Tina Yeager's Blog, page 13

Kardia’s Light, Part One

Kardia stirred from a dreamy fog as her shoulders jostled against the bed ropes. She rubbed away sleep’s haze. Her father’s face blurred into view as he leaned over her. A fairy charm jangled from the cord gathering his lengthy beard. She parted her lips, but he clamped an icy palm over them.

He glanced from the door to her shuttered window. Sulphurous fog tendrils crept in over the sill. Their stench intensified as they slithered over her bed and coiled around her father’s neck.

He clutched the neckline of his apothecary robe, gasping. “They’ve taken your mother.”

Kardia snatched a chrism of sacred oil from the shelf. She uncorked it and flung the ambry into the mist. “Be gone!”

The odorous fog retreated with throaty laughter.

Her father coughed. Inky goo erupted and coated his chin as he stumbled backward.

She reached toward him. “Where did they take her?”

Arm trembling, he pointed toward her window and collapsed.  Kardia knelt on the earthen floor and bent over him. She stroked her dripping tears from his cheek.

“Leave me. Prince Lur—” He squeezed her wrist and released it. His head lolled away. The glimmer faded from his eyes as his gaze fixed heavenward.

She cradled him and sobbed. After tucking her quilt over him, she rose and thrust open the shutters.

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Autumn’s Farewell Kiss

Summer’s decaying remains crunched under Fran’s back as she settled onto the forest floor beside her granddaughter. A wraith-like arm emerged from the quilted bundle snuggled against her shoulder.

“Look, Gram.” Harley raised her twiggy finger as if it outweighed her and air-traced the looming trunks upward. “Like we’ve seen so many times here. Yet . . . not the same at all.”

Fran gazed up at the gilded canopy, flogged in random crimson stripes. A few green leaves lingered as helpless witnesses to their perishing kin drifting to join the dust.

Autumn kissed leaves into their most beautiful blush as they died. Nature, which once seemed a romantic world, now unveiled a heartlessness which chilled her marrow. Fran never hated fall as much as she did now.

She shifted her stocking-capped head against the frigid ground. Her granddaughter’s wheeze scarred the forest silence and needled into her ear.

“We should go, Harley.” Fran patted the willowy arm beside her. “It’s too chilly out here.”

Harley twined her graying, yet petal-soft fingers around Fran’s age-spotted hand. “No, I want to stay here and share this with you. The temperature won’t change what’s going to happen.”

Fran curled her numbing toes against the fleece lining of her boots. Clawing them to ground her feet in a tangible place. “Was there something specific we came to see?”

“Less specific. But more than just seeing.” Harley coughed. She waved Fran’s hand away from her chest. “The blue of the sky expands forever. Deeper than an eye can dive. Further than any imagination. Even mine.” She added a wink.

The pungent earthy air crackled with the bustle of scavenging woodpeckers and desperate squirrels. She turned on her side and stroked the frail echo of hands which had danced across piano keys at the seventh grade recital. Two years, yet so very long ago.

“Are you afraid, sweetheart?”

Across the pallor and gaunt hollows of her cheeks, a smile bloomed. “Not anymore.”

Fran could not press the word, ‘glad’ through her lips. “G-good. I suppose that’s good. You have peace.”

She rolled onto her back and pointed upward. “Look. I understand it now. But you need to get it, too. Life goes on like that sky.”

Dirt clods pressed against her back as Fran squinted at the clear blue dome overhead. She twisted her head aside. “What do you mean?”

“It’s my time.” A gleam lingered in Harley’s tourmaline eyes. No longer sparkling with a teenager’s frill-crazed dreams, but glowing with something more profound. “But not yours.”

Fran’s heartbeat throbbed in her neck. Her arm muscles tightened. She clenched her fists. “Who told you that? You could get better, with the treatments . . .”

She shook her head. “I saw Him. He told me I’m coming home soon.”

“No, Harley. Not yet!” Fran stood and stomped her numb foot.

