Heather Farthing's Blog, page 2
July 1, 2023
In Vino Veritas
In Vino Veritas
by
Heather Farthing (c) 2023, all rights reserved
“I warned you!” I laugh as I pull open Spooky’s door, his head lolling awkwardly as he looks up at me with those pale, pale blue eyes.
“I am perfectly fine,” he drawls through a mushy German accent. “Ich bin völlig nüchtern.”
“Oh, really?” I ask, stifling another giggle. “Say the alphabet starting with ‘m.’”
“M…” he mumbles. “M…m…n-nein!” He declares it with an obstinate finality, fumbling at his seatbelt.
“Let me get that,” I insist gently, unbuckling him and taking his hands in mine, leaned across him like a table and hoping he doesn’t throw up.
“Your hair smells…synthetic,” he grumbles as I help him, wavering, to his feet. “Deine Narben sind wunderschön. You should show them more, my dear.”
“Oh, really?” I ask dryly. “I don’t generally let people close enough to my wigs to smell them. Anything else I should know about my appearance?”
“T-they look good on you!” he smiles cheerfully. “Narben erzählen eine Geschichte, a story about der menschliche Zustand, of a life lived!”
He holds out his arms grandly, as if standing before an invisible audience.
“I’m sure it’s a lovely story,” I agree, leaning him against the hood of the car.
“Nein, nein, my love!” he insists urgently. “Truly! Eine Schönheit, die der Poesie würdig ist! You only mus-must to show it!”
He makes a grab at my wig, I dodge him easy and send him tumbling into the dirt, giggling softly even as I make sure he hasn’t hurt himself.
“You’re going to wake the neighbors!” I chortle, helping him back up, watching him sway. “Quiet down and I’ll bring you wig-shopping sometime. You can help me pick out one with real hair.”
“But why?” he asks, again reaching for my wig as I swat him away and lean him back on the hood of the car. “Warum? Warum? W-warum-m? You make no sense!”
“I’m not making sense?” I cackle. “I should record this so you can hear yourself.”
“Nein! Nein, liebchen!” he insists, stamping his feet, wavering, hands on knees for balance, throat working on overtime.
Won’t be long now.
“Menschen! Menschen, liebes Mädchen!” he declares. “Your stories—Deine Geschichten. Such…such clever little words, but you focus on…the wrong…things!”
He leans over and spills a bellyful of beer and cocktails onto the grass beside the car, missing my shoes, looking tired and sick when he stands back up, wiping his face with a napkin pocketed from the restaurant.
“Du bist ein nettes Mädchen, meine Liebe,” he sighs, letting the paper fall to the stinking ground. “But you lack focus when it matters!”
“Alright, great philosopher,” I smile, stepping around the puddle to take him in my arms and lead him to the RV. “Let’s get you in bed.”
“G-great philosopher? J—ja—ja...ngh! The greatest mind of the age, clearly!” Spooky shouts, bile on his breath, an inch from my left ear.
“Oh?” I snicker. “Someone’s feeling high and mighty.”
“Nein, nein, nein, mein liebchen,” he implores, barely making it through the door and into the laundry room. “You…aren’t…paying attention! Zu den richtigen Dingen! Sie bleiben beim Aussehen und Standort stehen und fragen nichts anderes!”
“You can regale me of my moral failings in the morning,” I tell him consolingly as I guide him to the bed.
“Nein, nein, listen, listen!” he pleads, grabbing my hand and holding it close. “I found it! I found something that can help you!”
“I’m sure you did,” I agree gently. “Arms up.”
Obediently, he holds his arms over his head so I can pull the band shirt over his head, ruffling the soft, blond hair as the fabric slides over him.
“The keel—the keel is the key,” he insists. “Listen, listen, liebchen! The keel!”
“It’s a recreational vehicle, not a boat,” I tell him, waving him to lay back so I can get his boots off.
“Nein, nein!” he continues. “Die Bücher! I found it, but Ich habe es dir nicht gesagt. I didn’t tell you—b-because I—I have trust issues.”
“You don’t say?” I reply dryly.
“Yes, but it’s n-not my fault,” he rambles as he holds his right leg for me to undo the laces and pull off the sock, revealing glossy black toenails. “It is…it is me, and it’s just me!”
“I know,” I mutter soothingly, grabbing for his other leg.
“Nein!” he shouts, pounding his fist against the soft, Halloween-themed bedding. “He understands, you see?”
“I see,” I agree, sliding off the other boot.
“Nein! You’re not listening! Liebchen!” he growls. “I found the book. This man is…is brilliant. The most learned. The finest mind in your age. Truly, his brilliance is unmatched!”
“You can read it to me tomorrow,” I tell him again, sliding the sock off his foot as he looks up at me from a reclining position from his elbows, skin raising goosebumps over bluish veins.
“Ja!” he agrees. “Tomorrow. We will read it then. He knows!”
I force him back with a gentle shove as I unbuckle his studded belt and pull it through the loops.
“You are beautiful,” he observes soberly, looking up at me in a way that raises color to my cheeks.
“Bet you won’t remember that in the morning,” I chuckle, unzipping his pants and hoping he’s not reading too much with his beer goggles on.
“I will, because I always do,” he giggles. “You’re beautiful, and you smell good.”
“Good to know.”
I slide his pants down to his knees, revealing the black silk boxers that weren’t cheap, and then the pale knees, slipping one leg off at a time from the ankle until the waistband comes free.
“Alright,” I tell him, gently but firmly. “Onto the pillows with you.”
I take the town-themed throw blanket from the foot of the bed and shake it unfolded, laying it across his thin form.
“Good night, Spooky,” I say in a low voice as not to wake him, the eyes already closed.
“No!” he declares with a sudden start, grabbing my hand like a viper’s strike. “Stay. You’re warm and I like it.”
“You’re drunk and you have no idea what you’re talking about!” I laugh.
“N-no, you’re warm and it’s—con—comfort…I like it,” he mumbles, tightening his grip. “I pretend I don’t, because it isn’t right and I shouldn’t, but I do. It’s nice.”
“You really should get some sleep.”
“I sleep better when you’re nearb—when you’re close,” he begs. “I say I don’t, because humans are social animals, and I’m not.”
“Not social or not an animal?” I ask, humoring him by sliding into bed with him.
He wraps himself around me chastely, one arm across me, face nuzzled into the hollow between my neck and my right shoulder.
“N-neither,” he yawns. “You can ask Johnny. He knows.”
“I will, but you have to get some sleep, first.”
“Alles für dich, mein spuk,” he sighs, breathing going deep and even.
“You are going to be so mad in the morning,” I laugh, replaying some of the nonsense he said in my head and wishing I had been cruel enough to record it so I could play it for him as he nurses a hangover, surly and nauseous, in the morning.
Then something clicks and the mumbled, slurred, almost indecipherable German makes sense.
“Wait, John A. Keel?!” I shriek, sitting up with a start.
“Sshh,” he sighs, putting a painted finger across my lips. “Schlaf jetzt.”
by
Heather Farthing (c) 2023, all rights reserved
“I warned you!” I laugh as I pull open Spooky’s door, his head lolling awkwardly as he looks up at me with those pale, pale blue eyes.
“I am perfectly fine,” he drawls through a mushy German accent. “Ich bin völlig nüchtern.”
“Oh, really?” I ask, stifling another giggle. “Say the alphabet starting with ‘m.’”
“M…” he mumbles. “M…m…n-nein!” He declares it with an obstinate finality, fumbling at his seatbelt.
“Let me get that,” I insist gently, unbuckling him and taking his hands in mine, leaned across him like a table and hoping he doesn’t throw up.
“Your hair smells…synthetic,” he grumbles as I help him, wavering, to his feet. “Deine Narben sind wunderschön. You should show them more, my dear.”
“Oh, really?” I ask dryly. “I don’t generally let people close enough to my wigs to smell them. Anything else I should know about my appearance?”
“T-they look good on you!” he smiles cheerfully. “Narben erzählen eine Geschichte, a story about der menschliche Zustand, of a life lived!”
He holds out his arms grandly, as if standing before an invisible audience.
“I’m sure it’s a lovely story,” I agree, leaning him against the hood of the car.
“Nein, nein, my love!” he insists urgently. “Truly! Eine Schönheit, die der Poesie würdig ist! You only mus-must to show it!”
He makes a grab at my wig, I dodge him easy and send him tumbling into the dirt, giggling softly even as I make sure he hasn’t hurt himself.
“You’re going to wake the neighbors!” I chortle, helping him back up, watching him sway. “Quiet down and I’ll bring you wig-shopping sometime. You can help me pick out one with real hair.”
“But why?” he asks, again reaching for my wig as I swat him away and lean him back on the hood of the car. “Warum? Warum? W-warum-m? You make no sense!”
“I’m not making sense?” I cackle. “I should record this so you can hear yourself.”
“Nein! Nein, liebchen!” he insists, stamping his feet, wavering, hands on knees for balance, throat working on overtime.
Won’t be long now.
“Menschen! Menschen, liebes Mädchen!” he declares. “Your stories—Deine Geschichten. Such…such clever little words, but you focus on…the wrong…things!”
He leans over and spills a bellyful of beer and cocktails onto the grass beside the car, missing my shoes, looking tired and sick when he stands back up, wiping his face with a napkin pocketed from the restaurant.
“Du bist ein nettes Mädchen, meine Liebe,” he sighs, letting the paper fall to the stinking ground. “But you lack focus when it matters!”
“Alright, great philosopher,” I smile, stepping around the puddle to take him in my arms and lead him to the RV. “Let’s get you in bed.”
“G-great philosopher? J—ja—ja...ngh! The greatest mind of the age, clearly!” Spooky shouts, bile on his breath, an inch from my left ear.
“Oh?” I snicker. “Someone’s feeling high and mighty.”
“Nein, nein, nein, mein liebchen,” he implores, barely making it through the door and into the laundry room. “You…aren’t…paying attention! Zu den richtigen Dingen! Sie bleiben beim Aussehen und Standort stehen und fragen nichts anderes!”
“You can regale me of my moral failings in the morning,” I tell him consolingly as I guide him to the bed.
“Nein, nein, listen, listen!” he pleads, grabbing my hand and holding it close. “I found it! I found something that can help you!”
“I’m sure you did,” I agree gently. “Arms up.”
Obediently, he holds his arms over his head so I can pull the band shirt over his head, ruffling the soft, blond hair as the fabric slides over him.
“The keel—the keel is the key,” he insists. “Listen, listen, liebchen! The keel!”
“It’s a recreational vehicle, not a boat,” I tell him, waving him to lay back so I can get his boots off.
“Nein, nein!” he continues. “Die Bücher! I found it, but Ich habe es dir nicht gesagt. I didn’t tell you—b-because I—I have trust issues.”
“You don’t say?” I reply dryly.
“Yes, but it’s n-not my fault,” he rambles as he holds his right leg for me to undo the laces and pull off the sock, revealing glossy black toenails. “It is…it is me, and it’s just me!”
“I know,” I mutter soothingly, grabbing for his other leg.
“Nein!” he shouts, pounding his fist against the soft, Halloween-themed bedding. “He understands, you see?”
“I see,” I agree, sliding off the other boot.
“Nein! You’re not listening! Liebchen!” he growls. “I found the book. This man is…is brilliant. The most learned. The finest mind in your age. Truly, his brilliance is unmatched!”
“You can read it to me tomorrow,” I tell him again, sliding the sock off his foot as he looks up at me from a reclining position from his elbows, skin raising goosebumps over bluish veins.
“Ja!” he agrees. “Tomorrow. We will read it then. He knows!”
I force him back with a gentle shove as I unbuckle his studded belt and pull it through the loops.
“You are beautiful,” he observes soberly, looking up at me in a way that raises color to my cheeks.
“Bet you won’t remember that in the morning,” I chuckle, unzipping his pants and hoping he’s not reading too much with his beer goggles on.
“I will, because I always do,” he giggles. “You’re beautiful, and you smell good.”
“Good to know.”
I slide his pants down to his knees, revealing the black silk boxers that weren’t cheap, and then the pale knees, slipping one leg off at a time from the ankle until the waistband comes free.
“Alright,” I tell him, gently but firmly. “Onto the pillows with you.”
I take the town-themed throw blanket from the foot of the bed and shake it unfolded, laying it across his thin form.
“Good night, Spooky,” I say in a low voice as not to wake him, the eyes already closed.
“No!” he declares with a sudden start, grabbing my hand like a viper’s strike. “Stay. You’re warm and I like it.”
“You’re drunk and you have no idea what you’re talking about!” I laugh.
“N-no, you’re warm and it’s—con—comfort…I like it,” he mumbles, tightening his grip. “I pretend I don’t, because it isn’t right and I shouldn’t, but I do. It’s nice.”
“You really should get some sleep.”
“I sleep better when you’re nearb—when you’re close,” he begs. “I say I don’t, because humans are social animals, and I’m not.”
“Not social or not an animal?” I ask, humoring him by sliding into bed with him.
He wraps himself around me chastely, one arm across me, face nuzzled into the hollow between my neck and my right shoulder.
“N-neither,” he yawns. “You can ask Johnny. He knows.”
“I will, but you have to get some sleep, first.”
“Alles für dich, mein spuk,” he sighs, breathing going deep and even.
“You are going to be so mad in the morning,” I laugh, replaying some of the nonsense he said in my head and wishing I had been cruel enough to record it so I could play it for him as he nurses a hangover, surly and nauseous, in the morning.
Then something clicks and the mumbled, slurred, almost indecipherable German makes sense.
“Wait, John A. Keel?!” I shriek, sitting up with a start.
“Sshh,” he sighs, putting a painted finger across my lips. “Schlaf jetzt.”
June 30, 2023
Delicate Negotiations
Delicate Negotiations
by
Heather Farthing (c) 2023, all rights reserved
It’s so cold I can see my breath, despite the summer heat.
I breathe out through my mouth and watch the fog hang in the air momentarily, frowning as it dissipates.
Something has changed in the small bedroom. There is something dark here, moody and hungry. It seeps behind the vanity, under the bed, and behind the vanity, a formless mist of shadow that leaves the scent of funeral bouquets in its wake.
The vanity rattles and trembles, like an earthquake localized on only that part of the RV, the mirrored shutter that protects the television slamming opening and closed just hard enough to not damage the mirror.
Something moves in the mirror, something old and dark, banging against the inside of the glass hard enough to make me jump and stumble back onto the bed, which envelops me like a hungry maw.
Heavy black blankets and sheets are thrown over me, pinning me at the elbows and knees. A dozen translucent hands with glowing bones inside the graying skin thrust from the bed itself, diving for my ribs and under my arms.
“Alright! Alright!” I shout, gasping for breath through the ticklish laughter. “We’ll have pineapple pizza for dinner!”
by
Heather Farthing (c) 2023, all rights reserved
It’s so cold I can see my breath, despite the summer heat.
I breathe out through my mouth and watch the fog hang in the air momentarily, frowning as it dissipates.
Something has changed in the small bedroom. There is something dark here, moody and hungry. It seeps behind the vanity, under the bed, and behind the vanity, a formless mist of shadow that leaves the scent of funeral bouquets in its wake.
The vanity rattles and trembles, like an earthquake localized on only that part of the RV, the mirrored shutter that protects the television slamming opening and closed just hard enough to not damage the mirror.
Something moves in the mirror, something old and dark, banging against the inside of the glass hard enough to make me jump and stumble back onto the bed, which envelops me like a hungry maw.
Heavy black blankets and sheets are thrown over me, pinning me at the elbows and knees. A dozen translucent hands with glowing bones inside the graying skin thrust from the bed itself, diving for my ribs and under my arms.
“Alright! Alright!” I shout, gasping for breath through the ticklish laughter. “We’ll have pineapple pizza for dinner!”
June 29, 2023
Too Scary
Too Scary
by
Heather Farthing (c) 2023, all rights reserved
I stumble into the RV, dragging grocery bags along the ground and nearly falling on top of a mound of plastic and cereal boxes.
“Honey, I’m home,” I call out, wiggling my burning wrists out of the bags and dragging the door closed.
There is no answer.
I glance around the living room/dining room/kitchen combo skeptically, looking for something amiss. The air is as still as a tomb, an oppressive silence that makes the voice fall flat and the chest feel heavy. It’s like being in an ancient graveyard, with the feeling that something is watching for you to touch something you shouldn’t.
“Hello?” I ask the air.
Nothing.
I never know what I’m coming home to when Spooky feels sedentary and reclusive. It could be hands reaching out of reflective surfaces, books and small items reorganizing themselves, the groceries and supplies putting themselves away, or, once or twice, the looming shadow of something large, horned, and ominous standing in the bedroom doorway.
He doesn’t normally step out without me, especially during bright, sunny days, fearing the predators that live in the light the way humans fear the things that dwell in the dark. He has spooked the neighbors or answered the door, checked the mail at front desks, usually leaving nervous glances and unsettled feelings in his wake.
It is possible he wandered somewhere, a cold spot following a crowd to a food truck or local point of interest. Not generally during the day when the sky jellies are out, but that’s why he would use the human smell for cover.
As I put the groceries on the table, unease twists my stomach. It’s possible he got swept into an imprint and is currently acting out some forgotten moment in time. Those are always a problem, since he doesn’t quite remember who he is or what he’s supposed to be doing, and I worry if it happens when I’m not around I might not know where to look for him.
Spooky is a strong specter, though. He can generally power through whatever foreign memory he’s walked through.
