The fabric has seen better days, all tattered and faded, stained and yellowed with age, but it will suffice, I think. At least it’s still white. Well, mostly.
A bride should always wear white, don’t you think?
You look dismayed. Am I not appealing enough? Perhaps, my appearance isn’t ideal, with rotting flesh and bones sticking out from withered skin, but use your imagination. Try to picture me as I was on my first wedding day. Walking down the aisle in my pristine dress, so crisply white, all lace and flowing silk. Waves of dark hair under my gossamer veil that almost floated in the air.
I was beautiful.
Everything about that day was beautiful.
Except for the ending, that was horrible. I can’t say I cared for being murdered. Slashed and stabbed, bleeding out in what was supposed to be my marriage bed. That’s what ruined my dress, so blame that lying husband of mine.
Although, I supposed I deserved it.
After all, I had planned to kill him in the morning until he beat me to murder. He would have been my fifth victim. A shame, really. I made a lovely widow. Even prettier than as a bride.
Oh, don’t look so shocked. You’re not innocent. That’s why I’m here and you’re stuck with me now.
Oh, don’t protest, and please stop screaming. That hurts my ears. Don’t blame me, you’re the one that summoned me from hell. The wedding must commence.
No, you don’t. No running off! There, got you. Stop struggling, I might accidentally break your arm. You can’t escape. You’re as bound to me as I am to you.
Begging now? Tacky. Don’t debase yourself. It won’t help, and it’s disgusting. Accept what will happen, give in. I mean, I do like it when my grooms fight; it lends a sweet excitement to the proceedings, but that option is never painless for you. If you fight, I’ll make it hurt.
That’s good. Nice and calm, resigned to your fate. I’ll be gentle; a few seconds to eat your soul and you’ll be a hollow corpse, all your cares forgotten.
They huddled together under tattered blankets, a mother and daughter hidden in the shadows of the abandoned building. Outside, the wind rattled against the walls and howled through the cracked windows; the noise drowned the rumblings of their hungry bellies. Weeks of running left them exhausted, yet neither slept. Fear kept them awake.
The girl whispered, “Was there ever a better world than this one, Mama? Grandma said there was. A place where we didn’t always run, didn’t hide. Where daddies and raiders never hunted and hurt us.”
Her mother squirmed. “Perhaps, sweetie. Once. I have vague memories, but they might be only dreams. If it existed, it was a long time ago and it’s never coming back.”
“Like Grandma?”
An intake of breath, a pause, and then, “Yes. Like Grandma.” There was a soft sigh. “What happened to Grandma is why we run, why I teach you. Now tell me the three rules.” She patted her daughter’s hand.
“Yes, Mama. Rule 1: Never trust anyone, not even if they’re nice to you. Rule 2: Try to be kind, but be cruel if you have to.” Her lip quivered. “Like we were with Grandma when we left her?”
“Exactly. She couldn’t keep up and leaving her behind distracted those raiders. Now what’s rule 3?”
“Rule 3: Don’t be weak. The strong live. The strong make it to the Promised Land. The strong dodge the raiders. The strong will be free. No masters, no daddies. No one to hurt us.”
“Good.” She tousled her daughter’s hair. “Never forget those rules. Never break them. If we’re smart, we’ll escape. Now get some sleep. We move out with the sunrise.”
“Tell me about the Promised Land, Mama. It helps me sleep.” The girl snuggled against her mother, burrowing into the blankets.
Words drifted on the darkness. “The Promised Land is a safe place, a place without raiders, or masters, or cruelty, where the fear of engines doesn’t exist. Women don’t have to worry there, don’t fear being hurt, or killed, or enslaved. We won’t have to run, or hide, or go hungry. It’s where we can be happy. Where we don’t have to live by the rules of men.”
The girl closed her eyes, dreaming of a beautiful land as she fell asleep. Her mother kept watch over her, listening for the sound of the raiders’ engines…
Weeks later, their long journey behind them, they left the wasteland and found a place of grassy scrub and a cracked road leading north. Taking her daughter’s hand, the mother squeezed and murmured, “We’re almost there, sweetie. Almost to the Promised Land, to safety.”
