Happy Halloween!

Ghoulish thanks to all who have dared to enter the gates and submit your dark, macabre poetry and flash fiction.  I look forward to another year of posting your creepy bites.

The Strange Story of Walter Keech by Jan Darrow

Out beyond the city in small towns where trees grow tall along fence lines and roads become dirt, meadows of wildflowers gaze up at the sun until the sky shifts downward and spreads autumn like wildfire.

Walter Keech lived out there in one of those small autumn towns.  In school he was a bully; he beat up kids just for fun.  On Halloween he stole their candy.  He got in trouble for slashing tires and throwing eggs.  He earned a reputation. 

 

By the time he was old enough though, he married, but it didn’t take.  Someone said his wife left him for a traveling carnival.

He did odd jobs for a while but soon stopped and lived in a rented room at the back of a gas station.  His main career was petty thievery but took to riding an old bike around town picking up pop bottles.  He rode it every day until his arms and legs ached.  Everyone noticed.  He became a novelty.

  

Walter Keech would have liked to stop riding, but he couldn’t.

Ms. Vander Meer lived in a white house on top of a hill outside of town.  She raised flowers to sell at the farmer’s market - snapdragons, peonies, lavender and zinnias.  Her sunflowers did nicely behind the barn.

And so, it was on one very cool October morning that she found several pots of zinnias and lavender shattered on the floor of her heated greenhouse. Walter Keech smelled of alcohol and was stretched out nearby snoring – his ratty beat-up cowboy hat covered his face. She called the sheriff and when he got there, he arrested Walter.

Maybe it was the alcohol, who knows, but Walter apologized to Ms. Vander Meer all the way to the police car including one last time before the sheriff shut the door.

 Ms. Vander Meer had more to say.

“He needs to be locked up for good!  I know what he’s capable of.” 

Ms. Vander Meer knew what everyone was capable of.

The sheriff had a calm look about him.  “I’m arresting him for being drunk and destroying property.  Not for murder, Jean.”  He liked to call her by her first name because almost no one ever did – her being a retired teacher and all.

And Jean Vander Meer knew it.

Then, one night when the sky was stained purple and the leaves blew off the trees like rain, Jean heard a rattle on her side porch.  Upstairs getting ready for bed, she peeked out the window.  In the gloom she saw an outline of a cowboy hat.

“Why is he back?” 

Her heart beat wildly as she crept down the stairs.  She wanted to call the police but, in the darkness, couldn’t find her phone. 

And then she hesitated.  Maybe he just wants food or to ask if he could sleep in the greenhouse again.

 

With trembling hands Jean Vander Meer unlocked and opened the heavy wooden door.  A storm door stood between them.

   

It only took a second for her to see, under the dim porch light, a gaping jaw and sunken eyes glaring.  There was no flesh, just dark smoke curling around its hairline beneath the cowboy hat dripping down, filling the wooden floor.  In the gloom it reached up and swiped at the storm door handle with its inky fingers but was unable to grab anything.

Jean Vander Meer screamed and slammed the wooden door shut, and in the dark hallway clutched her chest.  In that moment. Without air.

 

Walter Keech was never seen again.      

Jan Darrow is a poet from Michigan who connected with the natural world at an early age.  She has been published online and in print and finds abandoned places utterly beautiful.  You can see more of her work at jandarrow.blogspot.com

Released by Dawn DeBraal

 * Apologies for the erratic indentation, Blogger doesn't want to cooperate with the formatting.    

     The spiked wrought-iron gate hung on a broken hinge, haphazardly. No one has used this gate for many years. The house behind the gate was slowly sinking into the wetland that surrounded it. The only light cast by the moon, risen high in the night sky. He could see his hand and the shadow of blood upon it. Not his blood, but that of his brother, Richard. 

       Raymond picked the gate up to push it in. With a loud painful creak, the gate turned in, allowing him into the property. He closed it behind him. His boyhood home still stood, but years of neglect had taken its toll. He was home again, after serving his time of punishment for what he’d done. He was a free man now. But when you committed murder, were you ever free? 

      Time served with a few months off for good behavior. His mother died while she waited. Maybe it was better this way. Having to face her after all these years would have been painful. She never came to see him all that time locked behind bars. The house remained empty after her death. No one had lived here for many years. It had the face of neglect. 

     Raymond stepped up on the porch. The wood spongey beneath his feet. He reached into the mailbox near the door, where he found the keys that the lawyer left earlier in the day. The skeleton key fit the lock, turning it hard enough to hear the satisfying clank of the mechanism falling into place. 

     The electricity had been turned on, expecting his arrival. The old push button light switch lit up the hall. It was a time capsule. His mother had not changed anything the twenty years he’d been away. 

     The stairway to the second floor was grand in its day. Each step creaked beneath his feet as he slowly climbed them. He knew where he was going. Richard’s room. How could he not? The door slightly ajar allowed him to push it open with his foot. The moon’s light played in the corners. Raymond was afraid to turn on the light but pushed the button anyway. 

     The room had not changed; his mother left all Richard’s things precisely the way they were, the day he died. The day they fought. The window had been repaired.

     Raymond’s thoughts went back to that night. Richard sat at his desk, working on his homework. Raymond was angry. Angela told him she was in love with Richard. She’d chosen the wrong brother.            

      He could still see the fear in Richard’s eyes. Richard was a year older, but many pounds lighter. Raymond put his hand to his face and wiped the tears, turning as he heard footsteps on the stairs. 

     “Hello?” he called out. Angela. Just as he remembered her. 

     “How did you know?” Raymond asked. 

     “It’s all over town,” she said. Raymond turned again, gazing about the room. 

  "Nothing has changed. Mother left it a shrine. It’s unbearable.” Angela nodded sympathetically.