Sky jellies are another beast altogether. They generally stay away from human habitats and the scent of the human condition, but they are a predator like any other and hunger drives them to aberrant behavior, just like wolves and bears.
I try not to think about it as I knock on the lid of his coffin, currently taking up most of my living room, all glossy black and silver accents. Spooky is classic and classy, a German baron from the 1800s, and wears his upperclass roots on his literal sleeves.
There is no answer.
I suppose he could be asleep. He does sleep, or whatever the equivalent is. They’re nocturnal, naturally, which keeps them away from the sky jellies, and is why activity spikes at night.
Nothing.
Frowning, I knock again.
Nothing.
Normally he sits up after one or two tries, his hair and skeleton luminous, dressed in a black silk dressing-gown that would probably cost as much as the RV if it were real, with sleepy eyes and a stifled yawn.
I frown, tapping my foot and thinking. There isn’t a lot of space in an RV for someone to hide, especially with a full-sized coffin laid end to end in the living room, but Spooky isn’t bound by the physical.
He could be in a mirror. He likes mirrors, it’s an antebellum mortician thing, but I don’t know how to get him out of those.
I’d just be happy if I could hear him snoring, or smell funeral arrangements, or feel an unexplained cold spot. I mean, if he was taken by an imprint or eaten by a sky jelly, how would I know about it, and how long would I stay before I needed to give up and move on?
I take some comfort in knowing that he’s haunting me, specifically. He says he always knows where his haunt is, like a homing pigeon, and would still instinctively come for me, even if lost in an imprint. He’s also got his own defenses against sky jellies, so it’s not like he’s a walking steak.
Still, it is unusual to come home and not feel…haunted.
I step around the coffin and into the bedroom, looking into the mirror at the vanity. I rotate it around to show the television, and then once more, but my reflection doesn’t age or decay, a formless, blue-eyed shadow doesn’t appear behind me, and white hands don’t pound from the other side of the glass.
Strange. He could be in the bathroom mirror, but that would be like a human just…hanging out in the bathroom. It’s possible, but probably not.
I turn around and look at the neatly-folded bed. It’s the bedspread with the tombstone and spiderweb motif, which means he at least did some laundry today, since I had the cute bedsheet ghosts he hates, and he takes any chance to cycle them back through the two or three stowed in the storage space below.
You ever been in a lake or swimming pool under partial shade, and the current changes at the sun-warmed water ebbs away and the cool, shady water wraps around your ankles like the cold hands of death?
Wisps of black smoke coils from beneath the bed, like a fire trying to catch, smelling of funeral flowers.
I step around to the side of the bed, drop to my hands and knees, and lift up the black dust ruffle.
The creature beneath the bed is made of gray smoke and black shadow. It writhes and boils like dye diffused in water, with vague shapes formed in the darkness like clawed hands and pointed ears. Shockingly pale blue eyes, devoid of sclera or pupil, stare out of the shadows.
Behold, the fearsome boogeyman.
“You alright, Spooky?” I ask, settling onto my belly.
“Liebchen!” he breathes sleepily and a bit panicked, like someone waking from a bad nightmare to a comforting presence. “It is good you are home.”
“Do you need some formaldehyde?” I ask kindly, watching the vapors solidify into a white-haired German man in his early twenties, dressed from head to toe in black, with a damask waistcoat and dress shoes. “Or watch some scary movies with me?”
“Nein, liebchen,” he protests, shaking his head. “I was making enough scary movies today.”
“Oh?” I ask, my interest piqued. He thinks Poltergeist is a revenge fantasy and Amityville is a slapstick comedy, so I can’t imagine what he might have watched to drive him under the bed, hiding like a scared child.
“It was vile,” he explains. “A character study on the villains and their terrible crimes. I have never seen such grisly depictions of torture! I thought there was a rating system in place?”
I run a list of title through my head and come up blank. He haunted a family-run mortuary for two hundred years, so I’m not sure the likes of Saw or Hostel would phase him, but then again, embalmed corpses don’t beg for their lives.
“What was it?” I ask, head propped on my hand, elbow along the floor.
“Ghostbusters.”
by
Heather Farthing (c) 2023, all rights reserved
I stumble into the RV, dragging grocery bags along the ground and nearly falling on top of a mound of plastic and cereal boxes.
“Honey, I’m home,” I call out, wiggling my burning wrists out of the bags and dragging the door closed.
There is no answer.
I glance around the living room/dining room/kitchen combo skeptically, looking for something amiss. The air is as still as a tomb, an oppressive silence that makes the voice fall flat and the chest feel heavy. It’s like being in an ancient graveyard, with the feeling that something is watching for you to touch something you shouldn’t.
“Hello?” I ask the air.
Nothing.
I never know what I’m coming home to when Spooky feels sedentary and reclusive. It could be hands reaching out of reflective surfaces, books and small items reorganizing themselves, the groceries and supplies putting themselves away, or, once or twice, the looming shadow of something large, horned, and ominous standing in the bedroom doorway.
He doesn’t normally step out without me, especially during bright, sunny days, fearing the predators that live in the light the way humans fear the things that dwell in the dark. He has spooked the neighbors or answered the door, checked the mail at front desks, usually leaving nervous glances and unsettled feelings in his wake.
It is possible he wandered somewhere, a cold spot following a crowd to a food truck or local point of interest. Not generally during the day when the sky jellies are out, but that’s why he would use the human smell for cover.
As I put the groceries on the table, unease twists my stomach. It’s possible he got swept into an imprint and is currently acting out some forgotten moment in time. Those are always a problem, since he doesn’t quite remember who he is or what he’s supposed to be doing, and I worry if it happens when I’m not around I might not know where to look for him.
Spooky is a strong specter, though. He can generally power through whatever foreign memory he’s walked through.
Sky jellies are another beast altogether. They generally stay away from human habitats and the scent of the human condition, but they are a predator like any other and hunger drives them to aberrant behavior, just like wolves and bears.
I try not to think about it as I knock on the lid of his coffin, currently taking up most of my living room, all glossy black and silver accents. Spooky is classic and classy, a German baron from the 1800s, and wears his upperclass roots on his literal sleeves.
There is no answer.
I suppose he could be asleep. He does sleep, or whatever the equivalent is. They’re nocturnal, naturally, which keeps them away from the sky jellies, and is why activity spikes at night.
Nothing.
Frowning, I knock again.
Nothing.
Normally he sits up after one or two tries, his hair and skeleton luminous, dressed in a black silk dressing-gown that would probably cost as much as the RV if it were real, with sleepy eyes and a stifled yawn.
I frown, tapping my foot and thinking. There isn’t a lot of space in an RV for someone to hide, especially with a full-sized coffin laid end to end in the living room, but Spooky isn’t bound by the physical.
He could be in a mirror. He likes mirrors, it’s an antebellum mortician thing, but I don’t know how to get him out of those.
I’d just be happy if I could hear him snoring, or smell funeral arrangements, or feel an unexplained cold spot. I mean, if he was taken by an imprint or eaten by a sky jelly, how would I know about it, and how long would I stay before I needed to give up and move on?
I take some comfort in knowing that he’s haunting me, specifically. He says he always knows where his haunt is, like a homing pigeon, and would still instinctively come for me, even if lost in an imprint. He’s also got his own defenses against sky jellies, so it’s not like he’s a walking steak.
Still, it is unusual to come home and not feel…haunted.
I step around the coffin and into the bedroom, looking into the mirror at the vanity. I rotate it around to show the television, and then once more, but my reflection doesn’t age or decay, a formless, blue-eyed shadow doesn’t appear behind me, and white hands don’t pound from the other side of the glass.
Strange. He could be in the bathroom mirror, but that would be like a human just…hanging out in the bathroom. It’s possible, but probably not.
I turn around and look at the neatly-folded bed. It’s the bedspread with the tombstone and spiderweb motif, which means he at least did some laundry today, since I had the cute bedsheet ghosts he hates, and he takes any chance to cycle them back through the two or three stowed in the storage space below.
You ever been in a lake or swimming pool under partial shade, and the current changes at the sun-warmed water ebbs away and the cool, shady water wraps around your ankles like the cold hands of death?
Wisps of black smoke coils from beneath the bed, like a fire trying to catch, smelling of funeral flowers.
I step around to the side of the bed, drop to my hands and knees, and lift up the black dust ruffle.
The creature beneath the bed is made of gray smoke and black shadow. It writhes and boils like dye diffused in water, with vague shapes formed in the darkness like clawed hands and pointed ears. Shockingly pale blue eyes, devoid of sclera or pupil, stare out of the shadows.
Behold, the fearsome boogeyman.
“You alright, Spooky?” I ask, settling onto my belly.
“Liebchen!” he breathes sleepily and a bit panicked, like someone waking from a bad nightmare to a comforting presence. “It is good you are home.”
“Do you need some formaldehyde?” I ask kindly, watching the vapors solidify into a white-haired German man in his early twenties, dressed from head to toe in black, with a damask waistcoat and dress shoes. “Or watch some scary movies with me?”
“Nein, liebchen,” he protests, shaking his head. “I was making enough scary movies today.”
“Oh?” I ask, my interest piqued. He thinks Poltergeist is a revenge fantasy and Amityville is a slapstick comedy, so I can’t imagine what he might have watched to drive him under the bed, hiding like a scared child.
“It was vile,” he explains. “A character study on the villains and their terrible crimes. I have never seen such grisly depictions of torture! I thought there was a rating system in place?”
I run a list of title through my head and come up blank. He haunted a family-run mortuary for two hundred years, so I’m not sure the likes of Saw or Hostel would phase him, but then again, embalmed corpses don’t beg for their lives.
“What was it?” I ask, head propped on my hand, elbow along the floor.
“Ghostbusters.”
May 17, 2023
Chapter Directory
Angler's Ridge--Chapter three
Chapter two
Chapter three
(C) Heather Farthing, all rights reserved
Chapter three
He then over two other male cashiers and they begin pulling down the shutters over the windows and doors, padlocking them down. The regulars start crawling under tables and registers and behind counters, covering their heads and assuming the “storm preparedness” position they teach in schools.
“What’s…happening?” I ask blankly, covering my ears against the siren.
“Storm siren,” the cashier explains, guiding me around his register. “Here, get down.”
“Come on awfully suddenly,” I point out. “Dry as a bone when I came in.”
“That happens around here,” he murmurs, taking a place beside me.
Thunder shakes the walls and rattles the floors. Knickknacks shake on the walls, something falls and clatters against the floor, eliciting a startled scream from somewhere. Thunderous booms echo across the store, like the sound of something large and angry stomping around outside. Lightning burns, and then the lights go out.
“Everyone stay calm!” the cashier, who must be some sort of manager or something, shouts from the register, peeking his head over. “It’ll blow over!”
“That’s not a storm,” I whimper, slinking under the register. “An earthquake? Is the mountain collapsing?”
“Nah, these kinds of things happen around here,” the manager explains, sitting back down. “I’m Archer. You?”
“Mya.”
The large, angry thing outside seems to kick something in frustration. The ground rumbles and bucks, raining pounding the roof.
“What happened?” one of the other cashiers asks. “Why is it so angry?”
“Someone hit a deer!” someone shouts.
“They did what?”
“You guys sure take your wildlife seriously,” I whisper derisively at Archer. “It got up and walked away, you know.”
“Local superstitions,” he replies with practiced delivery. “Harming deer out of hunting season is bad luck.”
I roll my eyes. Of course people with creepy hybrid taxidermy take wild animals so seriously.
The storm rages outside. I hear things bouncing off the roof, wind howling, and something that sounds like huge, booming footsteps.
A prickle runs up the back of my neck and my palms feel cold and sweaty. I didn’t know the mountains got weather like this. What if the building collapses? Or the walls are blown away?
Something booms nearby. The walls rattle and shake, I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut. There is a warm feeling on my hand, calloused skin against mine. I take a peek and Archer is holding my right hand, still pressed against the back of my neck. He sees me looking and I turn several shades of red, none of which look any good without any makeup.
“It’ll be over soon,” he smiles. “This ain’t exactly uncommon ‘round here.”
I lower my arm into a more comfortable position, he readjusts his. After what feels like an eternity, the stomping, booming thunder seems to be moving away, and Archer sighs with relief.
The skin on my fingers tingles where he touched my hand. He’s good looking enough, I guess, with that rugged, outdoorsy look some women go for.
My face gets hot again when he glances at me. I think he noticed.
“Alright, people, crisis averted!” he shouts. “You may now go about your daily lives!”
A woman bumps into me as she wheels her cart around to the checkout, shooting me a death glare like I killed her dog.
“In the olden days we let the mountain have what it wanted,” she huffs at Archer, nose in the air.
Soon, no one will look at me like that, like I’m beneath them. I can go shopping anywhere now, buy the finest clothes and the latest fashions. As soon as I get out of this hick town, I won’t need to wither under the gaze of people like her.
“That ain’t true and you know it!” growls Archer.
“Right, because back in my day…” she rambles pointedly as Archer bags her stuff and I move to the checkout two people behind her.
“Wilma, back in your day, they still sacrificed virgins to stop a solar eclipse,” the man behind her laughs, “and it ain’t no wonder you weren’t among ‘em!”
Wilma turns several unpleasant shades of purple before storming off with her stuff, eliciting a few snickers from the rapidly growing line.
“How’s your pa, Archie?” the man asks.
“He’ll make it,” Archer replies. “And it’s ‘Archer’ now.”
“Since when?”
“Since Poppa gave me run of the store,” Archer beams.
“Look at you, running your granddad’s store and you think you’re a man now!” the man smiles as he shuffles off.
Archer, who I guess is hillbilly royalty, is skilled with the checkout and keeps the line moving, despite somehow making pleasant chitchat with everyone in line. At least he’s easy on the eyes enough to give me something to look at that isn’t glass-eyed dead animals with extra limbs.
He smiles again when it’s my turn.
“So where you headed?” he asks.
“Thought I’d check out that sweet little resort I saw advertised,” I answer, batting my eyelashes.
“That place’s been closed since the seventies,” he grins. “Sheriff Waller keeps a deputy or two out there at night to keep kids out, so I don’t recommend urban exploring.”
“Popular spot for teenagers, huh?” I ask.
“Local test of bravery,” he replies. “Not a lot to do out here.”
“Especially with freak storms like that?”
“Yeah,” he grins, putting my groceries back in my cart. “You have a nice day.”
Outside the store, the air is warm and muggy, damp with that post-rain smell. A pretty clear swath of broken store signs and storm damage. It looks like a tornado came through the main thoroughfare, knocking down tree limbs.
Several people, business owners and passer-bys, mingle on the street observing the damage. In the distance, I can still hear thunder and puddles dot the streets. A little girl is crying, cuddled by a young mother, drying her tears and whispering softly.
Do you want the neighbors to see what a weakling you are?
The echo of the words ring like someone placed a bucket on my head and smacked it with a wooden spoon. I shake them off and keep walking past, as if I haven’t seen anything, focusing instead on the crunch of water and pavement beneath my feet.
I didn’t know places like this existed anymore. I thought they had all been drained away by bigger cities and better opportunities, like saline from an IV bag. Why would anyone stay here in this one-store town, when they could be somewhere with a shopping mall, and the jobs and industries that come with it?
In the center of town is a small park. It’s vibrant and green, untouched by the storm in a way that seems almost reverent. There’s a tree in the middle, a tall oak, whose shifted, bifurcated trunk looks almost like a person in stride, arms thrown wide in elation.
There’s a majesty to it, I guess. This is something natural, not bound by the will of man. Some people like that sort of thing, I suppose.
There’s a plaque beneath it. “Emmit Archer, 1672—Who gave his life for this community.”
Archer. That’s the cashier from the store. They’re probably related, people in towns like this valuing blood and marriage like royalty.
I imagine teenagers sitting under it on a hot day, homework sprawled out in front of them, a first kiss stolen under the branches. Generations have probably grown up under this tree.
It’s getting humid again now that the rain has stopped. I better get back to the room before my hair starts to frizz.
Just like before, the trek is long, humid, hot, and tiring. I’m already dreaming of another bath as I make my way past the motel towards my cabin. The silence is deafening, only the occasional car passing by to break up the sound of birds and insects.
I never realized how comforting the sounds of the city, car horns, voices, machinery, are until they’re gone. Without them, the landscape seems still and lifeless, too bright and glaring, like an inexplicably unnerving photograph.
I’m actually relieved when I close the door behind me and set about putting the groceries away. I didn’t buy more than I needed or could carry on foot, but my fingers and wrists still hurt. At least the air conditioning works, that’s a welcome relief.
I take another bath when I’m done, in cool water to wash away the heat of the sun and the sweat off my skin and out of my hair. After that I change into a fresh pair of pajamas from the store and lay down on the bed to rest.
My duffle is stashed under the bed and I can feel it there, like the heartbeat of an old man with a weird eye. It seems to radiate heat beneath me, not a lot, but enough to remind me it’s there, a percolating coffee pot, pushed to the back of my mind, but never forgotten.
It makes it very difficult to get comfortable.
There isn’t much on TV to distract me. The television just has mostly local channels, and I feel like I should be grateful to get that much. At least it isn’t running anymore creepy weather reports.
There is a sitcom a sort of recognize as not being terrible, so I settle into the rustic-smelling pillows for a cozy day in. I guess the bed is comfortable enough, for a low-end motel, and it is peaceful, if a bit too quiet, all the way out here.
As time passes outside, and the canned laughter of the television lulls me, it the temperature starts to drop. Little by little, goosebumps raise on my arms. I start to shiver a bit.
