know. There were immutable laws that had to be followed by

both the living and the dead in order for progress to be made,

and the dead would be given license to visit the earthly realm

for specific purposes, only with the permission of and willingness

of the gods to do so.

For instance, if they had been buried improperly, or had the lack

of any burial, they would be allowed to speak to the living to

resolve the situation. If they had been murdered, or if there was

some object or valuable that had to be recovered, they would

be given the okay to come back and rectify the issues.

These visits were, however, rare, since the dead were to remain

in their own realm and not bother the living with trivial matters.

Anything that had to be done in life should have already been

done, and it was too late to do anything about it once the life

breath was gone from the body. If they visited the living, it was

a sure sign that something had gone terribly incorrect and it was

taken very seriously. If someone did receive a visitor,

expectation demanded they take care of whatever problem the

ghost was facing so they could return back to their restful home.

To do otherwise was a sinful thing to do and, rightfully so, they

would be haunted by the apparition until their own death.

Belief in the afterlife was so strong it permeated the ancient

world, and we have stories of them from Mesopotamia, Greece,

China, India and, of course, the extremely classically haunted

Celtic Ireland and Scotland.

Irkalla, the “land of no return” in ancient Mesopotamia, was the

realm the dead were sequestered away to. There, they lived

their afterlife in squalor, eating dirt and drinking water from mud

puddles. All people, whether king or peasant, spend their ends

there, ruled over by the goddess of the dead, Ereshkigal. This

dark queen ruled the land with an iron fist, permitting no one to

leave, as exemplified in the story of the Goddess Inanna in the

poem The Descent of Inanna. She, the queen of heaven, must,

after finding herself in the realm of the dead, find a replacement

of an earthly being so that she could ascend back up out of

Irkalla.

Other special dispensations would be allowed for a dead person

to return, and, if they did so, they would often do so in the form

of a sickness. Doctors in Mesopotamia, known as Asu and

Asipu, would treat these illnesses with spells, but would first ask

the patient to confess any sins they had on their hearts.

Sickness in ancient Mesopotamia was considered an outward

sign there was unconfessed and unpunished sin in the person’s

life. This sin would be punished by the presence of a spirit from

the dead realm, or given by the gods and was always

considered the fault of the ailing person unless they could prove

otherwise.

When someone died, an entity called a Gidin was created, which

would take on the identity of the person that passed away. This

spirit would be the one that traveled to Irkalla and continued its

existence and was also the one that would come back to the

living to visit if it was deemed necessary to do so. As long as

funerary offerings were made to the Gidin, it was able to

continue to exist and, therefore, was a way of the ancestor to

remain “alive.” This is actually the basis for many beliefs

throughout the thousands of years since then, where gifts are

given to the dead continuously, even years after they are gone,

in order for them to be allowed to remain active in the land of

the dead.

In Mesopotamia, ghosts were not looked upon as beings you

would associate with and were considered troubling, to say the

least.

In Egypt, the dead were also taken very seriously.

For ancient Egyptians, the thought of not existing was an

intolerable one. After death, it was believed, the soul would

travel through the underworld to meet with Osiris and the 42

judges, where it would have its heart weighed in the Hall of

Truth. If against the white Feather of Truth, the heart weighed

more on the scale of Justice, it would be thrown to the floor and

consumed by a monster, whereupon the soul would cease to

exist.

If it was lighter, however than the feather, it would be allowed to

continue on to the afterlife.

If the person lived a good life and was obedient to the cultural

rules, it would have a lighter heart and would continue to the

afterlife realm of the Field of Reeds. There, the spirit could live

in their favorite house, surrounded by a stream they knew and

maybe even their favorite dog. There would be no need for them

to return unless they had a very pressing need.

In the early days of ancient Egypt, this spirit would be known as

the Khu, the immortal part of a human being, which could

continue its existence even after the passage of life.

In later times, however, the Egyptians came to believe the soul

was comprised of five parts. Two of these parts, the Ba and Ka

(known as Spirit and Personality) came together after a death

in the form of an Akh. It was the Akh that would be able to return

to the earthly realm for whatever purpose necessitated it. If for

instance, proper burial rites had not been observed, or if some

sin had been committed by the living either before or after the

person died, the Akh would be given permission by the gods to

return to earth to right the state of wrongness.

The living person bothered by the ghost would have to plead

their case with the spirit in order for it to stop and allow the living

person to go on with a normal existence. If that failed, the living

could go to a priest to beg for intercession between the dead

and life.

Much like in Mesopotamia (and probably passed down from

there), misfortunes in a person’s life were almost always

attributed to the dead punishing the living for some unforgiven

or unconfessed sin. A perfect example of this type of thinking

was found in a tomb of a widower from the New Kingdom era of

ancient Egypt.