Two more days found them outside a neglected settlement, overgrown with vegetation and vacant of life. A broken fence surrounded rustic, disused houses and buildings. As they drew closer, they noticed an open gate crookedly swinging on rusting hinges. Walking inside, a faded sign greeted the pair, mocking them with the ruined, peeling letters: P R O I S M E D A N D.
The girl looked around and tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Is this it, Mama?”
“Yes.” The word cut cold in the air and held despair in its depths.
“But it’s empty, Mama. Where are the people? Where’s the Promised Land?” She stared at her mother, watching the woman’s expression harden. “Are we safe yet?”
“No.” The sound almost choked in her throat. “It’s gone. It’s all gone. There is no Promised Land, no safety. They destroyed it too.” She looked at her daughter as the sound of engines roared in the distance. “It was all a false dream. It was all for nothing.”
She bent down and tilted her daughter’s chin, staring into her eyes. “There’s one more thing to learn, sweetie.” Her other hand reached into her travelling bag. “Rule 4: Everyone lies. Even me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know, sweetie.” She brushed her daughter’s hair with her fingers and straightened. “I’m sorry, but there’s nowhere to run and hide anymore and I can’t go back.” She smiled at the confused child. “I’m so sorry.”
From her bag, she pulled out a pistol and shot herself in the head, blood spraying her daughter’s upturned face. The nearing sound of engines mixed with the girl’s screams.
She sat on the steel-framed bed, the texture of the rough linen sheets under her fingertips and her legs dangling off the edge, toes touching the floor. Inhale, exhale, and then she whispered, “Four walls, a ceiling, a locked door. Good.” It’s a box. Trapped in a box. Doubting words slithered around her mind. Inhale, exhale. “Stay in the box. A box is safe. ” Is it? What’s that sound? She stiffened, straining her ears. Footsteps. Her fingers tightened into the mattress. “Don’t come in. Don’t come in. Stay out of my box.” Yanking her legs up, she curled into a ball, listening until the thump, thump noise faded away. Inhale, exhale, and her breath softened. “They’re gone now. Alone the in box. Safe.” For now. She closed her eyes, pain creeping past her temples. “No one will come.” Laying down on the bed, knees still pressed against her chest, she focused on the quiet and the dark. Inhale, exhale, don’t remember…It’s secure in the room, no one would come, the door would never open. She concentrated on the lies to avoid screaming. Until the itch scrabbled at the back of her thoughts like scratching claws, thrashing through her mind and growling at her consciousness. Wake up, wake up, wake up. “Shush. Leave me alone. I need to be alone, alone, alone.” Laughter echoed in her head. That’s the biggest lie of all. You can’t hide, you can’t stop it. Her eyes fluttered open, and her stomach churned. “Why?” More laughter. “I’m never going to be free, am I?” No. Sitting now, she dangled her legs off the edge of the bed, toes touching the floor. The texture of the rough linen sheets under her fingertips grounded her thoughts, but she stared at the door, waiting. Inhale, exhale. Every moment savoured, knowing it wouldn’t last. When the footsteps returned, she braced herself, whimpering as the lock turned and the door swung open. Scratching claws ripped through her self-control and consumed her will. The demon that shared her mind and body had control. It whispered in her ear. Told you. The prey is here, and it’s time for my fun. She closed her eyes as the creature sped her body across the room and leapt on the orderly. Trapped inside her own flesh, she hummed to herself, ignoring the taste of copper blood in her mouth and the screams in her ears… Inhale, exhale. Try to forget that no one is safe from me…
I dream of her, my phantom, her haunting face stretched taut with pale skin, wispy white hair falling limp around her red-rimmed eyes. She stares, blind and bleeding, her lips mouthing silent whispers against the aether. Somehow I know she is pleading, screaming, her words drowning inside whatever hell has claimed her. I tremble when she reaches out to me, her fingers inches from my cheek… That is when I awake from my nightmare, drenched in sweat. I should be relieved, the night terrors banished by the sun. Yet, my torment continues throughout the daylight hours, for she never leaves me. She is my shadow in the light, the ghost that haunts my waking hours and bleeds me dry for peace. A manifestation of primal fear and my eternal pity, my personal apparition. Her existence instills both the desire to flee and the need to save her. Am I mad? I have no answer to that question. Perhaps I might welcome insanity. The waking world now threads around me unfinished in shades of grey and gloom, with no vibrancy of colour save red; it taints everything, everywhere. I long for sleep and my nightmares. I long for her pale face and crimson eyes. Each night I sink deeper beneath the surface of my dreams and she draws closer to me; my skin craves her touch now, and it is harder to wake in the morning. I never leave the house and barely eat, often staring at my bed, forcing myself to stay awake. What if I close my eyes and never wake up? Would I finally be with her? The uncertainty of it all anchors me to this world. Will she bring my oblivion or will I be her deliverance? I don’t know. The not knowing drives me, swirls my mind in frantic visions and terrors. Yet, I feel I will understand soon, for her siren’s song becomes harder to resist. When her fingers caress my face, I will have my answer. Only then will my nightmare end. At least I pray it will.