I’ve never really known darkness, not before I did what I did and headed up into the mountains to get away. Night in the city is just orange street lamps and white security lights. Most of the neighborhood had motion-activated lights, so that even if a Pomeranian went outside after dark, it was still blazingly bright.
It wasn’t until my first night out in the backroads did I witness true darkness.
The forest seem to go on either side of me like it was infinite, just trees and darkness. I’d never seen the stars before, too much light pollution in the city. I felt adrift at see, so far out of my element I couldn’t tell up from down anymore.
A mind starts to fill in the blanks after awhile, create its own stimulus when there isn’t any of note. You start to see things in the dark, shapes moving too fast to make out, not the right shape for human or animal. Are those eyes up ahead, or just the taillights of another car?
The road is long and empty. The night is dark and cold. It goes on and on, with the dufflebag burning in the backseat like radioactive waste.
They say that no one is actually afraid of being alone in the dark, they are actually afraid of not being alone in the dark. I suppose that’s true, in a way. While I am afraid of stumbling and falling and there being no one around to help me, I am equally afraid of the eyes that glow in the night and the shapes that move in the shadows.
The road continues before me.
Chapter three
(C) Heather Farthing, all rights reserved
Chapter three
He then over two other male cashiers and they begin pulling down the shutters over the windows and doors, padlocking them down. The regulars start crawling under tables and registers and behind counters, covering their heads and assuming the “storm preparedness” position they teach in schools.
“What’s…happening?” I ask blankly, covering my ears against the siren.
“Storm siren,” the cashier explains, guiding me around his register. “Here, get down.”
“Come on awfully suddenly,” I point out. “Dry as a bone when I came in.”
“That happens around here,” he murmurs, taking a place beside me.
Thunder shakes the walls and rattles the floors. Knickknacks shake on the walls, something falls and clatters against the floor, eliciting a startled scream from somewhere. Thunderous booms echo across the store, like the sound of something large and angry stomping around outside. Lightning burns, and then the lights go out.
“Everyone stay calm!” the cashier, who must be some sort of manager or something, shouts from the register, peeking his head over. “It’ll blow over!”
“That’s not a storm,” I whimper, slinking under the register. “An earthquake? Is the mountain collapsing?”
“Nah, these kinds of things happen around here,” the manager explains, sitting back down. “I’m Archer. You?”
“Mya.”
The large, angry thing outside seems to kick something in frustration. The ground rumbles and bucks, raining pounding the roof.
“What happened?” one of the other cashiers asks. “Why is it so angry?”
“Someone hit a deer!” someone shouts.
“They did what?”
“You guys sure take your wildlife seriously,” I whisper derisively at Archer. “It got up and walked away, you know.”
“Local superstitions,” he replies with practiced delivery. “Harming deer out of hunting season is bad luck.”
I roll my eyes. Of course people with creepy hybrid taxidermy take wild animals so seriously.
The storm rages outside. I hear things bouncing off the roof, wind howling, and something that sounds like huge, booming footsteps.
A prickle runs up the back of my neck and my palms feel cold and sweaty. I didn’t know the mountains got weather like this. What if the building collapses? Or the walls are blown away?
Something booms nearby. The walls rattle and shake, I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut. There is a warm feeling on my hand, calloused skin against mine. I take a peek and Archer is holding my right hand, still pressed against the back of my neck. He sees me looking and I turn several shades of red, none of which look any good without any makeup.
“It’ll be over soon,” he smiles. “This ain’t exactly uncommon ‘round here.”
I lower my arm into a more comfortable position, he readjusts his. After what feels like an eternity, the stomping, booming thunder seems to be moving away, and Archer sighs with relief.
The skin on my fingers tingles where he touched my hand. He’s good looking enough, I guess, with that rugged, outdoorsy look some women go for.
My face gets hot again when he glances at me. I think he noticed.
“Alright, people, crisis averted!” he shouts. “You may now go about your daily lives!”
A woman bumps into me as she wheels her cart around to the checkout, shooting me a death glare like I killed her dog.
“In the olden days we let the mountain have what it wanted,” she huffs at Archer, nose in the air.
Soon, no one will look at me like that, like I’m beneath them. I can go shopping anywhere now, buy the finest clothes and the latest fashions. As soon as I get out of this hick town, I won’t need to wither under the gaze of people like her.
“That ain’t true and you know it!” growls Archer.
“Right, because back in my day…” she rambles pointedly as Archer bags her stuff and I move to the checkout two people behind her.
“Wilma, back in your day, they still sacrificed virgins to stop a solar eclipse,” the man behind her laughs, “and it ain’t no wonder you weren’t among ‘em!”
Wilma turns several unpleasant shades of purple before storming off with her stuff, eliciting a few snickers from the rapidly growing line.
“How’s your pa, Archie?” the man asks.
“He’ll make it,” Archer replies. “And it’s ‘Archer’ now.”
“Since when?”
“Since Poppa gave me run of the store,” Archer beams.
“Look at you, running your granddad’s store and you think you’re a man now!” the man smiles as he shuffles off.
Archer, who I guess is hillbilly royalty, is skilled with the checkout and keeps the line moving, despite somehow making pleasant chitchat with everyone in line. At least he’s easy on the eyes enough to give me something to look at that isn’t glass-eyed dead animals with extra limbs.
He smiles again when it’s my turn.
“So where you headed?” he asks.
“Thought I’d check out that sweet little resort I saw advertised,” I answer, batting my eyelashes.
“That place’s been closed since the seventies,” he grins. “Sheriff Waller keeps a deputy or two out there at night to keep kids out, so I don’t recommend urban exploring.”
“Popular spot for teenagers, huh?” I ask.
“Local test of bravery,” he replies. “Not a lot to do out here.”
“Especially with freak storms like that?”
“Yeah,” he grins, putting my groceries back in my cart. “You have a nice day.”
Outside the store, the air is warm and muggy, damp with that post-rain smell. A pretty clear swath of broken store signs and storm damage. It looks like a tornado came through the main thoroughfare, knocking down tree limbs.
Several people, business owners and passer-bys, mingle on the street observing the damage. In the distance, I can still hear thunder and puddles dot the streets. A little girl is crying, cuddled by a young mother, drying her tears and whispering softly.
Do you want the neighbors to see what a weakling you are?
The echo of the words ring like someone placed a bucket on my head and smacked it with a wooden spoon. I shake them off and keep walking past, as if I haven’t seen anything, focusing instead on the crunch of water and pavement beneath my feet.
I didn’t know places like this existed anymore. I thought they had all been drained away by bigger cities and better opportunities, like saline from an IV bag. Why would anyone stay here in this one-store town, when they could be somewhere with a shopping mall, and the jobs and industries that come with it?
In the center of town is a small park. It’s vibrant and green, untouched by the storm in a way that seems almost reverent. There’s a tree in the middle, a tall oak, whose shifted, bifurcated trunk looks almost like a person in stride, arms thrown wide in elation.
There’s a majesty to it, I guess. This is something natural, not bound by the will of man. Some people like that sort of thing, I suppose.
There’s a plaque beneath it. “Emmit Archer, 1672—Who gave his life for this community.”
Archer. That’s the cashier from the store. They’re probably related, people in towns like this valuing blood and marriage like royalty.
I imagine teenagers sitting under it on a hot day, homework sprawled out in front of them, a first kiss stolen under the branches. Generations have probably grown up under this tree.
It’s getting humid again now that the rain has stopped. I better get back to the room before my hair starts to frizz.
Just like before, the trek is long, humid, hot, and tiring. I’m already dreaming of another bath as I make my way past the motel towards my cabin. The silence is deafening, only the occasional car passing by to break up the sound of birds and insects.
I never realized how comforting the sounds of the city, car horns, voices, machinery, are until they’re gone. Without them, the landscape seems still and lifeless, too bright and glaring, like an inexplicably unnerving photograph.
I’m actually relieved when I close the door behind me and set about putting the groceries away. I didn’t buy more than I needed or could carry on foot, but my fingers and wrists still hurt. At least the air conditioning works, that’s a welcome relief.
I take another bath when I’m done, in cool water to wash away the heat of the sun and the sweat off my skin and out of my hair. After that I change into a fresh pair of pajamas from the store and lay down on the bed to rest.
My duffle is stashed under the bed and I can feel it there, like the heartbeat of an old man with a weird eye. It seems to radiate heat beneath me, not a lot, but enough to remind me it’s there, a percolating coffee pot, pushed to the back of my mind, but never forgotten.
It makes it very difficult to get comfortable.
There isn’t much on TV to distract me. The television just has mostly local channels, and I feel like I should be grateful to get that much. At least it isn’t running anymore creepy weather reports.
There is a sitcom a sort of recognize as not being terrible, so I settle into the rustic-smelling pillows for a cozy day in. I guess the bed is comfortable enough, for a low-end motel, and it is peaceful, if a bit too quiet, all the way out here.
As time passes outside, and the canned laughter of the television lulls me, it the temperature starts to drop. Little by little, goosebumps raise on my arms. I start to shiver a bit.
I’ve never really known darkness, not before I did what I did and headed up into the mountains to get away. Night in the city is just orange street lamps and white security lights. Most of the neighborhood had motion-activated lights, so that even if a Pomeranian went outside after dark, it was still blazingly bright.
It wasn’t until my first night out in the backroads did I witness true darkness.
The forest seem to go on either side of me like it was infinite, just trees and darkness. I’d never seen the stars before, too much light pollution in the city. I felt adrift at see, so far out of my element I couldn’t tell up from down anymore.
A mind starts to fill in the blanks after awhile, create its own stimulus when there isn’t any of note. You start to see things in the dark, shapes moving too fast to make out, not the right shape for human or animal. Are those eyes up ahead, or just the taillights of another car?
The road is long and empty. The night is dark and cold. It goes on and on, with the dufflebag burning in the backseat like radioactive waste.
They say that no one is actually afraid of being alone in the dark, they are actually afraid of not being alone in the dark. I suppose that’s true, in a way. While I am afraid of stumbling and falling and there being no one around to help me, I am equally afraid of the eyes that glow in the night and the shapes that move in the shadows.
The road continues before me.
April 15, 2023
Angler's Ridge--Chapter two
Chapter one
Chapter two
The duffle sits beside the bed like a dead body. No matter where I go in the room, I know it’s there. I can feel it, like eyes burning into the back of my skull.
Eyes like headlights.
The water in the bathtub runs red with rust for a few seconds before the pipes groan and gurgle like someone drowning, and then it’s pleasantly warm enough. There are some bath salts and bombs and oils, so I take a well-deserved pampering, lying back against the cool porcelain and closing my eyes and trying to let it all fade away.
How did this happen? How did I get here?
Everything seems to have moved so fast. One minute my duffle and I were minding our own business, the next minute I’m in this failing motel and I don’t even know where I was going.
I can go anywhere. I can buy a house, change my name. I could buy a yacht and sail for the rest of my life. I have options now.
I’m almost asleep when I hear a low murmur, a voice. Panic surges through me and I sit up, sloshing water onto the floor. I definitely hear a man speaking.
My voice catches in my throat. It can’t be…one of the local hicks. They can’t know what’s in the bag, can they?
I’m helpless in here, so as quietly as I can I climb out of the tub and wrap myself in a threadbare towel, ear pressed against the door.
“…er earlier this morning. The storm is expected to bring strong winds, hail, and lightning. Stay indoors until the sirens blast the all-clear…
”
Confused, I pull open the door and look around the room. Sitting beside the bed is a small, hand-crank weather radio.
Relieved and feeling a little stupid, I unplug the tub and then turn the radio off before changing back into my clothes from earlier.
I need to go clothes shopping.
I wonder if this place has a gift shop? I’m not looking forward to the walk back to the office, but I am hungry and my clothes feel sharp and gritty against my freshly-washed skin.
I slide the duffle under the bed and arrange the blankets so it can’t be seen, check my wallet to make sure I have plenty of cash, and set off back up the trail.
I guess it’s a pretty little pond. There’s a small pier that leads out into it, where I suppose I imagine fathers used to fish while their children ran around on the ramshackle playground.
I bet it was nice, to have the sort of family who did stuff like this. Long summer road trips, staying in hotels, seeing kitchy tourist traps.
I imagine what it must have been like, to have been here when this place was in its prime. In my head, I run up the rusted slide, gleaming in the summer sun, and jump into the pond. A kind man is grilling while a pleasant woman takes pictures on an old Polaroid.
I trudge back up the trail back to the motel, back up to the parking lot. A few cars are parked in front of rooms. A woman beats a rug over an upper railing. The smell from the diner wafts through the air, making my stomach gnaw on itself. A group of teenagers linger in front of the diner, pausing to watch as I enter and head for the booth.
I take a seat as far as I can from other people, in the back right of the restaurant, facing a large mural depicting the untouched beauty of the wilderness. I’m picking out animals hidden in the trees when Irma comes by.
“What’s your pleasure, sugar?” she asks.
“Oh, I…um…” I mumble, noticing for the first time the menu pinned under a pane of plastic beneath my elbows. I order a basic breakfast, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and grits, with an orange juice and coffee, and go back to browsing the mural.
The picture spreads the whole back wall of the diner, untouched by booths or tables, fliers or notices. It looks like the only thing the motel keeps top shape, freshly painted and free of years of smoke and grease fumes. There’s some hidden surprises in it, too, a bigfoot hidden in the trees, a young man with the antlers of a deer, a plesiosaur in the river.
“So, hit a deer?” Irma asks when she comes back with my food. “Must have been scary.”
“It was fine,” I murmur, looking into my coffee cup, trying to forget. “It ran off. Not even any blood on the hood.”
Irma looks relieved. “Oh, that’s good.”
I frown a little into my eggs. My car might be totaled, I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere, and she’s worried about the deer?
In between bites, I ask her where I can get a fresh change of clothes.
“Mel’s Stop and Shop up the ways a bit,” she replies, pointing toward the mural. “Got everything you’ll need. Now, don’t go askin’ for no uber or taxi, we don’t do that city stuff here. Oh, and town curfew is at ten pm sharp, and if the storm sirens go off, you’re to shelter in place until the all-clear.”
I don’t know which surprises me more: the curfew or the shelter in place. I guess it must be the curfew, because that’s what I ask about first.
“Local ordinance,” Irma explains firmly. “To curtail…troublesome behavior after dark. If the police around here catch you, a ticket. If something else…if you need anything else?” She stumbles over her words at the last bit.
“No, I’m fine,” I tell her, going back to eating and looking for animals in the mural.
***
The whole point was so that I wouldn’t have to worry like this ever again. I’m not supposed to sweat, to wonder, to fret. If I had known it was only going to lead me to a little Podunk town where I had to walk everywhere for little gain, I…I might have done things differently.
At least the Stop and Shop has air conditioning. I actually wondered if it would.
It’s cool and dark in here and smells like dry goods and mountain air. It’s a kind of feed and seed place, with stacked bags of animal food and potting soil, buckets of dry nuts and beans, and the most alarming collection of taxidermy I’ve ever seen.
It’s well-done, I suppose, and not that deeply unsettling stuff where they’re dressed up like people. They’re…mashups. Wolves with antlers, squirrels with horns, deer with wings, even a great, black bear with the wings of a hawk of some sort and the tail of a rattlesnake.
Revulsion twists my stomach at their glassy, sightless eyes, displayed in lifelike poses on high shelving or countertops. A few ducks, thankfully normal, are in perpetual flight over the poultry section.
I take a small shopping cart and try not to look directly at the dead animals punctuating the decorative farming and mining equipment, picking up a few things here and there to get me through the night.
The clothing isn’t much to go on, spartan and cheap, with the occasional logo for the Stop and Shop. I don’t need much, since I don’t plan on staying longer than the night, but I do need it.
I reach up to take a shirt in my size from the rack only to come face to face with a young man, staring blinklessly into my soul. He takes a shirt from the other side of the rack without checking the size or even looking away from me, as if mimicking my actions, and without a word walks purposely to a gaggle of similarly-aged people who look similar enough that they might be siblings.
The group has their back to me, gathered in a semicircle around the milk, talking quietly among themselves. I get a prickle along the back of my neck before I realize something is wrong, and another several seconds before I realize their mouths are moving but they aren’t speaking. They don’t even seem to be mouthing words at each other, just unfocused flaps of movement. The eyes on the nearest girl slide in my direction, her head turning slightly afterward, looking as though she’s about to say something to me.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to stare?”
The voice actually comes from behind me, a young man about my age in a green grocer’s uniform with the logo of the store in white.
“Oh, um,” I blink, realizing the people are now gone. “Just…waiting to get some milk.”
Sheepishly, I stride over to the milk and get a small jug and place it into my buggy, glancing over my shoulder to check and see if he’s still judging me.
He has the brawny shoulders and compact frame of one whose ancestors dug coal for a living, probably a local boy. He’s tall with an easy smile and dark hair, reasonably nice to look at.
“Passing through?” he asks.
“Yeah, something like that,” I sigh. “Had some…car trouble.”
“Oh, you’re the one that hit the deer!” he blurts, blanching.
“I…didn’t realize that was newsworthy,” I blush.
“Small town, not much to do but gossip.”
“It was just a deer,” I reply, grabbing some orange juice while I’m at it.
“It wasn’t…” the man sighs, looking haggard. “They’re just…dangerous, you know? Big…uh…big animals.”