“Yes, I am. And I’ll be okay.” Harley grunted, pressing her arm beneath her to prop onto her side. “But this is what I came out here to tell you. You cannot let your heart die because mine lives elsewhere. You have to keep living until your time comes.” With that, she collapsed on the quilt, gasping.

Fran scooped her up in a dirt-streaked quilt cocoon and rushed her to the car. She sped to the hospital, squealing into the emergency drive. After slamming the gear into park, she glanced at her granddaughter’s unblinking gaze. Her lips etched into smile. Harley had gone to live elsewhere.

Fran burst into tears and rocked Harley in her arms until the medical techs pulled her away. She rasped a torrent of angry protests until her voice wore out.

The next autumn, Fran trudged into the forest, rubbing her arms. Fall’s chill bit deeper into her flesh than the year before. The dry air cinched her lungs. Coughing stung memories into her eyes. She struggled to voice her promises, but her throat seized.

It’s so hard. So very, very hard.

She shuffled through the dusky brown losses amid intermittent woodpecker drilling. I promise to study the sky, sweetheart. I’m trying to live. But I need His help.

Cries set her voice free. She wailed up at the glimmering canopy. Squeezing her eyes shut, she held out her hands and wept. A delicate brush against her palm opened her eyes. A golden maple leaf lay across her fingers. And for the first time in a long while, Fran smiled.

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High Stakes Train, Part Two

As they settled into the chairs, a prick stung Jackson’s thigh. He bounced up.

“Ow!” Garvey examined his hindquarters.

“Poison?” Jackson plucked needles from the seats. “What’s your game?”

“There’s always a game.” Dale slapped a card deck onto the table. “This one’s for your life. Without the antidote, you die in two hours. Enough time for unhitching my cargo and a poker game for survival.”

Miss Parker shook her head. “I don’t play vile games.”

“Learn quick.” Dale smirked. “Or do you wanna die tied to this chair in your underpants?”

Cheeks flushing, she flared her nostrils. “Fine.”

“Untie her, Smokey.” He ripped the dress over his head with a swift motion, as if he’d worn them all his life.

“Name’s Garvey.”

Burns pistol-slammed Garvey to the floor. “One hour, fifty-five minutes.”

Clutching Burns’s pant leg, he pulled himself up and hustled to untie Miss Parker.

“Dangerous to carry poison without extra antidote. Even for a gambler,” she said.

“Got my own stash.” Burns smacked a leather pouch on his belt. “But I’m only leavin’ one for you.” He plucked out a vial.

“Please, Mr. Burns.” Miss Parker laid a hand on his hip.

He sneered. “No favors for old maids.”

“May I have my dress?” Her lip quivered.

“Leave her the dress.” Jackson blinked at swirling floorboards. He grabbed the chair.

“Fadin’ early? Better unhitch the car, then.” Burns pocketed the antidote and waved the men outside where he leapt to the cargo car. He shouted demands until squeals culminated in a clunk. As the cars separated, he lobbed the tube across.

Jackson swayed on the platform. Gripping his Stetson’s brim, he focused on the blurry vial. Plunk. Into his hat.

“Some catch.” Garvey helped him inside.

Jackson collapsed onto a chair. “Apologies, Garvey. Should’ve trusted you.”

“Reckon I’m still a thief.” Garvey pulled out a second vial. “You and the lady oughta live.”

Miss Parker strode to Jackson. “I won’t lose a fine marshal. Nor this thoughtful young man.”

“But—” Jackson’s protest drowned as she poured antidote down his gullet.

Garvey said, “But—”

“I wasn’t always a school marm.” Withdrawing a third vial from her corset, she winked. “If you tell anyone, I’ll have to kill you.”

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High Stakes Train, Part One

Marshal Jackson shifted his musty Stetson over his eyes for a quick nap. As the train’s rhythm culled him toward sleep, a bony poke jolted his shoulder.

“You wanted to see me, Marshal?”  Garvey’s eye whites gleamed in his sooty face.

