She was always the last child to leave the school.
At first, she would beg to stay and help the teachers, but something about her didn’t sit right. Her dirty, tangled hair and taped up glasses made her ugly. She had a desperate quality about her, like a starving puppy. She always stood a little too close for comfort and talked a little more than was necessary. The teachers found excuses to send her home.
In later years, she began to misbehave. She would start fights on the playground, vandalize the bathrooms and smart off in class. Whatever she did, she always got caught. The teachers gossiped about how stupid and troublesome she was as they sipped tea in their lounge.
It’s like she wants to stay for detention, they’d say. Then they would move on to her dirty clothes and her broken tooth. She used to be such a good student, someone would reminisce. What happened to her?
They were right, of course. She did used to be a good student, and she did want to stay for detention. She arrived before the custodian unlocked the doors in the morning, every morning. She stayed until he shooed her home. She never missed a day in 4 and a half grades—and then she missed the rest of them.
She would have been pleased to know that she became every teacher’s favorite student after the fact. They named the gymnasium for her and celebrated her birthday every year with a pep rally. She used to be such a good student, someone would reminisce. How could that have happened to her?
But something about her still didn’t sit right. With no place else to go, she of course came back to wander the only safe place she knew. She would stand a little too close for comfort, creating cold spots and shivers. She tried to help after class, but again, no one appreciated her efforts. The teachers found excuses to go home.
Eventually, the school closed. No one wanted to teach there. No one wanted to be students there. Rumors grew faster than children and turned just as vicious. Tales were spread about a murderous custodian, a sadistic principal, a teacher who practiced the dark arts… seeking answers, they buried the truth.
The truth is she stays there still, alone. There is no custodian, principal or teacher—evil or otherwise—to keep her company. She trails down the empty halls, humming to herself and making minute dust devils spin on the cracked tile. She doesn’t notice the emptiness because for her it has always been that way. She stays at school, not because anything holds her there, but because she has no where else she wants to be.
She was always the last child to leave the school.
“Are you sure you want a Ouija Board? Especially given that that stuff is… real now. I mean proven.” Reggie ran a finger along the edge of his bandana, sliding stray grey hairs back into place. “You just don’t know…”
Tony pulled a folded paper from his back pocket. “I know what I’m doing. It’s because it’s proved I want this tattoo. I’m gonna be a conduit.” He unfolded the paper and smoothed it on the metal tray. “Chicks will love it.”
The old tattoo artist glanced down at the photo. “I know what one looks like, son. What I don’t know is why you want it… on you. That seems risky to me.” He folded the photo and handed it back. “Put that away. The spirit world ain’t a joke.”
“Look. You do tatts for money, right? Are you discriminating?” Tony took out his wallet and showed off a wad of bills. “I got money.”
“How can I be discriminating? We’re both the same race, stupid. I just think…” Reggie glanced at the money in the wallet. “Fine, it’s your funeral. Let’s do it.”
The outline didn’t take but a few hours. When it was done, Tony lay on the table with a double row of alphabet arching his chest over his nipples. Beneath them was a straight line of numbers and a third line that simply said goodbye. Beneath his right collar bone was the word yes. Beneath the left was no. Reggie held up a mirror so Tony could see.
“Sweet,” said Tony. “I can’t wait to see that filled in.” He sat up. “Check this out.”
From his pocket, Tony pulled out a large, silver planchet on a chain. “I’m gonna wear this so I can be played with anytime.” He lay back down in the chair and put it on his chest. “Try me, dude.”
Reggie stepped back. “No way, that stuff ain’t a joke. Put it away.”
Tony laughed, reached for the planchet and froze in mid reach. He lay back down, blank faced.
“Knock it off,” said Reggie. “My shop, my rules. That shit’s not welcome here. Not ever.”
“I am not welcome here?” asked Tony. He didn’t take his eyes off the ceiling. His voice came out flat and without inflection. Beads of sweat popped up along the old man’s spine.