I don’t know if I would say that about a deer. They’re small, right? Like lithe, graceful horses? I look up at the nearest taxidermy specimen, a doe preening turkey wings. No, they’re bigger than I would have thought.
That thing’s eyes burn into my memory. It must be shock, or something like it that makes me picture it like that, standing upright on long, wolflike legs, humanlike hands clenched by its sides. A kind of daymare.
“Did they put you up with Irma?” the man asks kindly. “Storm’s blowing in. She usually keeps the rooms well-stocked, but you’ll want some emergency candles and some canned goods just in case.”
He motions me to follow him down the aisles, lightly filling my cart up with about a night’s worth of camping equipment.
“Wouldn’t a flashlight be better?” I ask, looking skeptically at the matches and plain, white candles.
“No, uh…when the storms get electrical they can really mess with…electronics.”
“Good thing I don’t have a pacemaker,” I reply dryly. “Never heard of a lightning storm that bad.”
“Angler County’s weather…is a whole other beast,” he grins, getting a six-pack of canned sausage. “That should do it. I can check you out whenever you’re ready.”
“Yeah,” I answer, looking into my shopping cart and moving toward the registers. “Yeah, that should about do it.”
As I’m laying my stuff on the conveyor, a sudden low moan fills the room, causing everyone around to suddenly drop what they’re doing, looks of worry crossing their faces, hands nervously gripping shopping carts and purses.
“Alright, people!” the cashier calls, looking up from my order. “Don’t act like you haven’t done this before! You know what to do!”
Chapter three
Chapter two
The duffle sits beside the bed like a dead body. No matter where I go in the room, I know it’s there. I can feel it, like eyes burning into the back of my skull.
Eyes like headlights.
The water in the bathtub runs red with rust for a few seconds before the pipes groan and gurgle like someone drowning, and then it’s pleasantly warm enough. There are some bath salts and bombs and oils, so I take a well-deserved pampering, lying back against the cool porcelain and closing my eyes and trying to let it all fade away.
How did this happen? How did I get here?
Everything seems to have moved so fast. One minute my duffle and I were minding our own business, the next minute I’m in this failing motel and I don’t even know where I was going.
I can go anywhere. I can buy a house, change my name. I could buy a yacht and sail for the rest of my life. I have options now.
I’m almost asleep when I hear a low murmur, a voice. Panic surges through me and I sit up, sloshing water onto the floor. I definitely hear a man speaking.
My voice catches in my throat. It can’t be…one of the local hicks. They can’t know what’s in the bag, can they?
I’m helpless in here, so as quietly as I can I climb out of the tub and wrap myself in a threadbare towel, ear pressed against the door.
“…er earlier this morning. The storm is expected to bring strong winds, hail, and lightning. Stay indoors until the sirens blast the all-clear…
”
Confused, I pull open the door and look around the room. Sitting beside the bed is a small, hand-crank weather radio.
Relieved and feeling a little stupid, I unplug the tub and then turn the radio off before changing back into my clothes from earlier.
I need to go clothes shopping.
I wonder if this place has a gift shop? I’m not looking forward to the walk back to the office, but I am hungry and my clothes feel sharp and gritty against my freshly-washed skin.
I slide the duffle under the bed and arrange the blankets so it can’t be seen, check my wallet to make sure I have plenty of cash, and set off back up the trail.
I guess it’s a pretty little pond. There’s a small pier that leads out into it, where I suppose I imagine fathers used to fish while their children ran around on the ramshackle playground.
I bet it was nice, to have the sort of family who did stuff like this. Long summer road trips, staying in hotels, seeing kitchy tourist traps.
I imagine what it must have been like, to have been here when this place was in its prime. In my head, I run up the rusted slide, gleaming in the summer sun, and jump into the pond. A kind man is grilling while a pleasant woman takes pictures on an old Polaroid.
I trudge back up the trail back to the motel, back up to the parking lot. A few cars are parked in front of rooms. A woman beats a rug over an upper railing. The smell from the diner wafts through the air, making my stomach gnaw on itself. A group of teenagers linger in front of the diner, pausing to watch as I enter and head for the booth.
I take a seat as far as I can from other people, in the back right of the restaurant, facing a large mural depicting the untouched beauty of the wilderness. I’m picking out animals hidden in the trees when Irma comes by.
“What’s your pleasure, sugar?” she asks.
“Oh, I…um…” I mumble, noticing for the first time the menu pinned under a pane of plastic beneath my elbows. I order a basic breakfast, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and grits, with an orange juice and coffee, and go back to browsing the mural.
The picture spreads the whole back wall of the diner, untouched by booths or tables, fliers or notices. It looks like the only thing the motel keeps top shape, freshly painted and free of years of smoke and grease fumes. There’s some hidden surprises in it, too, a bigfoot hidden in the trees, a young man with the antlers of a deer, a plesiosaur in the river.
“So, hit a deer?” Irma asks when she comes back with my food. “Must have been scary.”
“It was fine,” I murmur, looking into my coffee cup, trying to forget. “It ran off. Not even any blood on the hood.”
Irma looks relieved. “Oh, that’s good.”
I frown a little into my eggs. My car might be totaled, I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere, and she’s worried about the deer?
In between bites, I ask her where I can get a fresh change of clothes.
“Mel’s Stop and Shop up the ways a bit,” she replies, pointing toward the mural. “Got everything you’ll need. Now, don’t go askin’ for no uber or taxi, we don’t do that city stuff here. Oh, and town curfew is at ten pm sharp, and if the storm sirens go off, you’re to shelter in place until the all-clear.”
I don’t know which surprises me more: the curfew or the shelter in place. I guess it must be the curfew, because that’s what I ask about first.
“Local ordinance,” Irma explains firmly. “To curtail…troublesome behavior after dark. If the police around here catch you, a ticket. If something else…if you need anything else?” She stumbles over her words at the last bit.
“No, I’m fine,” I tell her, going back to eating and looking for animals in the mural.
***
The whole point was so that I wouldn’t have to worry like this ever again. I’m not supposed to sweat, to wonder, to fret. If I had known it was only going to lead me to a little Podunk town where I had to walk everywhere for little gain, I…I might have done things differently.
At least the Stop and Shop has air conditioning. I actually wondered if it would.
It’s cool and dark in here and smells like dry goods and mountain air. It’s a kind of feed and seed place, with stacked bags of animal food and potting soil, buckets of dry nuts and beans, and the most alarming collection of taxidermy I’ve ever seen.
It’s well-done, I suppose, and not that deeply unsettling stuff where they’re dressed up like people. They’re…mashups. Wolves with antlers, squirrels with horns, deer with wings, even a great, black bear with the wings of a hawk of some sort and the tail of a rattlesnake.
Revulsion twists my stomach at their glassy, sightless eyes, displayed in lifelike poses on high shelving or countertops. A few ducks, thankfully normal, are in perpetual flight over the poultry section.
I take a small shopping cart and try not to look directly at the dead animals punctuating the decorative farming and mining equipment, picking up a few things here and there to get me through the night.
The clothing isn’t much to go on, spartan and cheap, with the occasional logo for the Stop and Shop. I don’t need much, since I don’t plan on staying longer than the night, but I do need it.
I reach up to take a shirt in my size from the rack only to come face to face with a young man, staring blinklessly into my soul. He takes a shirt from the other side of the rack without checking the size or even looking away from me, as if mimicking my actions, and without a word walks purposely to a gaggle of similarly-aged people who look similar enough that they might be siblings.
The group has their back to me, gathered in a semicircle around the milk, talking quietly among themselves. I get a prickle along the back of my neck before I realize something is wrong, and another several seconds before I realize their mouths are moving but they aren’t speaking. They don’t even seem to be mouthing words at each other, just unfocused flaps of movement. The eyes on the nearest girl slide in my direction, her head turning slightly afterward, looking as though she’s about to say something to me.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to stare?”
The voice actually comes from behind me, a young man about my age in a green grocer’s uniform with the logo of the store in white.
“Oh, um,” I blink, realizing the people are now gone. “Just…waiting to get some milk.”
Sheepishly, I stride over to the milk and get a small jug and place it into my buggy, glancing over my shoulder to check and see if he’s still judging me.
He has the brawny shoulders and compact frame of one whose ancestors dug coal for a living, probably a local boy. He’s tall with an easy smile and dark hair, reasonably nice to look at.
“Passing through?” he asks.
“Yeah, something like that,” I sigh. “Had some…car trouble.”
“Oh, you’re the one that hit the deer!” he blurts, blanching.
“I…didn’t realize that was newsworthy,” I blush.
“Small town, not much to do but gossip.”
“It was just a deer,” I reply, grabbing some orange juice while I’m at it.
“It wasn’t…” the man sighs, looking haggard. “They’re just…dangerous, you know? Big…uh…big animals.”
I don’t know if I would say that about a deer. They’re small, right? Like lithe, graceful horses? I look up at the nearest taxidermy specimen, a doe preening turkey wings. No, they’re bigger than I would have thought.
That thing’s eyes burn into my memory. It must be shock, or something like it that makes me picture it like that, standing upright on long, wolflike legs, humanlike hands clenched by its sides. A kind of daymare.
“Did they put you up with Irma?” the man asks kindly. “Storm’s blowing in. She usually keeps the rooms well-stocked, but you’ll want some emergency candles and some canned goods just in case.”
He motions me to follow him down the aisles, lightly filling my cart up with about a night’s worth of camping equipment.
“Wouldn’t a flashlight be better?” I ask, looking skeptically at the matches and plain, white candles.
“No, uh…when the storms get electrical they can really mess with…electronics.”
“Good thing I don’t have a pacemaker,” I reply dryly. “Never heard of a lightning storm that bad.”
“Angler County’s weather…is a whole other beast,” he grins, getting a six-pack of canned sausage. “That should do it. I can check you out whenever you’re ready.”
“Yeah,” I answer, looking into my shopping cart and moving toward the registers. “Yeah, that should about do it.”
As I’m laying my stuff on the conveyor, a sudden low moan fills the room, causing everyone around to suddenly drop what they’re doing, looks of worry crossing their faces, hands nervously gripping shopping carts and purses.
“Alright, people!” the cashier calls, looking up from my order. “Don’t act like you haven’t done this before! You know what to do!”
Chapter three
April 10, 2023
Angler's Ridge--Chapter one
I AM MOVING THIS TO ROYAL ROAD
(C) Heather Farthing, 2022, all rights reserved
Chapter one
Angler County.
The words on the sign pass by like so many trees. It’s a strange name for an interior, land-locked region. Maybe there’s a lot of lake and river fishing.
The scenery drones by, monotonous and green. The only thing that changes is the roiling stormclouds above, angry steel gray, split by lightning. Rain spatters on my windshield as a storm warning plays on the radio.
My fingers grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. The road spreads out before me, empty and desolate, trees on each side. There’s old signs about some sort of defunct resort, faded and cracked, depicting smiling antlered animals in forest ranger costumes, “Angler’s Ridge Woodland Getaway.”
I bet it was nice. I bet scouts spent summers there, learning to tie knots and finding arrowheads. I never got to go camping as a child. It was no big deal, never saw the appeal, really, but I guess now I can see the appeal of disconnecting from everything and seeing the world as it originally was.
One of the signs passes by, probably used to be a turnoff. It’s old and overgrown, the paint faded and peeling, just barely showing the ghost of a yellow park ranger uniform and formerly white buck teeth.
I turn my eyes back to the road just in time to see the antlers smash into my windshield and the limp, gray body roll over my roof. Slamming on my breaks, heart in my throat, I stop so quickly my chest slams painfully into the wheel.
All is quiet as a grave for what feels like an eternity. The large body in the road casts a shadow in the rain, my eyes drifting from the figure to the road ahead of me and the damage to my hood. Nothing moves except smoke rising up from my engine.
And then it staggers to its feet in an unnatural, bone-popping way, like a puppet on strings. It snaps pieces of itself back together, twisting bones and joints, realigning limbs, until it’s standing on two legs, white eyes like headlights cast into the rearview mirror. There are more lights rising up over the hill, and the thing drops to all fours and bounds deer-like into the woods.
The car crests the hill and slows to a stop beside me, rolling the window down.
“You alright? You hit a deer?” the man asks.
“Yeah,” I mumble, shaking and not sure he can hear me. “Yeah, I hit a deer.”
Before I can stop him, he’s on his cell phone and calling someone. I unlock the car and clamor out of my seat, fighting against the belt, but by the time both feet hit the pavement I’m sitting down, leaning up against my car, the world spinning.
“I think she might have hit her head.”
The eyes burn into my memory, like flashlights held in both hands. The antlers spread wide and proud, but the long, tufted tail twitches cautiously, like a dog meeting a stranger. It stands on two legs to look at me, but bounds away on four.
The other car is gone. No, not gone, pulled over to the side. The man watches both was cautiously as he jogs to my side and sits down beside me.
“I need you to stay awake, okay?” he insists, putting a hand on my shoulder. “An ambulance is coming, but you need to stay awake.”
“No, no,” I mumble, trying to stand back up.
They can’t find it. They can’t see what’s in the trunk.
The man grabs at my arms to keep me from getting up, but I’m determined to get back in my car and drive away. Once I’m standing, my body begs to differ, swaying as the ground pitches beneath me like a ship in a storm. I fall into the man’s arms and he whispers soft platitudes to hold me steady.
“I have to go,” I protest. “I’m…I need to go.”
The man guides me to a seat in the driver’s side. My hands are shaking, my palms sweaty.
“Put your head between your knees,” the man instructs gently, helping me lean over.
By this point, the ambulance’s sirens are echoing painfully through my ears. I barely see the EMT as little more than black boots when he walks up to me.
“Something the matter, miss?” he asks as I look up at them.
“I’m fine, just...shaken,” I tell him dismissively.
“What happened here?” the EMT asks as his female partner brings a bag up to me and starts looking me over.
“Nothing,” I insist. “I just…hit a deer. Or wolf. Or something.”
The energy gets sucked out of the area like a deflating balloon. The look they share with one another is as troubled as if I had admitted to deliberately running down a kid chasing a ball in the road.
“I don’t see no blood,” the woman calls from the front of my car. “Front end’s pretty messed up, though.”
The good Samaritan swears under his breath.
“A deer?” the EMT asks. “Are you sure?”
I try to hold the image in my mind. It had the strong antlers of a buck, but the swooshy tail of a dog. The eyes are what I remember clearest, like headlights in the dark.
“I…don’t know,” I admit, wishing they’d leave me alone so I can drive out of here. “I…I didn’t see it.”
The EMT looks up at the oncoming storm as his partner goes back to checking me over.
“No sign of a head injury,” she reports grimly. “Probably just…shaken.”
“I’m fine, really,” I insist again. “I’ll…I’ll just be on my way.”
I turn away from them and twist the key in the ignition. The engine moans and gurgles and then collapses, spewing smoke. I groan loudly and put my head against the wheel. Not now, not now.
The man and the EMT are on the other side of the road, chatting softly. After a few minutes, they walk back over and ask if I have a place to stay the night.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m…in a hurry. I can’t stop for the night.”
“We already called Ed to come get your car,” the man explains. “You ain’t going anywhere tonight. Listen, I’ll ride you up a-ways to the motel, and Ed’ll call in the morning when your car’s fixed. You got money?”
“Yes,” I blurt, trying not to look at the trunk.
“Alright, let me give you Ed’s number,” he continues, pulling out his cell phone. “Irma at the motel makes a mean pot roast. It’ll do you some good in the meantime.”
“I’ll ride with you, Bobby,” the female EMT nods, glancing at me, noticing the way my hand grasps the pepper spray on my wallet chain. “Shift’s almost over anyway.”
I give my car another few starts for good measure, and nothing happens but pained grinding. The road spreads on before me and behind, so I’m about as safe riding into town with these weirdos as I am walking on foot.
Before I know it, I’m in the passenger seat of “Bobby’s” car with the female EMT in the back, my dufflebag protectively in my arms, my fingers twining around the straps. The two of them keep up idle, small-town chatter, about gardens and livestock and children, as the town gets closer and closer.
They seem friendly enough, but I’m not in the mood for friends.
“You’re awfully quiet, hun,” the female EMT observes.
“Consider what she’s been through,” Bobby replies. “Hitting a…hitting a deer. Must be terrifying.”
“Well, I hope it’s not taking you too off course,” the woman murmurs dryly.
“It…kind of is,” I reply, tightening my grip on my duffle. “This guy…he’s your town’s only mechanic? He any good?”
“If he wasn’t, we’d need more than one!” Bobby laughs affectionately. “Anyway, here’s the motel.”
The motel is a standard, two-story roadside shanty, with an ancient sign that reads, “MOTEL: IN-ROOM AIR CONDITIONING, COLOR TV,” like it hasn’t been changed since the seventies. The paint is faded and washed-out, like it used to be a sign-matching garish orange and brown but hasn’t ever been touched up. A few of the orange doors to the rooms have lawn chairs or small grills in front of them, and a neon sign with a failing “e” reads “OPEN.”
I try to stifle my look of disgust. While I could stay anywhere I want now, it’s my fault I had car problems in a literal one-horse town, and unless I plan on hitchhiking, this is as good as it gets.
The office is in its own building, but attached to some kind of greasy diner. It smells like decades of waffles and french fry grease all the way through the parking lot, which makes me wrinkle my nose. A few people are in the windows, nursing slices of pie and mugs of coffee. An older woman in a 50s-style waitress dress looks up as the car passes through the window, her mouth forming the word, “Bobby?”