She ambled along the path to the lake, soaking in the lovely spring day, walking alone, but enjoying the tranquillity of the gentle breeze and the smell of pine from the trees. She needed some peaceful reflection after the break-up.
Brad never wanted to reflect on anything, always engrossed in work, work, work. She felt ignored, especially lately, like he barely noticed her. That’s why she planned this getaway, but it fell apart from the beginning…
The fuss he made coming to the cabin. She barely got him into the car. At least he was quiet on the drive. From the start, he spoiled the whole weekend retreat.
And now he was gone. It had only been a couple of hours, but she missed him already.
Oh, Brad, why did you have to treat me like that?
She loved him from the moment she saw him, with that wonderful smile, those kind eyes. Being near him made her feel so safe. Yet, he turned out like all the rest.
Men were so mean.
Denying he knew her. Or that he loved her. Yelling for her to untie him. Brad even pretended not to know her name.
After all she did for him, all he meant to her.
She showed him her journals, where she detailed all their encounters. The day he casually brushed past her in the street, touching her sleeve. The numerous times they stood together in line at his favourite coffee shop. All those nights she watched him through his windows. She reminded him of other things, too. Hadn’t she arranged that accident for his work rival? Scared off that slut who flirted with him? She bared her heart and declared her love.
He looked at her as if she was insane. That hurt.
Why couldn’t he see it?
They were meant to be together. They had a connection. The cabin was supposed to be the start of their future. He was supposed to be the one. Yet Brad rejected her, after all the weeks they spent together. Men always rejected her, no matter how hard she tried to please them.
I never want to hurt them, but I get so angry… She sighed. They’re the ones that make me do the awful things.
She chose a knife this time. Brad sneered when she picked it up and threatened him. Sneered until she slashed him. Then he cursed at her, called her awful names, and threatened to go to the police. She couldn’t let him do that, so she started stabbing.
That’s when he screamed, and I saw the fear in his eyes. I always see the fear at the end.
She sighed. She never enjoyed remembering the break-ups. Always so messy.
I suppose I better head back. There’s still a lot of work to do. Bodies don’t dispose of themselves.
Entombed in the embrace of the soot-black night, the frigid snow caught the eternal edge of the waning moonlight. Pristine, yet jagged, its frozen surface shimmered in an iridescent sheen, poised like the steel jaws of a trap waiting for the unwary; its beauty was undeniable but deadly.
For the mortals that lived in its grip, winter ruled the world and waited.
A northern gale rustled down from the high mountains, bouncing against the village; layers of ice cracked, flexing the cold’s wicked bite throughout the empty streets. Not a breathing soul stirred in the night air; the living huddled inside around meagre fires. Those fated few trapped outside had long since perished, left as the offerings.
Sacrifices were necessary.
For Winter took its price. Better the chosen, than the innocent.