In the inscription, the man pleads with his then-dead and “all

knowing” (now that she was dead and in the Field of Reeds)

wife.

The inscription is translated as:

“What wicked thing have I done to thee that I should have come

to this evil pass? What have I done to thee? But what thou hast

done to me is to have laid hands on me, although I had nothing

IRA HAUNTED_Layout 1 5/15/2017 8:52 PM Page 19

wicked to thee. From the time I lived with thee as thy husband

down to today, what have I done to thee that I have need hide?

When thou didst sicken from the illness which thou hadst, I

caused a master physician to be fetched. I spent eight months

without eating and drinking like a man. I wept exceedingly

together with my household in front of my street quarter. I gave

linen clothes to wrap thee and left no benefit undone that had to

be performed for thee. And now, behold, I have spent three

years alone without entering into a house, though it is not right

that one like me should have to do it. This have I done for thy

sake. But, behold, thou dost not known good from bad.” (Nardo,

32)

For Egyptians, there was a great difference between a spirit that

lived in the Field of Reeds and a being that haunted the living.

Ancient Rome and Greece understood ghosts a little differently

and treated them differently, as well.

In Greece, the dead could exist in three different and distinct

realms. When someone died, they would be given a coin, placed

in their mouth, in order to pay Charon, the Ferryman, to take the

soul across the River Styx. This was not really considered a

payment, however, but more of a sign of respect between the

gods and the dead soul. The better the coin, the better the seat

the soul got on the boat Charon drove.

Cerberus, the three-headed dog, would be next met after they

crossed the river, which, once passed by, would allow the soul

to appear before the three judges, to give account for the lives

they had lived.

While the judges conferred to decide the final fate of the soul, a

cup of water would be given and consumed. This water was

from the river Lethe, the water of Forgetfulness, and the soul

would, at that point, forget all about their earthly life. The judges

would then make their final decision on where the soul should

spend its existence.

If they died in battle, they would be sent to the Elysian Fields, a

paradise. The Plain of Asphodel was the fate for those that lived

good lives, while, if they had lived a bad life, the soul would be

committed to the darkness of Tartarus, where they would remain

until they atoned for the sins of their life.

Unlike some religious tenets, no soul in Tartarus was

condemned eternally. Instead, over time, they would be able to

ascend, eventually, to the Plain of Asphodel.

Souls would not be expected to return to haunt the living, but,

sometimes, they were allowed through a special dispensation.

Ancient Rome, by contrast, had a different view of ghosts.

Plautus wrote a comedy called “Mostellaria” (The Haunted

House), in which a rich Athenian, Theopropides, takes a

business trip and, while gone, left the fate of his home to his son,

Philolaches. His father being gone provides an opportunity to

party and enjoy life, instead of taking care of the house needs.

He even borrowed a large sum of money to buy a slave girl he

loves. He spends, even more, money to throw a huge party for

his friends.

His slave, Tranio, tells him at one point that his father is returning

home unexpectedly from his trip. Philolaches panics, having no

idea what to do with his guests or to explain why he spent as

much money as he had. Tranio tells him all will be well.

He locks Philolaches, as well as his friends, in the house and

goes out to meet the father. He tells Theopropides that he

cannot go into the house because it has been found to be

haunted by spirits. A ghost, he said, appeared to Philolaches in

a dream in the dead of night and told him he had been murdered

in the house long ago. The corpse, Tranio tells the father, is still,

according to the spirit, in the house somewhere and it is too

dangerous for anyone to come inside.

Theopropides believes all of this without question and, even

after a money lender shows up asking for his money, the father

still does not question the validity of the existence of the ghost.

In ancient Rome, ghosts were known to follow a specific pattern

of events and times, usually at night. The story told by Plautus

above would have been considered hilarious by audiences

watching the play because, while the slave, Tranio, told the

father the ghost had appeared in torchlight (a belief the Romans

had, the ghost had to have light to be seen), the ghost of a

murdered man would not have appeared in a dream to the son

unless it had been a friend or loved one. A stranger would never

do so.

Ghosts appearing in dreams were considered much different

from ghosts which wandered around aimlessly or ones that were

fulfilling a specific purpose.

The ancient world is full of these types of stories, with each

culture having a different belief in what a spirit visitation meant

to the living. Even today, there are many different meanings

attributed to the appearance of a ghost and, depending on your

cultural, religious or historical background, you might look upon

them with horror or welcome.

Do you see them as portents of the end, there only to torment

and cause ill? Or do you embrace the idea of them with gusto,

wishing only to receive the blessings that only the afterlife can

give?

 

 

You can purchase Ira Robinson’s fiction book at retailers worldwide or by clicking one of the following links below. [image error] Neely Worldwide Productions, Inc

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

 

The post Haunted: Finding an Explanation for the Unknown – Free Chapter appeared first on Original Worlds.