Bobby pulls in at the main entrance, getting out of the truck as the waitress, probably Irma, comes around the diner to the main desk, taking her place at check-in. The bell overhead jangles noisily as Bobby pushes the door open and ushers me inside, the EMT waiting outside, leaning against the car.
“Morning, Irma, how is it?”
“Weather looks bad, Bobby. My knee’s been flared up all morning.”
An apologetic look crosses Bobby’s face as he gestures at me.
“This here’s Mya. She…hit a deer, ‘bout nine o’clock.”
Irma winces and nods.
“Mr. Bobby here had my car towed for me,” I tell her politely. “Then drove me here.”
“Oh, I see,” the older lady replies. “Ed’s best mechanic in town, he’ll set you up good. You need a place for the night?”
“I…um,” I mutter, shifting the heavy duffle over my shoulder.
“Main house is full, but got some cabins down by the lake,” Irma continues. “We’ll do…fifty off because I ain’t heartless, and another twenty-five for the walk. How’s that sound?”
“Very kind,” I agree, wondering how she stays in business if she just gives away rooms like that.
“Alright,” Irma mumbles, turning around to a rack of keys behind her, selecting one and a map. “Path to the cabin’s orange. Go out past the main house and look for the posts. Payment due at checkout.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answer quietly, taking the key.
There’s a bit of an awkward silence as I make sure the conversation is over, and then slip out the window. The female EMT waves at me with a cigarette in her hand, and Bobby slips out the door shortly behind me.
“A deer, Bobby?” she asks him as I cross the parking lot. “That ain’t good.”
The trail is easy enough to find, marked by weather-worn wooden posts with tops spray-painted orange. There’s a faded map on the motel’s outermost wall, showing the path past the hotel down to a good-sized pond or small lake. The font and colors are a bit out of date, but at one time this might have been a family resort with the water feature as its main draw.
The path is lined with markers that show local plants and animals, scientific names, and a bit of trivia. Certain plants that grow wild here were used as food or medicine by the early settlers, like dandelion and nettle. Deer, rabbits, and hawks are common around here, and upon request the head office can provide carrots and celery to leave out.
The woods back here are thick and a bit overgrown. It’s hard to step over all the twigs and branches lying in the muddy path. There’s some preserved footprints in the mud, some deer tracks, what according to the signs might be rabbit, and a large dog.
I’m hot and sweaty and the sun is getting high by the time I see the line of cabins curving around the banks of the lake. Mine is, of course, farthest to the back, but it doesn’t look like I have any neighbors, which is good. Naturally the key sticks and needs to be wiggled and the door pounded before the door creaks open.
The air is musty and a bit dank. There’s a kind-sized bed with a flannel quilt thrown on top, but the floor is clean and no dust rises when I drop the duffle onto the bed. The toilet and sink have age stains, but seem to have been recently clean and smell like bleach. There’s bottled water in the fridge and the stove has all its dials, but the television is one of those ancient behemoths with a knob and a large, square remote control.
At least it’s quiet.
Chapter two
Chapter three
(C) Heather Farthing, 2022, all rights reserved
Chapter one
Angler County.
The words on the sign pass by like so many trees. It’s a strange name for an interior, land-locked region. Maybe there’s a lot of lake and river fishing.
The scenery drones by, monotonous and green. The only thing that changes is the roiling stormclouds above, angry steel gray, split by lightning. Rain spatters on my windshield as a storm warning plays on the radio.
My fingers grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. The road spreads out before me, empty and desolate, trees on each side. There’s old signs about some sort of defunct resort, faded and cracked, depicting smiling antlered animals in forest ranger costumes, “Angler’s Ridge Woodland Getaway.”
I bet it was nice. I bet scouts spent summers there, learning to tie knots and finding arrowheads. I never got to go camping as a child. It was no big deal, never saw the appeal, really, but I guess now I can see the appeal of disconnecting from everything and seeing the world as it originally was.
One of the signs passes by, probably used to be a turnoff. It’s old and overgrown, the paint faded and peeling, just barely showing the ghost of a yellow park ranger uniform and formerly white buck teeth.
I turn my eyes back to the road just in time to see the antlers smash into my windshield and the limp, gray body roll over my roof. Slamming on my breaks, heart in my throat, I stop so quickly my chest slams painfully into the wheel.
All is quiet as a grave for what feels like an eternity. The large body in the road casts a shadow in the rain, my eyes drifting from the figure to the road ahead of me and the damage to my hood. Nothing moves except smoke rising up from my engine.
And then it staggers to its feet in an unnatural, bone-popping way, like a puppet on strings. It snaps pieces of itself back together, twisting bones and joints, realigning limbs, until it’s standing on two legs, white eyes like headlights cast into the rearview mirror. There are more lights rising up over the hill, and the thing drops to all fours and bounds deer-like into the woods.
The car crests the hill and slows to a stop beside me, rolling the window down.
“You alright? You hit a deer?” the man asks.
“Yeah,” I mumble, shaking and not sure he can hear me. “Yeah, I hit a deer.”
Before I can stop him, he’s on his cell phone and calling someone. I unlock the car and clamor out of my seat, fighting against the belt, but by the time both feet hit the pavement I’m sitting down, leaning up against my car, the world spinning.
“I think she might have hit her head.”
The eyes burn into my memory, like flashlights held in both hands. The antlers spread wide and proud, but the long, tufted tail twitches cautiously, like a dog meeting a stranger. It stands on two legs to look at me, but bounds away on four.
The other car is gone. No, not gone, pulled over to the side. The man watches both was cautiously as he jogs to my side and sits down beside me.
“I need you to stay awake, okay?” he insists, putting a hand on my shoulder. “An ambulance is coming, but you need to stay awake.”
“No, no,” I mumble, trying to stand back up.
They can’t find it. They can’t see what’s in the trunk.
The man grabs at my arms to keep me from getting up, but I’m determined to get back in my car and drive away. Once I’m standing, my body begs to differ, swaying as the ground pitches beneath me like a ship in a storm. I fall into the man’s arms and he whispers soft platitudes to hold me steady.
“I have to go,” I protest. “I’m…I need to go.”
The man guides me to a seat in the driver’s side. My hands are shaking, my palms sweaty.
“Put your head between your knees,” the man instructs gently, helping me lean over.
By this point, the ambulance’s sirens are echoing painfully through my ears. I barely see the EMT as little more than black boots when he walks up to me.
“Something the matter, miss?” he asks as I look up at them.
“I’m fine, just...shaken,” I tell him dismissively.
“What happened here?” the EMT asks as his female partner brings a bag up to me and starts looking me over.
“Nothing,” I insist. “I just…hit a deer. Or wolf. Or something.”
The energy gets sucked out of the area like a deflating balloon. The look they share with one another is as troubled as if I had admitted to deliberately running down a kid chasing a ball in the road.
“I don’t see no blood,” the woman calls from the front of my car. “Front end’s pretty messed up, though.”
The good Samaritan swears under his breath.
“A deer?” the EMT asks. “Are you sure?”
I try to hold the image in my mind. It had the strong antlers of a buck, but the swooshy tail of a dog. The eyes are what I remember clearest, like headlights in the dark.
“I…don’t know,” I admit, wishing they’d leave me alone so I can drive out of here. “I…I didn’t see it.”
The EMT looks up at the oncoming storm as his partner goes back to checking me over.
“No sign of a head injury,” she reports grimly. “Probably just…shaken.”
“I’m fine, really,” I insist again. “I’ll…I’ll just be on my way.”
I turn away from them and twist the key in the ignition. The engine moans and gurgles and then collapses, spewing smoke. I groan loudly and put my head against the wheel. Not now, not now.
The man and the EMT are on the other side of the road, chatting softly. After a few minutes, they walk back over and ask if I have a place to stay the night.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m…in a hurry. I can’t stop for the night.”
“We already called Ed to come get your car,” the man explains. “You ain’t going anywhere tonight. Listen, I’ll ride you up a-ways to the motel, and Ed’ll call in the morning when your car’s fixed. You got money?”
“Yes,” I blurt, trying not to look at the trunk.
“Alright, let me give you Ed’s number,” he continues, pulling out his cell phone. “Irma at the motel makes a mean pot roast. It’ll do you some good in the meantime.”
“I’ll ride with you, Bobby,” the female EMT nods, glancing at me, noticing the way my hand grasps the pepper spray on my wallet chain. “Shift’s almost over anyway.”
I give my car another few starts for good measure, and nothing happens but pained grinding. The road spreads on before me and behind, so I’m about as safe riding into town with these weirdos as I am walking on foot.
Before I know it, I’m in the passenger seat of “Bobby’s” car with the female EMT in the back, my dufflebag protectively in my arms, my fingers twining around the straps. The two of them keep up idle, small-town chatter, about gardens and livestock and children, as the town gets closer and closer.
They seem friendly enough, but I’m not in the mood for friends.
“You’re awfully quiet, hun,” the female EMT observes.
“Consider what she’s been through,” Bobby replies. “Hitting a…hitting a deer. Must be terrifying.”
“Well, I hope it’s not taking you too off course,” the woman murmurs dryly.
“It…kind of is,” I reply, tightening my grip on my duffle. “This guy…he’s your town’s only mechanic? He any good?”
“If he wasn’t, we’d need more than one!” Bobby laughs affectionately. “Anyway, here’s the motel.”
The motel is a standard, two-story roadside shanty, with an ancient sign that reads, “MOTEL: IN-ROOM AIR CONDITIONING, COLOR TV,” like it hasn’t been changed since the seventies. The paint is faded and washed-out, like it used to be a sign-matching garish orange and brown but hasn’t ever been touched up. A few of the orange doors to the rooms have lawn chairs or small grills in front of them, and a neon sign with a failing “e” reads “OPEN.”
I try to stifle my look of disgust. While I could stay anywhere I want now, it’s my fault I had car problems in a literal one-horse town, and unless I plan on hitchhiking, this is as good as it gets.
The office is in its own building, but attached to some kind of greasy diner. It smells like decades of waffles and french fry grease all the way through the parking lot, which makes me wrinkle my nose. A few people are in the windows, nursing slices of pie and mugs of coffee. An older woman in a 50s-style waitress dress looks up as the car passes through the window, her mouth forming the word, “Bobby?”
Bobby pulls in at the main entrance, getting out of the truck as the waitress, probably Irma, comes around the diner to the main desk, taking her place at check-in. The bell overhead jangles noisily as Bobby pushes the door open and ushers me inside, the EMT waiting outside, leaning against the car.
“Morning, Irma, how is it?”
“Weather looks bad, Bobby. My knee’s been flared up all morning.”
An apologetic look crosses Bobby’s face as he gestures at me.
“This here’s Mya. She…hit a deer, ‘bout nine o’clock.”
Irma winces and nods.
“Mr. Bobby here had my car towed for me,” I tell her politely. “Then drove me here.”
“Oh, I see,” the older lady replies. “Ed’s best mechanic in town, he’ll set you up good. You need a place for the night?”
“I…um,” I mutter, shifting the heavy duffle over my shoulder.
“Main house is full, but got some cabins down by the lake,” Irma continues. “We’ll do…fifty off because I ain’t heartless, and another twenty-five for the walk. How’s that sound?”
“Very kind,” I agree, wondering how she stays in business if she just gives away rooms like that.
“Alright,” Irma mumbles, turning around to a rack of keys behind her, selecting one and a map. “Path to the cabin’s orange. Go out past the main house and look for the posts. Payment due at checkout.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answer quietly, taking the key.
There’s a bit of an awkward silence as I make sure the conversation is over, and then slip out the window. The female EMT waves at me with a cigarette in her hand, and Bobby slips out the door shortly behind me.
“A deer, Bobby?” she asks him as I cross the parking lot. “That ain’t good.”
The trail is easy enough to find, marked by weather-worn wooden posts with tops spray-painted orange. There’s a faded map on the motel’s outermost wall, showing the path past the hotel down to a good-sized pond or small lake. The font and colors are a bit out of date, but at one time this might have been a family resort with the water feature as its main draw.
The path is lined with markers that show local plants and animals, scientific names, and a bit of trivia. Certain plants that grow wild here were used as food or medicine by the early settlers, like dandelion and nettle. Deer, rabbits, and hawks are common around here, and upon request the head office can provide carrots and celery to leave out.
The woods back here are thick and a bit overgrown. It’s hard to step over all the twigs and branches lying in the muddy path. There’s some preserved footprints in the mud, some deer tracks, what according to the signs might be rabbit, and a large dog.
I’m hot and sweaty and the sun is getting high by the time I see the line of cabins curving around the banks of the lake. Mine is, of course, farthest to the back, but it doesn’t look like I have any neighbors, which is good. Naturally the key sticks and needs to be wiggled and the door pounded before the door creaks open.
The air is musty and a bit dank. There’s a kind-sized bed with a flannel quilt thrown on top, but the floor is clean and no dust rises when I drop the duffle onto the bed. The toilet and sink have age stains, but seem to have been recently clean and smell like bleach. There’s bottled water in the fridge and the stove has all its dials, but the television is one of those ancient behemoths with a knob and a large, square remote control.
At least it’s quiet.
Chapter two
Chapter three
March 26, 2023
Masquerade--Chapter three
(C) Heather Farthing 2023 All rights reserved
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
“Killer clowns? How cliché can you get?”
I immediately turn red, afraid the scareactor thinks I’m insulting him.
“I don’t know, I thought Factory Farm was novel…”
Isaac’s long legs can really carry him, and despite the wheezing, the haunt slider doesn’t seem to be having any trouble, either. That stops when the oversized net shoots out of the open office door, snaring Isaac and sending him crashing to the floor, like a fallen pine tree.
“Strays!” snarls an orange tabby cat so big I think it’s a tiger. “Strays belong at the shelter!”
From the ground, a bewildered Isaac gasps, “What?”
Aiming for the eyes, I spit venom into the creature’s eyes, blinding it. The haunt slider is giving off that pepper spray smell, smashing his shovel into the creature’s skull, knocking it silly. I’m on my knees, helping the tall scareactor work his way out of the netting.
He avoids my hands as I offer to help him up, his disproportionately long limbs at angles as he makes his way to his feet. He winces, holding his ribs, which draws the haunt slider’s attention, grabbing at one of Isaac’s wrists, who just pulls away, looking down at the broken figure beneath him.
“She was getting out of makeup as I was going in,” he murmurs, nibbling his medical bracelet, long fingers dangling like old string. “What happened to her?”
“…Furry…” observes the haunt slider, gesturing at the orange and cream fur, matted with blood, trickling from the side of its head. It’s not a shirt or part of a costume, it’s real fur, growing from the skin.
“I see that,” the eyeless man growls dryly, as I get up. “How? Why?”
Dazed, the cat creature seems to be coming to, mumbling, “Aggressive humans, scheduled for euthanasia…”
The slider, immediately understanding the situation, attempts to herd the tall man with his shovel.
“Move…can’t be…helped…”
“You just dropped her with a shovel, we can’t leave her here!”
“If she’s like what’s going on upstairs,” I say, following the haunt slider, “she’s can’t be reasoned with. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Isaac demands, tearing away from the haunt slider. He rolls the cat creature, who starts hissing and yowling, even taking a limp swipe at him, into the office, locks and door and closes it.
Without another word, we keep moving, through the apparently endless tunnels of the service area. Isaac looks down at his hands, the blackened fingers hanging limply down the backs, as if they’re a puzzle he can solve.
“I just got chased by a glorified statue,” he murmurs. “My prosthetics are real…half my coworkers have gone nuts. What’s happening?”
“Are you alright?” I ask quietly.
His fingers come to life, like eels dozing in a pond suddenly disturbed by nearby prey. They move, writhe, and wriggle, each one separately, like each one is an organism to itself. They look longer than they did before, too.
“I…yeah…” he replies tentatively. “It doesn’t hurt…nothing hurts. It’s just…weird.”
“Those weren’t squibs I saw upstairs…” I say mutely. “Those soldiers were firing on people.”
The tall, eyeless man goes quiet, as if processing what I just said.
“Those are prop guns. They’re just shells. There’s nothing to fire.”
“And the dinosaur and the unicorn just turn their heads. And the cat-catcher is just wearing a furry shirt,” I grumble sullenly
.
“So on Halloween night…all the costumes and the props come to life?” Isaac laughs. “That’s…that’s a movie plot. It doesn’t happen in real life.”
I look pointedly at his hands, but then immediately feel bad, like staring at a deformity or disability, and then even worse because I start wondering if the s-shaped curve in his spine is just him or part of the costume.
The fittest population, the Master Computer made those into soldiers. He replaces parts of them with machinery, usually limbs, but I did see an otherwise good-looking one with a red diode inside an aperture, like the unicorn, and another whose lower face was just a bronze radio speaker.
The others were experiments. The promotional material did really say if it was through breeding or exposure to mutagens, or what, but they were called “mutants” and were basically a repository for whatever unhinged character design this year’s artists could manufacture.
His fingers coil on themselves, spiraling like snails until they’re at a reasonable length, and he tucks his hands inside his pockets, obviously disturbed. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
Beside us, still brandishing his serrated shovel like a weapon, the Haunt slider fumes candy corn and burning leaves with an undercurrent of something like bleach. I’m about to ask him if he’s okay when Isaac turns a corner and stops.
I taste blood.
A deer has hoisted a regular human by the legs, using a rope and ladder to make a pulley, and is currently field dressing them. Stripped naked, gutted from stem to stern, organs discarded on the floor, along with some arrows.