Jackson adjusted his hat. “Some coincidence you’re a fire man on a train carrying bank start-up funds.”

Garvey shifted his weight. “I’m all cleaned up, I swear. Ain’t stole a stick of chaw since I quit drinkin’.”

“Got a bad feelin’. Tell me why, and I might leave you alone.”

A thick-middled woman rustled down the aisle toward them. Copious rouge failed to beautify her mole-ridden complexion. Jackson straightened. She was perhaps the ugliest woman alive.

Her gloved hands flailed. “Emergency, Marshal!”

“C’mon.” Jackson tugged Garvey’s arm. “Ain’t lettin’ you outta my sight.”

Mole-face wailed through the cars. “My poor husband!”

When they reached the dining car window’s ‘closed’ sign, fine hairs prickled along Jackson’s neck. He hesitated as his eyes adjusted. Past empty ladder-backs and pedestal tables, one occupied chair faced the back door.

“Poor feller, indeed.” Garvey muttered. “Woman’s homelier’n my dead bulldog.”

“Terrible thing to say about a woman.” Mole-face turned and aimed a revolver at them. “Good thing I ain’t one. Hands high.”

Jackson reached for his Peacemaker as an ear-splitting crack sounded. Pain seared his mutilated index finger. He pressed his hand against his belly. Blood drenched his shirt.

“Take the marshal’s gun belt, Smokey.”

Garvey stammered. “Me?”

Mole-face cocked his pistol.

Garvey tugged at the buckle, glancing up at Jackson. “Had nothin’ to do with this, I swear.”

Grabbing the holster, the bandit sneered. “Why fuss over a knuckle, Marshal? It’ll heal. If you mind me.”

Jackson ground his molars. “Where’s your team?”

“Don’t need one.” He grinned, cracking his lipstick. “I got you two.”

The chair occupant grunted.

“Meet my clothing donor.”

Grey hairs straying from her bun, she wore a simple corset and petticoat. “You behave, now.” The bandit jerked her gag away.

Despite crinkles, a gleam lingered in her topaz eyes. “You rotten burr in a pig’s groin.”

“Now, Miss Parker, figgered a school marm’d have better manners.”

Garvey yanked a curtain from the window and blanketed her with it. “Ma’am, pigs ain’t hairy enough for burrs—”

“Thank you, young man,” Miss Parker interrupted. “This indignity flustered me.”

Garvey glared at their captor. “Didn’t get your name.”

“Dale Burns, isn’t it?” Jackson squeezed his injury. “Infamous cheat and gunman.”

“My reputation stands.” Burns flourished the revolver toward the table. “Be seated, gentlemen.”

 

 

To Be Continued

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Kyria’s Beating

Kyria shredded the propaganda, hurling sweat-drenched fodder at a barrel of flaming tongues. For Momma. Grandpa. Everyone. Scrap phantoms billowed in a taunting dance. She kicked the rusty dragon, splaying its fiery guts across the refugee camp. Cool hands seized her trembling arms. Her ruddy fists dropped. Tears blurred her view of Maeve’s celerean face.

“Get ridda me.” Her eyes spilled over and streaked warm ribbons down her cheeks. “I ain’t worth dying for.”

Maeve crouched, gazing into Kyria’s eyes. “Why’dya like my guitar?”

Lips broke, softened.  “Makes my heart dance.”

“S’how I feel about you. Why I adopted you.” Maeve took Kyria’s fist and pressed it against her green chest. “Can’t get rid of what’s stuck in here. Of all the human survivors, you were the last who heard music with your soul.”

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To Be Continued???

An author could pause in the middle of a story’s climactic scene for various reasons. Writers must strive to torture characters and keep an audience in suspense. Plots thrive upon tension. Lengthening an intense moment could serve to amplify it. But I stop here for ulterior motives.

Allow me to draw back the curtain for a moment. I am preparing two manuscripts for an upcoming writers conference while awaiting the publication of an additional book. Deadlines for article opportunities lurk around the corner. Imagine a horror novel in one hand and an urban fantasy in the other. Now that you’ve glimpsed the writer, I’d like you to show me a peek inside your thoughts.