“No, not here.” Reggie licked his dry lips and slid along the counter towards the door.
On Tony’s chest, the silver planchet twitched along his stomach muscles, down his happy trail to stop at the words goodbye inked on his skin. He jerked upright, catching the planchet in one hand. He stood up.
“Then I go.” He swung his legs off the bench seat and stood up. His wallet fell to the floor. “Payment for your work,” he said without glancing down. “Our contract is fulfilled.” Without another word, he left.
When Reggie finally moved, it was to lock the door and flip the closed sign. That was enough for today.
The question was rhetorical. Topi was the one who wandered too far away. She hadn’t kept an eye on the sun. Now she better find shelter fast before the bacteria began to drift in the fertile dark.
Frank Sinatra’s voice crooned about flying to the moon from a deserted shop front. No one knew what powered the music behind the boards, but it had played the same tunes since as long as she had been here. She stopped and looked up at the night sky. A full moon would help a little but it had not yet risen.
Frank was out of touch. His song didn’t age well, she thought. No one would want to fly to a landfill. She scratched her forehead and one of her sensors snagged under a nail and came off.
She studied it in the dim light. A ruby red gem winked in the electric glow, like a drop of clear blood on her fingertip. She flicked it into the shop front. Frank could fly to the moon on that.
The sensor landed on the curb near a flower wrapped in lace and tissue paper. It was tied with a thin silver ribbon that would make a nice gift for her baby sister. Topi had never seen a rose except for illos on old signs. Roses were for the second-tier rich—too poor for Mars evac, but rich enough for the greenhouses. They never came out to risk the pollutions, let alone drop their roses. Yet here was a rose.
I should back off, run away… this is danger.
Topi thought of her baby sister carefully unfolding the fancy paper to find an even fancier ribbon. It would be the loveliest thing any of them had ever owned. Carefully, she moved toward the deserted flower. A sweetness in the air overcame the scent of asphalt and sick. It was like magic. Topi crouched, fingers inches away, undecided.
It was too suspicious to find a rose in the Squallys. Frank’s voice crooned through the shadows. “…in other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.” She could be lucky for once. She could believe in a miracle. Topi picked the rose up and held the silky petals to her skin, inhaling.
“I’m sorry…” The whisper came from a bundle of trash piled up against a broken guardrail. There was a woman sitting there, near buried in the refuse. She was hiding, but Topi could see her fancy gown shimmering white through the pile of greyed, collapsing cardboard.
“You’re rich—how are you here?” Topi clenched her fist around the flower. “This is your rose.” The petals were soft against her lips and she imagined how it must be in the greenhouses. She didn’t want to give it back.
“The filters failed,” said the woman. “We could smell the stink coming in. I panicked.” Her skin was dotted with pearl gems, each a glass drop of milk, defying gravity.
Topi stepped back in shock. “You’re sick! Your gems are white!” She threw the perfect rose at the woman in disgust and wiped her hands on the street. Grime was better than what this woman had. “Go back to your glass city!”
The woman vanished back into the pile of refuse, pulling a sheet of newsprint over her head. “We can’t. The filters failed…. trapped.” She said no more, only closed her eyes. Ttears shimmered silver in the dim light..
Topi turned and ran, rubbing her hands raw against the brick and concrete she passed. She stopped at every puddle and plunged her hands in, wiping her face. Then she realized… She couldn’t go home. Not to the children, not to her mother. Not until she knew if she had caught it.
She examined her wet and bleeding hands under a blinking street lamp. Most of the sensors had been scraped off during her panicked flight, but the few left winked up at her in reassuring hues of sapphire, ruby and jade.
She sighed in relief. She could stay away until dawn. The sun would burn away any bacteria drift she carried. If her gems stayed bright she could return home. She would never do anything so stupid again.