Isaac wretches. I’m not feeling so good myself. There’s a mustard smell coming from the haunt slider, which makes my nose run and my eyes sting.
Isaac motions backward, moving silently so as not to disturb the creature. Fortunately, it’s involved in its task, and we take a different tunnel, only to be stopped once again.
One by one, half a dozen white-painted, rictus-grinning faces turn toward us. There’s a distinct feeling of “You come to the wrong neighborhood” as the clowns ready their clubs and hammers, getting up from where they were seated or leaning against walls, having evidently been readying themselves for a performance.
Isaac steps backward, one foot behind the other. The slider tightens his grip on his shovel. Isaac, his long legs making him faster, is in front of me and the slider is beside.
The first clown lunges with his hammer. Ozzy blocks it from hitting me with his shovel, spewing out bleach and pepper spray, enough to make the eyes sting and the nose run, planting a heavy, animalistic foot in the clown’s chest and sending him flying.
It’s on now.
Braining the second clown with his wrench, Isaac pulls me out of the slider’s blinding fog, using his tail around my wrist to lead me. Through blurry eyes, I see the slider, the savage way he uses his shovel, how going down on his knees or parkouring off a wall means little to him.
“Run!” the eyeless man shouts.
Chapter four
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
“Killer clowns? How cliché can you get?”
I immediately turn red, afraid the scareactor thinks I’m insulting him.
“I don’t know, I thought Factory Farm was novel…”
Isaac’s long legs can really carry him, and despite the wheezing, the haunt slider doesn’t seem to be having any trouble, either. That stops when the oversized net shoots out of the open office door, snaring Isaac and sending him crashing to the floor, like a fallen pine tree.
“Strays!” snarls an orange tabby cat so big I think it’s a tiger. “Strays belong at the shelter!”
From the ground, a bewildered Isaac gasps, “What?”
Aiming for the eyes, I spit venom into the creature’s eyes, blinding it. The haunt slider is giving off that pepper spray smell, smashing his shovel into the creature’s skull, knocking it silly. I’m on my knees, helping the tall scareactor work his way out of the netting.
He avoids my hands as I offer to help him up, his disproportionately long limbs at angles as he makes his way to his feet. He winces, holding his ribs, which draws the haunt slider’s attention, grabbing at one of Isaac’s wrists, who just pulls away, looking down at the broken figure beneath him.
“She was getting out of makeup as I was going in,” he murmurs, nibbling his medical bracelet, long fingers dangling like old string. “What happened to her?”
“…Furry…” observes the haunt slider, gesturing at the orange and cream fur, matted with blood, trickling from the side of its head. It’s not a shirt or part of a costume, it’s real fur, growing from the skin.
“I see that,” the eyeless man growls dryly, as I get up. “How? Why?”
Dazed, the cat creature seems to be coming to, mumbling, “Aggressive humans, scheduled for euthanasia…”
The slider, immediately understanding the situation, attempts to herd the tall man with his shovel.
“Move…can’t be…helped…”
“You just dropped her with a shovel, we can’t leave her here!”
“If she’s like what’s going on upstairs,” I say, following the haunt slider, “she’s can’t be reasoned with. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Isaac demands, tearing away from the haunt slider. He rolls the cat creature, who starts hissing and yowling, even taking a limp swipe at him, into the office, locks and door and closes it.
Without another word, we keep moving, through the apparently endless tunnels of the service area. Isaac looks down at his hands, the blackened fingers hanging limply down the backs, as if they’re a puzzle he can solve.
“I just got chased by a glorified statue,” he murmurs. “My prosthetics are real…half my coworkers have gone nuts. What’s happening?”
“Are you alright?” I ask quietly.
His fingers come to life, like eels dozing in a pond suddenly disturbed by nearby prey. They move, writhe, and wriggle, each one separately, like each one is an organism to itself. They look longer than they did before, too.
“I…yeah…” he replies tentatively. “It doesn’t hurt…nothing hurts. It’s just…weird.”
“Those weren’t squibs I saw upstairs…” I say mutely. “Those soldiers were firing on people.”
The tall, eyeless man goes quiet, as if processing what I just said.
“Those are prop guns. They’re just shells. There’s nothing to fire.”
“And the dinosaur and the unicorn just turn their heads. And the cat-catcher is just wearing a furry shirt,” I grumble sullenly
.
“So on Halloween night…all the costumes and the props come to life?” Isaac laughs. “That’s…that’s a movie plot. It doesn’t happen in real life.”
I look pointedly at his hands, but then immediately feel bad, like staring at a deformity or disability, and then even worse because I start wondering if the s-shaped curve in his spine is just him or part of the costume.
The fittest population, the Master Computer made those into soldiers. He replaces parts of them with machinery, usually limbs, but I did see an otherwise good-looking one with a red diode inside an aperture, like the unicorn, and another whose lower face was just a bronze radio speaker.
The others were experiments. The promotional material did really say if it was through breeding or exposure to mutagens, or what, but they were called “mutants” and were basically a repository for whatever unhinged character design this year’s artists could manufacture.
His fingers coil on themselves, spiraling like snails until they’re at a reasonable length, and he tucks his hands inside his pockets, obviously disturbed. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
Beside us, still brandishing his serrated shovel like a weapon, the Haunt slider fumes candy corn and burning leaves with an undercurrent of something like bleach. I’m about to ask him if he’s okay when Isaac turns a corner and stops.
I taste blood.
A deer has hoisted a regular human by the legs, using a rope and ladder to make a pulley, and is currently field dressing them. Stripped naked, gutted from stem to stern, organs discarded on the floor, along with some arrows.
Isaac wretches. I’m not feeling so good myself. There’s a mustard smell coming from the haunt slider, which makes my nose run and my eyes sting.
Isaac motions backward, moving silently so as not to disturb the creature. Fortunately, it’s involved in its task, and we take a different tunnel, only to be stopped once again.
One by one, half a dozen white-painted, rictus-grinning faces turn toward us. There’s a distinct feeling of “You come to the wrong neighborhood” as the clowns ready their clubs and hammers, getting up from where they were seated or leaning against walls, having evidently been readying themselves for a performance.
Isaac steps backward, one foot behind the other. The slider tightens his grip on his shovel. Isaac, his long legs making him faster, is in front of me and the slider is beside.
The first clown lunges with his hammer. Ozzy blocks it from hitting me with his shovel, spewing out bleach and pepper spray, enough to make the eyes sting and the nose run, planting a heavy, animalistic foot in the clown’s chest and sending him flying.
It’s on now.
Braining the second clown with his wrench, Isaac pulls me out of the slider’s blinding fog, using his tail around my wrist to lead me. Through blurry eyes, I see the slider, the savage way he uses his shovel, how going down on his knees or parkouring off a wall means little to him.
“Run!” the eyeless man shouts.
Chapter four
March 20, 2023
Masquerade--Chapter two
(C) Heather Farthing, all rights reserved
Chapter one
Chapter two
Lost Garden used to have an animatronic dinosaur on the log flume, but it was too close to a waterfall and stopped working. Somebody took it off the ride and put it next to East Props and Makeup, and it’s a tradition for zone ambiance to pat his nose for a good performance, causing the teal scales to fade to a sickly gray.
I know this because I’m the one that dusts it, and I know for a fact it’s nothing but latex scales over a cheesy metal endoskeleton.
I also know for a fact it’s chasing a tall man dressed for Steampunk Singularity at breakneck speed as he tries to fend it off with the stream from fire extinguisher.
The haunt slider, true to his assignment, drops to his knees and power slides toward the dinosaur, taking its legs out from under it with the shovel. Before hitting the wall, he’s back up on his feet, spinning with the shovel and smashing the skull with a heavy crunch. For a split second of abject silence, he trembles all over and then sinks to his knees, gently stroking the creature’s head as bruising forms around the left side of its face, it moaning in pain, and something sweet that numbs my tongue flowing freely from the gas mask.
“Has everyone here completely lost their minds?” the tall scareactor shrieks.
At over six and a half feet tall and very thin, no older than his early thirties, he’s a striking figure in black and white stripped pants, black combat boots, and an olive drab with brown suspenders, hanging loose at his narrow hips. His brown hair is cut short, his long, pointed teeth crowded. There’s a noticeable swideways curve to his spine and a dip along his sternum, his arms and legs too long for his comparatively short torso. A silver bracelet with a medical alert symbol jangles at his right wrist.
“Crazy tall…creepy flexible…soft-hearted…” the haunt slider muses, looking up at him.
The tall man flinches, training the extinguisher on the masked figure, then sighs, “Oh, great, you’re cuckoobananas, too.”
“Wrench…would be…more…effective…” the slider wheezes, indicating the prop wrench at the tall man’s hip.
“It’s a prop,” the tall man replies, taking it from the holster. “It’s plas…that does have some heft to it.”
The slider has a breathy laugh, lemon entering the lavender/chamomile mix of his smoke. I’m staring transfixed at the tall man’s hands, long palms with foot-long fingers, blackened in color, writing and moving like octopus tentacles, a tail at the base of his spine to match.
“Your hands…” I whimper, then immediately feel bad for having pointed it out, like observing another person’s deformities in public.
“Yeah, I know,” he grins, showing his elongated canines and sharpened incisors. Were those even meant to be seen inside the leather and mesh mask around his neck?
Looking up at him, I stifle a squeak of surprise and alarm. He has no eyes.
None.
Whatsoever.
There’s not even an indent where they’re supposed to be, like he closed his eyes and they stuck that way. It’s all empty skin between his cheekbones and eyebrows.
“What’s happening here?” he asks.
Tearing away from his lack of eyes, I gesture at the dinosaur. “That’s the one they put in Props and Costuming, isn’t it? The one that used to be on the log flume?”
The tall man looks down at the whimpering creature. The haunt slider gently slides open its lip and pries free a few loosened teeth, placing them inside his breast pocket.
“That’s a robot,” the tall man replies. “It doesn’t have a power source, and when it did all it could do was turn its head and hiss.”
“Yeah, well, we were…um…just upstairs and it’s…” I start, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“What’s happening?” the tall man asks cautiously.
“…Gunpowder…screaming…bad things…” the haunt slider answers. “Collecting…flesh…for the…Master…”
“It could be a terrorist attack,” I suggest. “Something in the fog machines?”
“This is not a terrorist attack,” the tall man growls, holding out his hand, the tentacles hanging limp and lifeless, like he doesn’t know how to use him. The tip of his tail flicks, like cats do when they’re ornery.
Impulsively, I reach out to touch the appendage, to see if they’re flex or latex, but he pulls away from me like I ran at him with a hot poker.
“No touching, please,” he chides, then sort of stares at his hand, flinching as if to offer it to me in handshake before thinking better of it. “I’m Isaac.”
“Is…that supposed to be funny?” I ask quietly.
“I See You…” whispers the haunt slider.
“I’m sure someone thought it was.”
“Sherene,” I reply, keeping my job quiet, because I know I don’t belong here, not in the park and not with them.
“Snake…Charmer…”
“What about you, Locomotive Breath?” the tall man asks. “You got a name?”
There’s a whiff of something like bleach and an undercurrent of candy corn. The haunt slider doesn’t answer, just staring.
“…Right,” Isaac sighs. “Are you seasonal? With the art collective? Who are you?”
The slider’s hands pause in their dinosaur-petting, the scented smoke from his mask skipping, as if he doesn’t know how to answer or…just doesn’t know.
“Um…we were up top,” I tell the tall man, fidgeting with my fingers, feeling the scaleprint of my gloves. “The…the unicorn…ran away…and then there was gunfire.”
“That’s a puppet, too, you know that, right?” Isaac asks, frowning. “It can’t do anything but turn its head and neigh.”
“Well…it…um…took off, into the crowd. And then the soldiers started firing…and the spider-legged thing…”
“That’s just a puppet. It just lights up.”
“Should tell…it that…”
Despite having no eyes, I can see the wheels in Isaac’s head turning, adding up things I haven’t seen.
“Do either of you have a ride out of here?”
“I think I dropped my cellphone, he doesn’t have one,” I explain, patting my hips again. My legs are cold.
“So, new plan…I’m going to drive you two home, if that’s okay with you,” he says. “Employee parking is that way.” He points in front with his wrench.
“Yeah…I don’t want to be here anymore,” I murmur, as unsure about going back into the park as I am about getting in a car with two men I don’t know.
“Props and…Costuming…Valuable things.”
I took a bus to get here. I’m not so sure of my options, but at least these two haven’t tried to kill me. Yet.
From deeper in the tunnels there’s a noise. It’s like the howling laughter of madmen, the kind they describe from insane asylums, back when they had those, and the honking of bicycle horns.
And it’s getting closer.
“We need to move,” Isaac growls, chewing his bracelet.
The haunt slider looks down at his feet, hidden under the hems of his coat. He moves to stand, but doesn’t quite succeed.
“You hurt?” the tall man asks.
“…Feet…legs…”
Kindly, the tall man leans down, so they’re something close to eye level. “Do you want to show me?”
The haunt slider shakes his head, looking a little embarrassed, but it’s hard to be sure under all the leather.
Leather? The costume was faux, made of plastic. It was convincing enough, but definitely not real. I picked it up enough to be sure, plastic fittings and faux leather material. What he’s wearing now is real, more than just convincing, it’s real, and he never had a chance to change clothes.
“Do you think you can get up?” Isaac asks.
I offer my hands to help him, but he looks at them as if my touch might burn him, instead using his shovel to support himself, a hand balanced on the wall as needed. His boots look like gloves, splitting five ways, three load-bearing toes and two opposible digits, one on the inner ankle and one on the outer. The boots buckle all the way to the knees, and the heels are raised above the ground, like an animal. Each toe has its own metal sheathe, like his fingers, and a small, round puck of sparking material. He wiggles his toes, like fingers, demonstrating grasping ability.
It’s seamless, like he’d always been wearing them, and he definitely wasn’t before. High-heeled boots would be murder on his joints and bad for the haunt sliding.
“What is happening here?” Isaac breathes, watching the haunt slider tentatively learn to find his balance.
“…Obvious…” the haunt slider wheezes.
Something cackles in the distance.
“You gonna be okay?” I ask, beginning to move away from the approaching crowd.
“…Neat…” he replies in a cloud of candy corn-scented vapor, following behind with a growing comfort.
Me, I feel a bit sick, like I’m looking into something my brain just literally can’t understand. Human legs don’t bend like that. We walk on the flats of our feet, not the tips, and his boots definitely didn’t look like that earlier.
Ahead of me, there’s the tall man, Isaac, and his octopus-like hands and missing eyes. He can still see, and the fingers writhe like living things, his tail lightly swinging with his steps. Reality has somehow fractured and they’re turning into what they’ve been wearing.
I step down bad on my right foot, the ground rushing up to meet me. The both of them turn and stare, fumbling at reaching up to help me, as if touching me might poison them. Shockwaves run up my knees to my hips, the ground cool and smooth beneath me.
“…Okay?” asks the haunt slider, blank-faced masked tilted slightly, offering me the handle of his shovel.
“What did you trip on?” the tall man asks, kneeling to get a better look at me, again halfway reaching out to offer me a hand but stopping short.
Maybe it’s the tentacles? He’s afraid I’m grossed out?
“Just my feet,” I reply, pulling himself up on the slider’s serrated shovel, rubbing my knees, my glove scratchy against me. “Clumsy.”
A touch of vanilla flows from the slider’s mask as he looks deeply into me. It’s creepy, being unable to see his eyes or face, but knowing he’s staring into my soul.
A bicycle horn honks from behind us.
“Run!” the eyeless man orders.
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter one
Chapter two
Lost Garden used to have an animatronic dinosaur on the log flume, but it was too close to a waterfall and stopped working. Somebody took it off the ride and put it next to East Props and Makeup, and it’s a tradition for zone ambiance to pat his nose for a good performance, causing the teal scales to fade to a sickly gray.
I know this because I’m the one that dusts it, and I know for a fact it’s nothing but latex scales over a cheesy metal endoskeleton.
I also know for a fact it’s chasing a tall man dressed for Steampunk Singularity at breakneck speed as he tries to fend it off with the stream from fire extinguisher.
The haunt slider, true to his assignment, drops to his knees and power slides toward the dinosaur, taking its legs out from under it with the shovel. Before hitting the wall, he’s back up on his feet, spinning with the shovel and smashing the skull with a heavy crunch. For a split second of abject silence, he trembles all over and then sinks to his knees, gently stroking the creature’s head as bruising forms around the left side of its face, it moaning in pain, and something sweet that numbs my tongue flowing freely from the gas mask.
“Has everyone here completely lost their minds?” the tall scareactor shrieks.
At over six and a half feet tall and very thin, no older than his early thirties, he’s a striking figure in black and white stripped pants, black combat boots, and an olive drab with brown suspenders, hanging loose at his narrow hips. His brown hair is cut short, his long, pointed teeth crowded. There’s a noticeable swideways curve to his spine and a dip along his sternum, his arms and legs too long for his comparatively short torso. A silver bracelet with a medical alert symbol jangles at his right wrist.
“Crazy tall…creepy flexible…soft-hearted…” the haunt slider muses, looking up at him.
The tall man flinches, training the extinguisher on the masked figure, then sighs, “Oh, great, you’re cuckoobananas, too.”
“Wrench…would be…more…effective…” the slider wheezes, indicating the prop wrench at the tall man’s hip.
“It’s a prop,” the tall man replies, taking it from the holster. “It’s plas…that does have some heft to it.”