If you have enjoyed The Worry Curse, the continuation hinges upon your vote. Should I offer the entire story free to online readers, save it for publication, or set it aside as a free download available as a gift to beta readers or contest winners?

In addition to yea or nay votes toward finishing this free tale, you have an opportunity to shape the course of other manuscripts. Share the moments which piqued your curiosity. Are there things you wonder or hope for as the tale continues? What do you love or dislike about the characters, setting, plot? Your feedback offers vital information to help me craft multiple stories.

Laina and Arden hold their breath as we await your response. Their fate depends upon you, after all.

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The Worry Curse, Part Thirty-One

Violent trembling seized her limbs as Laina ascended the final steps to her floor. Terror amplified each scuff of her boot sole. She gripped the banister’s corner and squeezed the peeling surface until it threatened to slice into her palm. With hard swallow, she leaned from the stairwell. Darkness veiled the halls in either direction, except for the elevator’s faltering light. Silence buzzed in her strained ears as she ventured away from the landing.

She aimed the mace canister in furtive directions around her as she walked toward her hallway. A faint thump repeated in the corridor. As she neared the elevator wing, the sound clarified. Laina crept toward the wavering light and peered around the corner. Her floor number blinked above the elevator as it yawned to expose its inner glow. After a moment, the opening shrank to thud at a gap in the center.

Something’s stuck in the door.

Laina scanned the dim halls–floors and walls to either side loomed motionless as crypts. She turned into the wing and approached the drumming threshold.

Thump. Her breath froze, hovering in her nostrils and stinging her chest with each step toward the next beat. Thump.

She arrived as the steel facade closed around the upturned sole of a sneaker. The door retracted to display a young woman’s blood-spattered body splaying limbs akimbo across the elevator floor. Except for one leg stretched to position her foot in the closing doors.

Laina gasped. The irony-sweet odors bored through her senses. Her stomach lurched. She clamped a hand over nose and mouth and darted from the wing. The left half of the corridor remained clear to the door of her apartment. She glanced toward the stairwell. A shadowy figure loomed at the end of hall. A butcher knife blade glinted in the landing’s faint glow. He approached and waved it like a condutor’s baton in rhythm with his whistling.

Ashes, ashes … We all fall down.

Laina raced toward her apartment. Heavy footsteps whomped through the corridor behind her. Her quaking hands rattled the keys. She skidded to a stop in front of her door. The pounding boots neared.

Don’t look up.

She jimmied the key into the lock and fumbled her knob open. With a jerk, she yanked the toothy metal clump out of the handle. The serrated edges clawed into her grip. She whisked inside and turned to slam the door on a masked stranger wearing a carved, maniacal sneer. The knob twisted, clacking its hasp. She leaned her weight against the surface as it pressed inward. The panels ground against her shoulder. She dug her boots against the floor and lunged hard into the door. As soon as the hasp clicked, she flipped the bolt and twisted all the locks.

The knob twisted vigorously. Pounding thundered at the outer surface. The door shook, threatening to burst from its frame.

Laina backed away from the threshold. She dumped her purse on the floor and drew out her cell phone. Jerking at each whomp, her fingers struggled to point steady at the numbers.

9-1-1.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

Her throat constricted her voice into a squeak. “Somebody’s dead. I think I might be next.”

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The Worry Curse, Part Thirty

Feral yowls whirled down the foggy alley as Laina’s boots scuffed up the wide concrete steps to Harbor Towers. Horror Towers, as the media tagged them. Mist fingered through the bars on the lower story windows. She yanked open the entry door and its hinges responded with a whining cackle. After she crossed the threshold, the steel exit whomped shut and the clack of the latch resounded behind her. Silence haunted the vacant halls, save for the echo of her steps across the linoleum.