Then, against her knuckle, a pearlescent drop of glass and photoelectrics. It was milky and pale, colorless. Her hand shook. Her life was draining from her, each of her jewels would now wink out until she followed. “Please just be the moon’s reflection…”
She sat where she was, back against the wall and gazed upwards to the sky. There was no moon to be seen. “How am I always unlucky?…” Topi put her hands over her face, pushing her fingers into her eyes to stop the tears. There was no sense mourning the facts.
“I should have known better,” Topi felt calmer. “It was too lovely to be safe.” She inhaled as much air as her lungs could hold, leaned her head back and closed her eyes. A delicate wind brushed her skin, carrying remnants of Frank Sinatra with it, still crooning. Topi let her breath out and re-imagined the heady scent of rose. She wanted to carry it with her into the next world while her last breath escaped into this one. The rose may have even been worth this.
Overhead and unseen by the girl dying below, the moon finally rose.
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.”
“You think you know about pain? I know about pain.”
He held up his palms. They were lined with dirt and chapped. His nails were framed in flakes of dead skin, ending in black crescents.
“You have dirty hands, but that isn’t the same thing as pain. Just take a bath. You don’t need my help for that.” I took my time unscrewing the cap off the bottle and let it drop to the ground. His mouth twisted as he sucked his bottom lip, thinking.
“It’s because of it. People who don’t know pain don’t be dirty like this.”
I didn’t respond and took a drink from the bottle. His hands dropped back to his lap.
“Why do you want to know about my pain anyways? You ain’t gonna do anything about it.” His eyes fixated on the Jack and I let the light catch it so it shone amber.
“I can’t help you if I don’t believe you.” I tipped the bottle again, letting a trickle run down my chin. I liked the desperate look in his eyes as his world narrowed and licked my lips before wiping the drops away with the back of my hand. “Good stuff.”
He licked his own lips in subconscious pantomime and pushed layers of a tattered sleeve up, exposing a forearm latticed in scars. The skin was less grimy there.
“Here’s some pain for you. Everytime I lose something, I keep the memory in my flesh. I cut myself,” he said. “That’s a lot of memories.” He ran his fingers across one of the bigger lines.
“Lots of people cut themselves. It doesn’t mean your pain is worse.” I pulled my phone out and checked the time. “What do you cut yourself with?”
“I got a knife. You gotta have a knife ‘round here. I’ll show you.” He pawed at his neck with stiff fingers and pulled at a string tied at his neck. A decent sized hunting knife in a worn black sheath was dangling at the end of it. I held my hand out, letting the liquid slosh against the glass as I did.
“Can I see it?”
He sucked his lip in again, thinking, before he pulled the string over his head and placed it in my hand.
“Now you give me the bottle like you said.”
“I didn’t say I was giving you anything. I said I would help you with your pain.”
“A drink sure goes a long way to help. I got arthritis from the cold nights and a good drink is all that makes it go.”
I cradled the Jack in the crook of my arm and slid the knife free. The blade was hash marked with scratches. The tip was snapped off.
“So what did you lose to make so many scars?”
“Everything! I lost everything I ever had. Shitty parents, shitty wife took the kids, shitty friends… I tried to make something with my life but I got backstabbed every time. Nothing left to do but cut reminders and try to get on.”
Sitting on the greasy back step of a restaurant and smelling like piss, he didn’t look like he was getting on.
“And cutting yourself helps?”
He looked at the blade in my hand.
“Not like the booze does.”
I held the bottle out and swished the contents before I handed it over to him.
“I knew you weren’t gonna just tease me. I knew you were gonna help.” He took a deep swig, sloshing it around in his mouth before swallowing it.
I dropped the sheath and it landed at his feet, the string spreading serpentine on the stained pavement. He took another swig and bent over to pick it up. I bent over too, above him, close enough for his body stink to invade my nose.
The knife pushed in to the small hollow that hid where his shoulder and neck connected. It slid in, already familiar with this flesh–a final memory that would never scar. He fell forward on one knee, propped up by the bottle, before he collapsed. Blood and booze mingled into the cracks beneath him.
Pen of the Damned 