The slider has a breathy laugh, lemon entering the lavender/chamomile mix of his smoke. I’m staring transfixed at the tall man’s hands, long palms with foot-long fingers, blackened in color, writing and moving like octopus tentacles, a tail at the base of his spine to match.
“Your hands…” I whimper, then immediately feel bad for having pointed it out, like observing another person’s deformities in public.
“Yeah, I know,” he grins, showing his elongated canines and sharpened incisors. Were those even meant to be seen inside the leather and mesh mask around his neck?
Looking up at him, I stifle a squeak of surprise and alarm. He has no eyes.
None.
Whatsoever.
There’s not even an indent where they’re supposed to be, like he closed his eyes and they stuck that way. It’s all empty skin between his cheekbones and eyebrows.
“What’s happening here?” he asks.
Tearing away from his lack of eyes, I gesture at the dinosaur. “That’s the one they put in Props and Costuming, isn’t it? The one that used to be on the log flume?”
The tall man looks down at the whimpering creature. The haunt slider gently slides open its lip and pries free a few loosened teeth, placing them inside his breast pocket.
“That’s a robot,” the tall man replies. “It doesn’t have a power source, and when it did all it could do was turn its head and hiss.”
“Yeah, well, we were…um…just upstairs and it’s…” I start, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“What’s happening?” the tall man asks cautiously.
“…Gunpowder…screaming…bad things…” the haunt slider answers. “Collecting…flesh…for the…Master…”
“It could be a terrorist attack,” I suggest. “Something in the fog machines?”
“This is not a terrorist attack,” the tall man growls, holding out his hand, the tentacles hanging limp and lifeless, like he doesn’t know how to use him. The tip of his tail flicks, like cats do when they’re ornery.
Impulsively, I reach out to touch the appendage, to see if they’re flex or latex, but he pulls away from me like I ran at him with a hot poker.
“No touching, please,” he chides, then sort of stares at his hand, flinching as if to offer it to me in handshake before thinking better of it. “I’m Isaac.”
“Is…that supposed to be funny?” I ask quietly.
“I See You…” whispers the haunt slider.
“I’m sure someone thought it was.”
“Sherene,” I reply, keeping my job quiet, because I know I don’t belong here, not in the park and not with them.
“Snake…Charmer…”
“What about you, Locomotive Breath?” the tall man asks. “You got a name?”
There’s a whiff of something like bleach and an undercurrent of candy corn. The haunt slider doesn’t answer, just staring.
“…Right,” Isaac sighs. “Are you seasonal? With the art collective? Who are you?”
The slider’s hands pause in their dinosaur-petting, the scented smoke from his mask skipping, as if he doesn’t know how to answer or…just doesn’t know.
“Um…we were up top,” I tell the tall man, fidgeting with my fingers, feeling the scaleprint of my gloves. “The…the unicorn…ran away…and then there was gunfire.”
“That’s a puppet, too, you know that, right?” Isaac asks, frowning. “It can’t do anything but turn its head and neigh.”
“Well…it…um…took off, into the crowd. And then the soldiers started firing…and the spider-legged thing…”
“That’s just a puppet. It just lights up.”
“Should tell…it that…”
Despite having no eyes, I can see the wheels in Isaac’s head turning, adding up things I haven’t seen.
“Do either of you have a ride out of here?”
“I think I dropped my cellphone, he doesn’t have one,” I explain, patting my hips again. My legs are cold.
“So, new plan…I’m going to drive you two home, if that’s okay with you,” he says. “Employee parking is that way.” He points in front with his wrench.
“Yeah…I don’t want to be here anymore,” I murmur, as unsure about going back into the park as I am about getting in a car with two men I don’t know.
“Props and…Costuming…Valuable things.”
I took a bus to get here. I’m not so sure of my options, but at least these two haven’t tried to kill me. Yet.
From deeper in the tunnels there’s a noise. It’s like the howling laughter of madmen, the kind they describe from insane asylums, back when they had those, and the honking of bicycle horns.
And it’s getting closer.
“We need to move,” Isaac growls, chewing his bracelet.
The haunt slider looks down at his feet, hidden under the hems of his coat. He moves to stand, but doesn’t quite succeed.
“You hurt?” the tall man asks.
“…Feet…legs…”
Kindly, the tall man leans down, so they’re something close to eye level. “Do you want to show me?”
The haunt slider shakes his head, looking a little embarrassed, but it’s hard to be sure under all the leather.
Leather? The costume was faux, made of plastic. It was convincing enough, but definitely not real. I picked it up enough to be sure, plastic fittings and faux leather material. What he’s wearing now is real, more than just convincing, it’s real, and he never had a chance to change clothes.
“Do you think you can get up?” Isaac asks.
I offer my hands to help him, but he looks at them as if my touch might burn him, instead using his shovel to support himself, a hand balanced on the wall as needed. His boots look like gloves, splitting five ways, three load-bearing toes and two opposible digits, one on the inner ankle and one on the outer. The boots buckle all the way to the knees, and the heels are raised above the ground, like an animal. Each toe has its own metal sheathe, like his fingers, and a small, round puck of sparking material. He wiggles his toes, like fingers, demonstrating grasping ability.
It’s seamless, like he’d always been wearing them, and he definitely wasn’t before. High-heeled boots would be murder on his joints and bad for the haunt sliding.
“What is happening here?” Isaac breathes, watching the haunt slider tentatively learn to find his balance.
“…Obvious…” the haunt slider wheezes.
Something cackles in the distance.
“You gonna be okay?” I ask, beginning to move away from the approaching crowd.
“…Neat…” he replies in a cloud of candy corn-scented vapor, following behind with a growing comfort.
Me, I feel a bit sick, like I’m looking into something my brain just literally can’t understand. Human legs don’t bend like that. We walk on the flats of our feet, not the tips, and his boots definitely didn’t look like that earlier.
Ahead of me, there’s the tall man, Isaac, and his octopus-like hands and missing eyes. He can still see, and the fingers writhe like living things, his tail lightly swinging with his steps. Reality has somehow fractured and they’re turning into what they’ve been wearing.
I step down bad on my right foot, the ground rushing up to meet me. The both of them turn and stare, fumbling at reaching up to help me, as if touching me might poison them. Shockwaves run up my knees to my hips, the ground cool and smooth beneath me.
“…Okay?” asks the haunt slider, blank-faced masked tilted slightly, offering me the handle of his shovel.
“What did you trip on?” the tall man asks, kneeling to get a better look at me, again halfway reaching out to offer me a hand but stopping short.
Maybe it’s the tentacles? He’s afraid I’m grossed out?
“Just my feet,” I reply, pulling himself up on the slider’s serrated shovel, rubbing my knees, my glove scratchy against me. “Clumsy.”
A touch of vanilla flows from the slider’s mask as he looks deeply into me. It’s creepy, being unable to see his eyes or face, but knowing he’s staring into my soul.
A bicycle horn honks from behind us.
“Run!” the eyeless man orders.
Chapter three
Chapter four
March 17, 2023
Masquerade
(C) Heather Farthing 2023, all rights reserved
I WILL BE POSTING THIS STORY ON ROYALROAD.
Chapter one
The world had ended.
I suppose it doesn’t matter how.
The first way it could have ended is with the computer, a wall-sized, steam-powered behemoth of glowing diodes and greenish screens. A supercomputer, built to help mankind, it instead decided mankind would be better off serving it, some as mechanically-enhanced soldiers, some as twisted genetic experiments.
The nineteenth century denizens of Steampunk Singularity, it what is ordinarily the Metropolis zone of technology-themed thrill rides, are preoccupied with the service of their Master, of bringing new flesh for upgrades. People who wand there are likely to disappear, reappearing as a loyal and dutiful servant, body parts replaced by machinery, or distinctly nonhuman features, such as claws, tails, or fangs.
The second way it could have ended is…to have just stopped.
It could have been nuclear war. It could have been a mass coronal ejection. Perhaps it was some kind of disease or pollutant, and it every well could have been all or none. The point is: it ended, and left nothing but blackened ash behind.
The buildings are crumbling. The trees are nothing more than brittle charcoal sticks. Bodies burn, but don’t decay. What little sun still shines is angry, red, and capable of leaving third-degree burns.
The are some that would think that nothing could live in such a place, and they would normally be right, but something yet moves in the dark. Somehow, the plague doctor-like carrion birds have managed to survive, dressing themselves in full-body coats, flat hats, and snouted or beaked masks.
Curious by nature, the carrion birds are fascinated by humans, our bare skin, or shiny jewelry, or the logos on our clothes. Masked and silent, sometimes the sneak up behind, sometimes they slide on their knees, kicking up sparks in their wake.
Maybe, instead, the world ended with some kind of pathogen, not like the one that nearly closed the event and sent people behind masks. This pathogen, thought to be some kind of prion, is more insidious. Found in tainted cotton candy, popcorn, and circus peanuts, it began with laughter that never stopped, a wide grin, alterations to the pigmentation in skin and hair.
The affected became clowns, driven mad by the disease eating their brain. Always searching for new acts and new playmates, the world has become one giant circus, and the performers aren’t picky about safety practices. Step one foot inside Psycho Circus and you’re the audience volunteer.
The final way was through agriculture. Astro Adventure is usually the home of outdated sci-fi, flying cars and jetpacks, and stuff, 1950s values under a veneer of rayguns and martians. The animals decided that this wholesome family dynamic should be theirs, and so they took it, herding humans for fun and profit.
Consider the way humans treat animals, for better or for worse. Now imagine that your beloved pet, curled loyally on your bed by your feet, has decided that a spay or neuter would improve your quality of life, or that it would be kinder to put you down, now that you’re getting on in years.
Now imagine that the cows in the field have decided to throw a barbecue, and ask yourself: where did they get the meat?
There’s also Lost Garden, set between Kiddie Carnival and Metropolis, where the imagined becomes real. While Kiddie Carnival becomes Psycho Circus and Metropolis is split between Steampunk Singularity and Soul Survivor, Lost Garden’s haunted roots have taken hold. They say the castle is haunted, and a headless horseman can be seen on the path to the pirate adventure.
I’m a giggling mess after the dragon dark ride, the one in the castle. I’ve never been inside the park before, and it was everything I hoped it would be, even if the scares are a bit light this year.
It’s about sunset now, and I’m getting ready for dinner. The diner just at the edge of Metropolis, where Soul Survivor meets Steampunk Singularity, is supposed to be really good. The burger’s are cheap, but to die for, and on Halloween, that really means something.
The haunt sliders are out. They were originally designed as plague doctors, and I would be walking through a village that died out due to plague in a matter of hours, but someone found that distasteful, so the outside artist group they brought in had to suddenly retool everything at the last minute. The remnants still show, in their sparking canes and flat hats, the common design of the masks being largely birdlike.
A female, with a black tulle skirt and a feather-print cloak, follows behind a group of men, watching them from the shadows. When they notice her, she drops to her knees and slides headlong toward them, stopping just short of knocking them over, her knees and the tip of her cane sparking.
A taller one, a man with a vulture-inspired mask, slides toward the group in front of me, sending them scattering. Upon seeing their luminous blue bracelets, he loses interest, moving past them toward me, where he bows gracefully, dragging his cane along the ground to show me the sparks.
A clattering in my ear makes me jump. It’s a smaller haunt slider with a more trench warfare-style gas mask, clicking the sheathes of his fingers together just behind my ears to make me jump, which the three of them find hilarious, heaving with silent laughter. The photo opportunity with the vulture one was a distraction.
The short one paces a circle around me, evidently examining my tail, then holds his hands up over his hat to mimic my eared headband. His costume looks familiar, the shape of the mask, circular filters on either side, and the faux leather coat and empty rucksack, a prop shovel slung through the loops. I think it’s the one that doesn’t stay on the hanger.
I smile politely, forgetting I’m wearing a mask, as I move through the crowd. The taller vulture has found new prey, the shorter one is posing, leaning against a park bench, pretending to examine a blackened skeleton to the delight of picture-taking onlookers.
The blackened, ruinous wasteland of Soul Survivor gives way to the cobblestone streets and Victorian facades of Steampunk Singularity. The smell of popcorn from Psycho Circus fades away, giving way to the greasy, fried foods of the 80s-style diner.
Between it and me is a carriage pulled by a beautiful, black stallion. His legs from the knees down are glass and clockwork, with gears and pulleys. He turns to look at me, revealing a spiraled, glass and bronze horn, and the metallic sheeting that makes up the left side of his face, a single red light inside a camera-like aperture where the eye should be. He stands next to a sign that reads “Repairs while you wait,” and then a list of body parts and pricing.
One great, black hoof stamps the dirt. I’m impressed, because I didn’t know it could do anything but turn its head. Air blows out of its nose in agitation, raising steam in the chilly, October air, another convincing effect.
A woman has her skirt pulled up over her knees, revealing brass and clockwork under glass casing, not terribly different from the horse.
“I can’t feel my legs,” she whimpers.
“Funny,” I smile politely, waiting for the crowd to move so that I can move on.
Beyond her, a soldier in a dark blue greatcoat shoves someone, who must be plant, against a wall, raising his brass rifle and firing. The squib goes off to great effect, and what looked like a regular parkgoer drops to the ground.
Apparently startled by the noise, the horse raises up on his hind legs, screaming. Transfixed, I watch how convincing the moment is, the ripple in the muscle. Whoever their outside consultants were, they really outdid themselves.
The horse comes down in slow motion, like it’s actually moving forward, like I might actually get it. I’m swept into strong arms, smelling strongly of leather and pumpkin spice, pushed to the cobblestones just in time for the horse to clear us, shooting off into Soul Survivor at breakneck speed, heavy leather covering me to protect my head.
That seems…really dangerous. All the power to them if they made a fully-independent robot, but letting it shoot off into the crowd like that seems like a lawsuit Wonderland isn’t going to want to deal with.
“Flesh for the Master!” a soldier shouts, discharging is rifle into the air, sending the crowd scattering.
I climb off the ground, dusting myself off. A hunchbacked mutant with extra, stunted arms on its back slams a meaty fist into the nearest parkgoer, shouting the same battlecry.
Have I wandered into some kind of show? Shouldn’t there be a warning?
The one that knocked me out of the way, it’s the short haunt slider, the one with the World War Something-era gas mask, coughing lightly, probably from the smell of gunpowder.
“What’s happening?” I ask him. “Is this part of the show?”
“This isn’t us,” he replies, sounding worried.
A mutant with one large arm dragging the ground lifelessly grabs at me, sending me back to the ground, pain erupting from my back, chanting, “Flesh for the Master!” Hissing, I spray venom toward his eyes, but it’s the haunt slider, lashing out savagely with his shovel that drops the creature, dazedly moaning about its master.
A volley of gunfire goes off somewhere. There’s screaming, now, the smell of blood. A smell of burning and ash like black snowfall is blowing on a frigid breeze from Soul Survivor. Something with a human head and eight spiderlike legs made of rebar is striding purposefully towards us, pausing to spin its head in a circle, casting a red light from its eyes.
“Flesh for the master!” it cries mechanically.
“Get behind the diner!” the haunt slider insists, pulling me up and pushing me toward the glowing neon.
A nozzle emerges from the spider’s mouth. Flames erupt. Flesh burns. People scream.
“Flesh for the master!”
Without another word or second glance, I follow the haunt slider into an alcove where the restaurant hides the entrance to the service tunnels, where parkgoers won’t see it. The good news is: that means we’re out of the flow of the crowd. The bad news is: the door doesn’t have a knob on this side.
“What was that?” I whimper. “You’re going to get someone killed!”
“That’s not us,” he repeats, still holding his prop shovel. “That’s…”
He stops talking long enough to cough behind his mask, and press a button on his shovel, extending it from about a foot to just long enough for him. Without completing his thought, he jams it into the doorframe, about where the knob would be on the other side, and wedges it open.
“That’s cool,” I tell him. “I thought it was just a prop.”
“It is,” he replies, sounding a bit confused or distracted, pulling it out of the door and pressing the button. The shovel’s handle slides in on itself, putting it at its original length. One of the edges on the bowl is serrated, I hadn’t noticed that before.
“Do you have a cell phone?” I ask, patting down my hips with a stab of panic. “I think I dropped mine…”
Using his shovel, he taps one of his metal knee-plates.
“Right…probably would have broken it…”
As the spider-thing approaches, I follow him inside, stepping down a ramp toward the service tunnels. The lights come on automatically, responding to our movement, lighting up the room in sickly florescent lighting. He slams the door closed, leaning against it, still holding his shovel one-handed, trembling slightly, gasping for breath and coughing lightly.
“You shouldn’t have come into work with a cough…” I mumble.
He draws in ragged air, a plume of candy corn-scented gas emanating from the side filters in his mask. I taste blood, tangy and metallic, under the sweet vapor.
Something slams hard against the door, making him jump. Next to the ramp is a mostly-empty vending machine. Acting on impulse and instinct, I start trying to lift it from the bottom, just enough to tip it. The haunt slider appears by my side, lifting from the bottom. There isn’t room enough for both, so I push from higher up, and it topples over, pinning the door closed, the plexiglass front crack and all the snacks knocking loose.
Coughing, the haunt slider moves to the folding table in the center of the room, leaning on it, groaning in pain and rubbing his throat and chest, like you do when you have a bad cold and lots of congestion.
His hands are shaking, his shoulders trembling. He looks like his knees might give out at any second, but he manages to hold himself steady, but just barely.
“What’s happening…to us…?” he asks vaguely, staring down at his upturned palms, flexing his fingers, like he’s never seen them before.