Laina tightened her grip on the mace canister as she clopped to the elevator. She pressed the button and glanced at the number lit above its doors. A draft  lilted fine hairs from the edge of her face and swept a chill around her ears. She rubbed her arms and pressed the gleaming button again. The same number beamed above the elevator. The car seemed to be stuck on her floor.

She sighed and trudged to the staircase. The ordeal at Arden’s apartment would seem a delusion, a surreal nightmare, if it weren’t for the lasting symptoms. Autumn air had usurped the burning on her skin, but tinges of sulfured breath lingered in her nostrils. She massaged the throbbing spot on the back of her skull and forced her aching legs to climb the steps. A twinge seized her  bicep as she gripped the banister to heave herself upward. Her muscles ached from the strain–pain to testify of unseen beasts which had pinned her to the floor.

Instead of pumping warmth into her blood, the air grew more frigid as she ascended. A deepening chill penetrated her coat and burrowed through her flesh to the marrow of her cramping bones. As she crested the landing to the third floor, her breath rose in puffs of mist.

Whistling floated down from the upper levels of the stairwell. A slowed version of a nursery tune she heard before.

Ring around the rosie …

Heavy footsteps percussed the melody as they descended. Her heart pounded as if beating its way out of her chest. She raced higher, hoping to beat the eerie stranger and make it safely inside her apartment. The tune’s volume peaked a flight above her.

Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.

The whistling drifted away as the clomping turned off the staircase. Onto her floor.

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The Worry Curse, Part Twenty-Nine

Laina shifted her boots on the threadbare floormat, nudging the margarine tub. The medallion fragments jostled and slinked inside their plastic cell. She withdrew her feet and hugged the edge of the passenger seat.

The downtown corridors heightened into a labyrinth of manmade fortress walls. Glowering steel and concrete stretched to obscure the stars. Halogen streaked the paved gray and black world as other steel-cocooned passengers raced by. Neon lights branded the string of tattoo shops and bars. Bessie squeaked to pause at the midtown stoplight. The surly waitress trudged past the Reverend’s empty office-booth with a pot of coffee.

Arden tapped the faded vinyl of his steering wheel. “So, where we headin’?”

She studied the glow of light tracing the strong angles of his profile. “My apartment’s empty, if you need a place–”

“Nope.” He held up a hand. “Wouldn’t do for me to stay there. Besides, I got hostels and shelters downtown here where I can do some good for a few weeks. I wanted to know where to take you for the night. Your cousin’s place would be the best option, considering the enemy has targeted you.”

“I hate imposing on her, but let me see if I can reach her.” Laina dialed Jayme, but the call went directly to voicemail. “She must be out with her fiance. No telling if they’re coming back tonight or going to his flat. I guess we should head to the towers.”

He turned onto the next street and squinted at her. “You sure you wanna stay in that building tonight? After the string of murders? The hostel might not be such a bad alternative.”

Stained bunk sheets and vomiting addicts swirled in her imagination. Laina grimaced. “I’ll lock my doors.”

The rusty hatchback squealed to a halt at the curb. Arden shifted into park. His chest brushed her shoulder as he reached into the backseat. Heat bloomed in her chest and flushed up to her cheeks.

He grabbed a leather book from the floorboards and handed it to her. “Take this.”

She let her hair fall to cover the blush of her skin as she traced the gold embossed lettering on the front. “Thanks.”

“Glad to do it.” His phone rang in the console’s cup holder. “Oh, man. Excuse me.”

As he answered it, Laina fished in her purse for a canister of pepper spray.

“Roy, you stay right there. Put the gun down …” Arden leaned forward, tense cords straining from his collar bone to his jaw. “Wait for me to get there, okay?”‘

She gripped the door handle and waved at him.

Phone still against his ear, he bit his lip and mouthed, Sorry. Call when you get inside.

Laina got out of the car and tucked the Bible in her purse as she shouldered it. She gripped the pepper spray and marched toward the mist-scarved apartment tower.

Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.

 

 

“God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

 though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:1-3).

 

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