And always the question remained: How many days this year? Last season the village barely survived. Only a change in the weather, a surprise thaw, saved them all. That year the weather lingered longer.
What would happen this season? Would more die before spring? Would they all die?
It wasn’t something they could fight.
They could only prepare for what was coming…
Claws skittered against the glacial snow. Heaving pants of breath threaded white vapours on the wind. A soft whine wormed its way through miniscule cracks and people shivered. Louder noises followed; the crunch of ice, bone and frozen flesh. Some villagers silently wept. Here and there, a looming shadow passed the shuttered windows, breaking the warm light of the fires. Sometimes, when the children whimpered, they heard scratching at the doors. No one could leave, and no one spoke, save in whispers.
On certain nights, when mood and moon strike a perfect balance, things beyond actuality stir. Forces shift along the winding winds of autumn—the ones chasing indistinct half-whispers through forest leaves—before they settle. Where and when you can never be sure, but tonight a derelict house becomes the chosen place. An overgrown decrepit structure, a relic of eras forgotten or romanticized, it drips in an ideal ambience of uncanny echoes filtered through endless history.
An indistinguishable groan shudders through the bones of the house and a chill gust of air swirls tiny circles in its layers of dust, sliding down the moonlight streaming in from the broken windows. The breeze prances along the floor in time to heavy reverberating footsteps; another strange distortion in the sedentary grime of an empty hallway. A rustle of weighty wings follows the footsteps and a long black shadow creeps over the moonlight, as the doors to an abandoned ballroom creak open.
The silence of the next moments extend, waiting like a predator, until…
“It is time.”
The atmosphere sizzles with a hiss, an alteration in the dim light, and a blurring of mortal existence. A scent of sulphur morphs into the stench of decay and cigars welcoming the soft breath of something unseen. Slowly, an oozing green mist permeates the room’s stale air. The filmy haze squelches into diaphanous skeletal forms, transfiguring into recognizable shapes and limbs, giving substance to ghostly corpses. Ashes swirl scattered grey patterns across the floor, that now resounds with the click of heels and the squeak of leather shoes.
Brassy strains of music waft around the room, an orchestral waltz slightly out of tune, and laughter trails the melody, cackling from cracks and corners. As the ethereal instruments play, they dance with the clatter of bones and the swish of tattered gowns, sweeping the rotting decadence of unholy death in a morbid semblance of joy and art. Tirelessly they whirl, hour upon hour, far beyond the chime of the midnight clock, until the dawn pushes its tendrils into the sky breaking the spell.
Only then do they stop, sighs of unfulfilled longing swirling around the ballroom, before the revelry falls silent. Daylight skips across the floor from cracked windows and spectres morph back into mist as the ripple of death reclaims its own. Dark wings shiver the air and a black shadow cuts past the morning sunshine. Leaden footsteps echo down the hall until the dust settles into the quiet beginning of a new day.
A soft mist tangled through the trees past the haunting of midnight, as the wind rustled a few dead leaves still clinging to the branches. One crooked gravestone leaned under the shifting moonlight, its crumbling edges and rough surface slowly losing the fight against time and the elements. The winter-tinged breeze swirled the detritus on the ground in crinkles and crunches as if someone was walking across the grave, bent on disturbing the mouldering remains of one Jebediah Osbourne. A rich man in life, the last of an ancient family, Jebediah embraced the esoteric and eccentric, shunning polite society. In death, society had abandoned him to a dark eternity alone in the woods, buried and forgotten. Well, perhaps not entirely forgotten. The box appeared with the full moon, on that October 31st in 1913, summoned by the rumblings of a war beginning across the ocean. The faint drum of a heartbeat reverberated from inside, inexplicably echoed by the corpse interred below the earth. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. A pulse vibrating along the earth, sinking its rhythm into the soil and intoning through the trees until they trembled with the cadence. Sensing the unnatural disturbance, an owl screeched in the distance, The forest screamed in response as the dirt quaked and shifted, as streams of blood poured from the deep bowels of nightmares. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. And then a click. The box opened. Not with a shriek or a howl. With a soft, lingering chuckle. And the hand of dead Jebediah Osbourne broke free of its grave, reaching for the night sky.