A wracking coughs send spasms throughout his body, driving him to the floor. A bit of red sprays with the amber of the burning leaves-scented smoke pouring from his mask, dissipating into the air.
“You might breathe better without that,” I tell him, kneeling beside him to help him get the mask off, hands at the straps holding it to the back of his snood.
His fingers wrap around my hands, the metal sheathes cool against my cheap Halloween gloves. The leather clings to his hands like a second skin, supple and buttery, as he pushes me away.
“No…touching…please…”
His voice is hoarse and raspy, the vapor still with a bloody taste, autumn leaves giving away to pumpkin spice.
“How are you doing that?” I ask, looking for tubes to connect to some kind of sprayer, maybe inside his rucksack. Wouldn’t that be bad for his back, during his sliding?
“He…just…does…?”
Looking a bit dazed and somewhat confused, his focuses on the overturned vending machine. He scrambles to his feet and with a powerful kick from feet that don’t quite look right, smashes the plexiglass in, then starts filling the inner lining of his coat with snack cakes and candy bars.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Something’s wrong…” he mumbles, pausing in his scavenging. “We feel…what’s happening…to him?”
The hoarse rasping in his voice fades into something more like poisonous fog crawling insidiously across a barren wasteland. He’s staring at his hands again, confused, but then shakes his head and goes back to filling his pockets.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He looks up at me with a moment of something approaching clarity.
“We know you…you’re the girl with the vacuum…that puts him back on…his hanger when he falls…”
A shiver runs down my spine, causing my hood to spread again. It’s possible he’s seen me on the job, as he was getting into costuming, but that has to be some of the creepiest way to phrase that imaginable.
There’s a phone by the door to the tunnels. I grab for it, dialing the emergency line. It rings…and rings…and rings, and then disconnects.
Must be a busy night. I didn’t even know they could do that.
“Was…that…helpful…?” the masked man asks, having finished emptying the already sparse vending machine.
“No, not really.”
He pauses, falters, as if having forgotten what he’s supposed to be doing, then shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. I see the remote on the tabletop and grab it, turning the television on as he moves to the refrigerator, loading up on water bottles.
The television lights up with a news broadcast, something about civil unrest, which is pretty common these days. It describes rioters disguised as Halloween merry-makers, and then the feed cuts out abruptly.
Something heavy slams against the door, making me jump. The haunt slider, driven by some sort of compulsion, continues his scavenging.
“Hey,” I tell him, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“No…touching…please…” he wheezes through candy corn smoke, never looking up.
I have no idea where he’s putting those water bottles. They just disappear into the coat, apparently adding neither weight nor bulk.
“They’re going to come through the door,” I whimper. “We can’t stay here.”
He falters. The coughing has stopped, but he still doesn’t look right. He seems distracted. I’ve only known him for, like, five minutes, but it seems like he’s…not himself.
I give him a harder shove, which draws his reproachful attention. He stares at me, a capsaisin smell like cutting fresh peppers showing his displeasure.
“We gotta go,” I plead. “It isn’t safe…”
Never looking away from me, he places one more bottle in his coat, and then retrieves his shovel from the floor next to him. His vapor fades from candy corn to a purplish mist of lavender and chamomile, and he holds his shovel defensively, nodding to me in a placating sort of way.
I feel the tension relax. Already I feel a bit calmer, whether it’s the sight of him ready for action, or the calming effect lavender is supposed to have.
Taking point, he opens the door to the downward incline of the tunnels. Someone screams and something else roars, but we’re caught between a rock and a hard place, and the only direction is forward.
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
I WILL BE POSTING THIS STORY ON ROYALROAD.
Chapter one
The world had ended.
I suppose it doesn’t matter how.
The first way it could have ended is with the computer, a wall-sized, steam-powered behemoth of glowing diodes and greenish screens. A supercomputer, built to help mankind, it instead decided mankind would be better off serving it, some as mechanically-enhanced soldiers, some as twisted genetic experiments.
The nineteenth century denizens of Steampunk Singularity, it what is ordinarily the Metropolis zone of technology-themed thrill rides, are preoccupied with the service of their Master, of bringing new flesh for upgrades. People who wand there are likely to disappear, reappearing as a loyal and dutiful servant, body parts replaced by machinery, or distinctly nonhuman features, such as claws, tails, or fangs.
The second way it could have ended is…to have just stopped.
It could have been nuclear war. It could have been a mass coronal ejection. Perhaps it was some kind of disease or pollutant, and it every well could have been all or none. The point is: it ended, and left nothing but blackened ash behind.
The buildings are crumbling. The trees are nothing more than brittle charcoal sticks. Bodies burn, but don’t decay. What little sun still shines is angry, red, and capable of leaving third-degree burns.
The are some that would think that nothing could live in such a place, and they would normally be right, but something yet moves in the dark. Somehow, the plague doctor-like carrion birds have managed to survive, dressing themselves in full-body coats, flat hats, and snouted or beaked masks.
Curious by nature, the carrion birds are fascinated by humans, our bare skin, or shiny jewelry, or the logos on our clothes. Masked and silent, sometimes the sneak up behind, sometimes they slide on their knees, kicking up sparks in their wake.
Maybe, instead, the world ended with some kind of pathogen, not like the one that nearly closed the event and sent people behind masks. This pathogen, thought to be some kind of prion, is more insidious. Found in tainted cotton candy, popcorn, and circus peanuts, it began with laughter that never stopped, a wide grin, alterations to the pigmentation in skin and hair.
The affected became clowns, driven mad by the disease eating their brain. Always searching for new acts and new playmates, the world has become one giant circus, and the performers aren’t picky about safety practices. Step one foot inside Psycho Circus and you’re the audience volunteer.
The final way was through agriculture. Astro Adventure is usually the home of outdated sci-fi, flying cars and jetpacks, and stuff, 1950s values under a veneer of rayguns and martians. The animals decided that this wholesome family dynamic should be theirs, and so they took it, herding humans for fun and profit.
Consider the way humans treat animals, for better or for worse. Now imagine that your beloved pet, curled loyally on your bed by your feet, has decided that a spay or neuter would improve your quality of life, or that it would be kinder to put you down, now that you’re getting on in years.
Now imagine that the cows in the field have decided to throw a barbecue, and ask yourself: where did they get the meat?
There’s also Lost Garden, set between Kiddie Carnival and Metropolis, where the imagined becomes real. While Kiddie Carnival becomes Psycho Circus and Metropolis is split between Steampunk Singularity and Soul Survivor, Lost Garden’s haunted roots have taken hold. They say the castle is haunted, and a headless horseman can be seen on the path to the pirate adventure.
I’m a giggling mess after the dragon dark ride, the one in the castle. I’ve never been inside the park before, and it was everything I hoped it would be, even if the scares are a bit light this year.
It’s about sunset now, and I’m getting ready for dinner. The diner just at the edge of Metropolis, where Soul Survivor meets Steampunk Singularity, is supposed to be really good. The burger’s are cheap, but to die for, and on Halloween, that really means something.
The haunt sliders are out. They were originally designed as plague doctors, and I would be walking through a village that died out due to plague in a matter of hours, but someone found that distasteful, so the outside artist group they brought in had to suddenly retool everything at the last minute. The remnants still show, in their sparking canes and flat hats, the common design of the masks being largely birdlike.
A female, with a black tulle skirt and a feather-print cloak, follows behind a group of men, watching them from the shadows. When they notice her, she drops to her knees and slides headlong toward them, stopping just short of knocking them over, her knees and the tip of her cane sparking.
A taller one, a man with a vulture-inspired mask, slides toward the group in front of me, sending them scattering. Upon seeing their luminous blue bracelets, he loses interest, moving past them toward me, where he bows gracefully, dragging his cane along the ground to show me the sparks.
A clattering in my ear makes me jump. It’s a smaller haunt slider with a more trench warfare-style gas mask, clicking the sheathes of his fingers together just behind my ears to make me jump, which the three of them find hilarious, heaving with silent laughter. The photo opportunity with the vulture one was a distraction.
The short one paces a circle around me, evidently examining my tail, then holds his hands up over his hat to mimic my eared headband. His costume looks familiar, the shape of the mask, circular filters on either side, and the faux leather coat and empty rucksack, a prop shovel slung through the loops. I think it’s the one that doesn’t stay on the hanger.
I smile politely, forgetting I’m wearing a mask, as I move through the crowd. The taller vulture has found new prey, the shorter one is posing, leaning against a park bench, pretending to examine a blackened skeleton to the delight of picture-taking onlookers.
The blackened, ruinous wasteland of Soul Survivor gives way to the cobblestone streets and Victorian facades of Steampunk Singularity. The smell of popcorn from Psycho Circus fades away, giving way to the greasy, fried foods of the 80s-style diner.
Between it and me is a carriage pulled by a beautiful, black stallion. His legs from the knees down are glass and clockwork, with gears and pulleys. He turns to look at me, revealing a spiraled, glass and bronze horn, and the metallic sheeting that makes up the left side of his face, a single red light inside a camera-like aperture where the eye should be. He stands next to a sign that reads “Repairs while you wait,” and then a list of body parts and pricing.
One great, black hoof stamps the dirt. I’m impressed, because I didn’t know it could do anything but turn its head. Air blows out of its nose in agitation, raising steam in the chilly, October air, another convincing effect.
A woman has her skirt pulled up over her knees, revealing brass and clockwork under glass casing, not terribly different from the horse.
“I can’t feel my legs,” she whimpers.
“Funny,” I smile politely, waiting for the crowd to move so that I can move on.
Beyond her, a soldier in a dark blue greatcoat shoves someone, who must be plant, against a wall, raising his brass rifle and firing. The squib goes off to great effect, and what looked like a regular parkgoer drops to the ground.
Apparently startled by the noise, the horse raises up on his hind legs, screaming. Transfixed, I watch how convincing the moment is, the ripple in the muscle. Whoever their outside consultants were, they really outdid themselves.
The horse comes down in slow motion, like it’s actually moving forward, like I might actually get it. I’m swept into strong arms, smelling strongly of leather and pumpkin spice, pushed to the cobblestones just in time for the horse to clear us, shooting off into Soul Survivor at breakneck speed, heavy leather covering me to protect my head.
That seems…really dangerous. All the power to them if they made a fully-independent robot, but letting it shoot off into the crowd like that seems like a lawsuit Wonderland isn’t going to want to deal with.
“Flesh for the Master!” a soldier shouts, discharging is rifle into the air, sending the crowd scattering.
I climb off the ground, dusting myself off. A hunchbacked mutant with extra, stunted arms on its back slams a meaty fist into the nearest parkgoer, shouting the same battlecry.
Have I wandered into some kind of show? Shouldn’t there be a warning?
The one that knocked me out of the way, it’s the short haunt slider, the one with the World War Something-era gas mask, coughing lightly, probably from the smell of gunpowder.
“What’s happening?” I ask him. “Is this part of the show?”
“This isn’t us,” he replies, sounding worried.
A mutant with one large arm dragging the ground lifelessly grabs at me, sending me back to the ground, pain erupting from my back, chanting, “Flesh for the Master!” Hissing, I spray venom toward his eyes, but it’s the haunt slider, lashing out savagely with his shovel that drops the creature, dazedly moaning about its master.
A volley of gunfire goes off somewhere. There’s screaming, now, the smell of blood. A smell of burning and ash like black snowfall is blowing on a frigid breeze from Soul Survivor. Something with a human head and eight spiderlike legs made of rebar is striding purposefully towards us, pausing to spin its head in a circle, casting a red light from its eyes.
“Flesh for the master!” it cries mechanically.
“Get behind the diner!” the haunt slider insists, pulling me up and pushing me toward the glowing neon.
A nozzle emerges from the spider’s mouth. Flames erupt. Flesh burns. People scream.
“Flesh for the master!”
Without another word or second glance, I follow the haunt slider into an alcove where the restaurant hides the entrance to the service tunnels, where parkgoers won’t see it. The good news is: that means we’re out of the flow of the crowd. The bad news is: the door doesn’t have a knob on this side.
“What was that?” I whimper. “You’re going to get someone killed!”
“That’s not us,” he repeats, still holding his prop shovel. “That’s…”
He stops talking long enough to cough behind his mask, and press a button on his shovel, extending it from about a foot to just long enough for him. Without completing his thought, he jams it into the doorframe, about where the knob would be on the other side, and wedges it open.
“That’s cool,” I tell him. “I thought it was just a prop.”
“It is,” he replies, sounding a bit confused or distracted, pulling it out of the door and pressing the button. The shovel’s handle slides in on itself, putting it at its original length. One of the edges on the bowl is serrated, I hadn’t noticed that before.
“Do you have a cell phone?” I ask, patting down my hips with a stab of panic. “I think I dropped mine…”
Using his shovel, he taps one of his metal knee-plates.
“Right…probably would have broken it…”
As the spider-thing approaches, I follow him inside, stepping down a ramp toward the service tunnels. The lights come on automatically, responding to our movement, lighting up the room in sickly florescent lighting. He slams the door closed, leaning against it, still holding his shovel one-handed, trembling slightly, gasping for breath and coughing lightly.
“You shouldn’t have come into work with a cough…” I mumble.
He draws in ragged air, a plume of candy corn-scented gas emanating from the side filters in his mask. I taste blood, tangy and metallic, under the sweet vapor.
Something slams hard against the door, making him jump. Next to the ramp is a mostly-empty vending machine. Acting on impulse and instinct, I start trying to lift it from the bottom, just enough to tip it. The haunt slider appears by my side, lifting from the bottom. There isn’t room enough for both, so I push from higher up, and it topples over, pinning the door closed, the plexiglass front crack and all the snacks knocking loose.
Coughing, the haunt slider moves to the folding table in the center of the room, leaning on it, groaning in pain and rubbing his throat and chest, like you do when you have a bad cold and lots of congestion.
His hands are shaking, his shoulders trembling. He looks like his knees might give out at any second, but he manages to hold himself steady, but just barely.
“What’s happening…to us…?” he asks vaguely, staring down at his upturned palms, flexing his fingers, like he’s never seen them before.
A wracking coughs send spasms throughout his body, driving him to the floor. A bit of red sprays with the amber of the burning leaves-scented smoke pouring from his mask, dissipating into the air.
“You might breathe better without that,” I tell him, kneeling beside him to help him get the mask off, hands at the straps holding it to the back of his snood.
His fingers wrap around my hands, the metal sheathes cool against my cheap Halloween gloves. The leather clings to his hands like a second skin, supple and buttery, as he pushes me away.
“No…touching…please…”
His voice is hoarse and raspy, the vapor still with a bloody taste, autumn leaves giving away to pumpkin spice.
“How are you doing that?” I ask, looking for tubes to connect to some kind of sprayer, maybe inside his rucksack. Wouldn’t that be bad for his back, during his sliding?
“He…just…does…?”
Looking a bit dazed and somewhat confused, his focuses on the overturned vending machine. He scrambles to his feet and with a powerful kick from feet that don’t quite look right, smashes the plexiglass in, then starts filling the inner lining of his coat with snack cakes and candy bars.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Something’s wrong…” he mumbles, pausing in his scavenging. “We feel…what’s happening…to him?”
The hoarse rasping in his voice fades into something more like poisonous fog crawling insidiously across a barren wasteland. He’s staring at his hands again, confused, but then shakes his head and goes back to filling his pockets.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He looks up at me with a moment of something approaching clarity.
“We know you…you’re the girl with the vacuum…that puts him back on…his hanger when he falls…”
A shiver runs down my spine, causing my hood to spread again. It’s possible he’s seen me on the job, as he was getting into costuming, but that has to be some of the creepiest way to phrase that imaginable.
There’s a phone by the door to the tunnels. I grab for it, dialing the emergency line. It rings…and rings…and rings, and then disconnects.
Must be a busy night. I didn’t even know they could do that.
“Was…that…helpful…?” the masked man asks, having finished emptying the already sparse vending machine.
“No, not really.”
He pauses, falters, as if having forgotten what he’s supposed to be doing, then shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. I see the remote on the tabletop and grab it, turning the television on as he moves to the refrigerator, loading up on water bottles.
The television lights up with a news broadcast, something about civil unrest, which is pretty common these days. It describes rioters disguised as Halloween merry-makers, and then the feed cuts out abruptly.
Something heavy slams against the door, making me jump. The haunt slider, driven by some sort of compulsion, continues his scavenging.
“Hey,” I tell him, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“No…touching…please…” he wheezes through candy corn smoke, never looking up.
I have no idea where he’s putting those water bottles. They just disappear into the coat, apparently adding neither weight nor bulk.
“They’re going to come through the door,” I whimper. “We can’t stay here.”
He falters. The coughing has stopped, but he still doesn’t look right. He seems distracted. I’ve only known him for, like, five minutes, but it seems like he’s…not himself.
I give him a harder shove, which draws his reproachful attention. He stares at me, a capsaisin smell like cutting fresh peppers showing his displeasure.
“We gotta go,” I plead. “It isn’t safe…”
Never looking away from me, he places one more bottle in his coat, and then retrieves his shovel from the floor next to him. His vapor fades from candy corn to a purplish mist of lavender and chamomile, and he holds his shovel defensively, nodding to me in a placating sort of way.
I feel the tension relax. Already I feel a bit calmer, whether it’s the sight of him ready for action, or the calming effect lavender is supposed to have.
Taking point, he opens the door to the downward incline of the tunnels. Someone screams and something else roars, but we’re caught between a rock and a hard place, and the only direction is forward.
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