On the lower steps, you could just barely see him. A gray smoke. A whirl of ghostly gnats and ashes. Faintly glowing. On the move. Adrift but seeking. Rising up from the cellar’s darkness.
In the light. In a narrow place. Beneath the rococo wall of gold, he became invisible. And he waited. To take a lover. To kiss the first mouth that passed through him. To sup upon a soul and become manifest. To feast upon life so that he might return to flesh, and become a god.
Knock on Wood Marge Simon
I return to the house of my youth, where the newel post still stands at the foot of the stairs. Dear memories of childhood, that staircase with its banister, the game of Knock-on Wood. Down and around we children used to slide. At the landing, knock on wood, then change directions, plunging onward shrieking to the very bottom stair. There, we’d touch wood once more at the newel post, then scramble up to do it all again. The fastest one would take the win, such a lark in bygone days!
All too well, I remember Cousin James, who too often won the game. How he’d crow about his win, until the day I’d had enough, and pushed him downstairs to his death. I tell myself I’d meant no harm; it was just a game gone wrong. I go to leave, but a whuff of chill air stops me in my tracks. Suddenly afraid, I turn to see that newel post knows otherwise, a fiendish leer within its carved design. And, after all these years, there’ll be the devil to pay.
After Dark Nina D’Arcangela
In darkness there is patience, a quiet that waits; a moment pregnant with pure malevolence.
I lay in the dark, sheet tucked to my chin on this sweltering night. The small bulb fixed to the tin wall barely a beacon, let alone a source of comfort. I can hear the crick of the wooden stairs as it stealthily begins the climb. Eyes shuttered tight, breath fetid by fear, my muscles seize — I feel it watching me. Minutes pass as I count slowly in my mind. Finally, I hear it turn, I hear its bones and crepe paper skin as it scrapes the railing and planks. I hear the slight squeal of the hinge as it opens the hatch set into the stairwell. I let out a small sigh and immediately regret my mistake. As I throw the sheet over my head, the thing pounds back up the treads and across the room; bones slamming every surface it passes. It leaps onto the bed, and in a frenzy, begins to pound and slash at my body; the bruising from the last assault not yet healed. Both of us scream. Mine, a high-pitched shriek of terror; its, an unholy wail that splits the night.
Abruptly, the onslaught stops. As I lay panting beneath the torn and bloodied bedclothes, it retreats to the stairs once more. In the near silent room, I hear the latch click as it pulls the door shut behind it.
Locked-In with Dreams Louise Worthington
I eagerly wait for a new day inside my cold cell, even when the sun’s face is ready to give up on me. As usual, the sheets are unhappily twisted around me, hiding imprints from the vigour of my dreams. My secret light pollution. Only I can see them travelling on the train of my life going by, cabin by cabin. On waking, they are water spewing from a hose until it’s cut off mid-stream.
I am thirsty. So very thirsty.
Today I imagine myself escaping from a tower. I have grown my hair, and I lower myself down gently to the ground like precious cargo.
Outside, free from walls, stairs, and doors, I build a new country out of mirrors that heal fragmented reflections, like Picasso. I steal silver foil like magpies to protect my skin.
I skip stones across the pond – one, two, three – and bury seeds in the garden and water them in, then secure trellis for black-eyed Susans and ivy to spread over the ugliest and roughest of brickwork until this house disappears.
The precious things which I have lost shower like cherry blossom, and gusts of wind blow the soft-scented petals indoors, dispersed like breadcrumbs up the stairs, along the dark landing, to confetti beneath my locked bedroom door. If I try hard, I can catch their sweet scent.
Rebirth Lee Andrew Forman
Each footfall echoes with unnatural intensity as I ascend. The newfound light draws me, body and soul—this first dawn to repel the suffocating darkness in which I exist, is irresistible. The edge of all my eyes have witnessed have been no more than shadows and illusions of the psyche. I climb, against all struggle, into the blinding gleam, to flee this domain of suffering and feast on all that is within my grasp. I hunger for more than the rotten scraps the cold metal tube provides. As I reach the barrier I’ve never dared near, I wonder how their flesh will taste—the mother who expelled me from her womb as though I were pestilence, and the father who scorned all I am.
In My Darkness Miriam H. Harrison
The first time I saw her, she was little more than shadow. Walking through our sleeping city, she was a companion in my insomnia. A hope in my darkness. We had many more sleepless nights together, but the sunrises are what I remember best. The daily glow of warmth and colour filling her smile.
That was before the sickness came. Before it drained away her colour. Before all warmth faded to chills and aches. Still we spoke of our sunrises, but she was too weary to see new dawns rise. And without her, I saw no beauty in the light.
The longest, darkest night was when the sickness won. I dreaded the light of a new day, the start of my first day without her. But then, just before dawn, I saw her.
That last time I saw her, she was little more than light. Glowing like a sunrise in my home. Like hope in my darkness.
The Upper Room AF Stewart
He lived in a small room on the top floor of the monastery. A small space beyond narrow winding stairs that smelled of sour, musty age. The upper room they called it, at least the monks that spoke of it at all. Few wished to acknowledge its existence, nor the presence of its occupant.
“A holy man,” they sometimes murmured.
But no one truly knew. No soul saw him, not even the monks that brought him food, slipping it inside his darkened space. After all, who would wish to disturb a hermit lost to silent mediation and prayer?
Strange how the truth can be distorted over time. Equally strange how no one questioned the occasional missing traveller or how dissenting monks sometimes disappeared. Sin calls to sin after all.
For the creature that lived in the upper room was no holy man, nor even a man. Not any longer. Once perhaps, a devout monk seeking enlightenment, seeking the divine. But pride drove him beyond sense and he found only demonic secrets. Ones that devoured his soul. Now he waits in the upper room, a prisoner, consuming the sins of occasional fools that venture too far inside his lair.
But he knows one day someone will make a mistake. They will forget to replenish the wards, or he’ll devour enough sins to break his bonds.
He knows one day he will escape.
Stairwell of the Liquid Souls Harrison Kim
Edema steps up and down, up and down the stairs between the walls, under the light that never turns off. At the top, Edema cannot turn the corner because there is no corner. She can’t go through a door because one doesn’t exist. No turning, because her forehead’s becoming larger, her belly too, and her knees. Her body’s filling with liquid, what sort of liquid, she doesn’t know, all she does know is it is heavy and thick, seeping through from the walls, and it sloshes inside and slows her movements. Within her ears she hears a wailing, a crying in despair,
For God’s sake, get us out of here!
Her heartbeat thumps faster as the wailing rises, a heart that slops and slips as she climbs the stairs ever more slowly, hoping she may escape to freedom if she hits the walls hard enough, in this sick brown coloured stairwell with no night or day. Her forehead droops, her belly sags.
It’s her knees that first drag on the floor, her huge liquid filled knees. Then it’s the belly that drops, and now the forehead, pulling her head down, its creases lie flat on the upper stairs, her feet on the lower ones. Edema’s fluid engorged body fills the entire stairwell, a swampy miasma of skin, liquid soul and bones, she can’t climb any more though her legs continue in spasm. In her head the only thought is “For God’s sake, get me out of here!” how much time does her body lie there… ten days, a month, in stench and stink, seeping into the wood and plaster. Afterwards, the only indication that anything filled the empty space is a slightly brighter light atop the hallway of the liquid souls, an alabaster shimmering in the wall.
The Clearing RJ Meldrum
They parked, grabbed their gear and headed down the trail. Walking for about a mile, they reached a fork. Peter consulted the map. He was unfamiliar with the area, but their destination lay to the east, so he decided to follow the trail heading in that direction. Compared to the path heading west, this one was overgrown with grass and other foliage. It was clearly rarely used. Amanda was worried they were literally leaving the beaten path, but he had the map. Her instinct was correct; he’d chosen the wrong trail. It led to a remote, unpopulated part of the forest.
After an hour they entered a clearing. In the middle sat a ruined cabin. The lumber had decayed into indistinct piles. Only one part remained; a flight of stairs. In perfect condition, they climbed to a floor which no longer existed.
The sight was so incongruous, Amanda just had to take a closer look. She touched the bannister, but quickly withdrew her hand. It had vibrated. Peter placed his hand on the wood too, but felt nothing.
She started to climb the stairs. Her eyes were glazed and distant, as if she was seeing something Peter couldn’t. She reached the top and extended her hand. Her fingers mimicked opening a door. She stepped forward. Peter shouted she was about to fall. Instead, she simply disappeared. He ran up the stairs, but there was nothing. He had to get help. He headed back down the trail.
In the clearing, the ruined cabin sat quietly. The fresh varnish on the stairs reflected the evening sun, sending shafts of light to sparkle amongst the green leaves of nearby trees. There was a sense of calm and tranquility. The offering, although unexpected, had been acceptable.
The Servants’ Staircase Elaine Pascale
“I keep dreaming about the stairs.”
“The servants’ stairs?” Clay asked even though he knew the answer. His wife had complained of being haunted by the narrow staircase ever since they had been forced to relocate. She said there was bad energy trapped in the stairwell. He had caught her performing a ritual at the foot of the stairs.
“I wish you wouldn’t call it that…” Julia sighed.
“It’s historically accurate. Besides, neither of our families could have afforded servants. We have a clean slate.”
“Then explain the dreams.”
He tapped his forehead. “Your witchy brain, my dear.”
She frowned. “Can you try opening that weird cubby again? Maybe if I see the inside, the dreams will stop.”
“I’ve tried. It’s sealed shut.”
“Break the seal,” she pleaded.
Knowing that the landlord would not be thrilled with the act of vandalism but wanting his wife’s superstitions to stop, Clay tried the small door again, only to find that it opened easily.
“See, nothing—” Clay stopped when he spotted what looked like a sapphire ring peeking out of the dirt. “How did your ring get in there?”
Julia shrugged. “I bartered.”
Clay was confused. “Bartered? For what?”
As Julia swung the hammer at his forehead, Clay saw that the ring was garnishing a gnarled hand.
“Your life insurance policy.”
The hand grabbed Clay’s shirt just as the pain set in.
The last thing he heard was Julia say proudly, “Thank god for my witchy brain.”
A quiet neighbourhood like any other, with rows of unchanging houses tucked away from the main bustle of the city. The sound of squeaking bicycle wheels and laughing children echoed along streets that held the slight scent of oatmeal cookies and apple pie. The neighbours threw weekend barbeque parties and traded recipes, carpooled and arranged playdates for their children. A picture-perfect slice of suburban heaven.
At the end of a cul-de-sac, nestled back from the road, sat a small, nondescript house. Painted its uniform white with blue trim, boasting a quaint porch and a rocking chair, and a welcome mat by the front door. An older man lived there, retired from dentistry on the back side of fifty. Now he spent his time sipping tea in his porch chair, waving and grinning at the street’s residents.
His neighbours jokingly referred to him as Dr. Smiles.
The quietest of neighbours, polite, well-groomed, always ready with a cheery hello. He never failed to pat the dogs that might wander into his yard, or toss an errant soccer ball back to the rambunctious children. Yes, everyone loved Dr. Smiles.
Except the people in the basement.
They were the outsiders that didn’t quite fit in, the disruptive influences, names slipped to Dr. Smiles by long-time residents. He efficiently removed them, tucking them away to feed his own cruel amusements. After all, who would suspect a kindly old man of violence?
Lined up in neat rows, strapped tightly into his chairs, he took care to keep the unwilling patients alive as long as possible. Specimens could be scarce sometimes, and he enjoyed putting his dental tools to new uses. Occasionally, they disturbed the neighbours when they screamed too loud, but Dr. Smiles would then apologize before gagging their cries. He was nothing, if not a considerate neighbour.
Pen of the Damned 