     “But now, you can come with us.” 

     “Us?” Raymond asked. Angela strolled over to the window lifting it open. She gazed out into the darkness. 

    “Yes, I’ve waited for so long,” she said. Raymond walked to the window. Wondering what Angela was looking at. He could see two people walking down the sidewalk toward his house. Did Angela bring other people with her? He didn’t want to see anyone. Raymond leaned out the window to get a better view when Angela pushed him. 

     He tried to lift himself off the gate. The jagged points came through his body, just like they did Richard’s. The two men came rushing to him. 

     “He jumped out the window,” one man said, recognizing Raymond immediately.

     “Don’t touch him. If you lift him off the gate, he will bleed to death,” said the other man as he pulled out the cell phone and dialed 911.

     “Hey, it’s Raymond! Raymond, it’s me, Billy Danby. How did this happen?” 

    “A-A-Angela pushed me out the window.” He told his childhood friend. Blood filled his mouth. He was having trouble breathing. 

   “Angela?” Billy asked, incredulously. “Angela Fenman?”  Raymond nodded his head, “Yes,” he coughed.

     “Angela committed suicide after you killed your brother, Raymond. She couldn’t live with the guilt of causing Richard’s death.” Raymond thought he heard Angela was dead, but there she was, standing beside his brother. He followed them as they walked away. 

     “Never mind an ambulance, he’s dead. Send the coroner,” said Billy’s companion.

Dawn DeBraal lives in rural Wisconsin with her husband Red, two rat terriers, and a cat. Since retiring, she has discovered her love of telling a good story, can be written. You will find her works in several online magazines and, printed anthologies.  

Sacrifice by Anna Citrino

The fortress she lived in had many rooms where women

moved behind screens of carved stone, veils

to peer through, walls where no words

reached--the whole of her life lived inside walls. A queen

of privilege, but she knew about locked doors,

what it was like to stand behind 

a thick barrier. The raja returned from battle, a victor no more.

10,000 lives lost, and she shut the palace door—

the red shape of women’s hands who 

took their lives when their husbands died in battle 

pushing on her mind as they pressed into 

the wall at the palace gate. 

Let him stand outside the fortress door in the feeble air 

singed with widows’ sacrifice and the crow’s 

black croak. Let him lean his body 

against the fortress wall, sun’s flame sweeping down

the long desert expanse, dust smothering

his feet. Let his hand that held the ax, 

that let go the life of so many, press with the women’s 

held up at the stony door. Let him wait, 

flies buzzing overhead.

Anna Citrino grew up in California and taught abroad for twenty-six years at international schools in the countries of Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK. Her current home is the hills of Soquel, California. A graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont, Ms. Citrino's work has appeared in various literary journals including, Canary, Paterson Literary Review, and The Evening Street Review, among other publications. She is the author of two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River. Her book, A Space Between, is forthcoming in December, 2019. Read more of Anna's writing at annacitrino.com.

Swollen River by Robert Nisbet

Suddenly bright, after mid-December murk,

a shopping centre Saturday. Rhodri,

writing a piece for his newspaper,

Christmas Commercialised,

notes first of all, and more than anything, 

that lovely swollen river, racing its course between

the shopping streets, in whirls and eddies,

spits and surges. Rain has come down from the fields

for weeks now. Tides have been high.

Rhodri has reached the shops armed with clichés.

He expected the ringing of the cash register,

gets in fact the whirr and purr of the card machines.

In the wine shop, Jenny serves him

but the bell and tassel on her Santa’s cap

hang without enthusiasm. She will serve wine

till six, when Darren will collect her,

then they’ll bicker a path round Tesco.

Rhodri meets the Harrieses. Twenty per cent off,

says Mister H, is eighty per cent still on.

In his notebook Rhodri scribbles wry humour.

Many others shop. There are deals and bargainings

but sometimes there are such draughts of weariness.

(Just outside Boot’s, a surge of swollen water

slaps on the old quay wall).

Now the sky is lit by the colours of four o’clock,

blue into grey and back to blue.

Rhodri folds his pad away while,

mentally subterranean,

the river swells in its December beauty

beneath them all, beneath them all.

*First appeared In Ink, Sweat and Tears (UK) in 2015.

 

Robert Nisbet lives in the UK, in rural Wales, about as far as you can get from London, travelling West. His poems have been published widely in Britain and the USA, including regular appearances in San Pedro River Review, Panoply and Red River Review.

Dig by Doug Hawley

I’m a volunteer at Ryon State Park, named after an early settler Aristotle Ryon.  I’m a two way guy in that I edit the Ryon Newsletter and do physical work in the park, getting rid of invasive species, improving the trails and doing some planting.  I’m retired now and love spending time in Ryon’s natural beauty.  There’s always a chance that I might see a coyote, an owl or maybe a salamander.  It is no surprise that this place is so popular.

Recently our executive director asked me to write a column in the newsletter about the most notorious episodes in our history – two brutal murders about a year apart.  Each homicide stayed in the papers for weeks and caused visitors to avoid the park at night and to only visit while accompanied.

After a bit of research through old newspapers, and interviews with police investigators, I came up with this:

******************************************************************

There were a couple of things in common about the murders.  Both occurred on an obscure dead end trail, Illana, where hardly anyone goes, and even though it is not polite to speak ill of the dead, neither of them were upstanding citizens.

Victim one was Charlie Talbot.  The police concluded that he was on the trail after dark because he had been excluded from the park after repeatedly and illegally bringing his vicious dog Caesar off leash to the park.  Caesar was known to attack wild life, people and other dogs with impunity.  Mr. Talbot was found with his head bashed in after Caesar showed up the next morning at park headquarters and led a ranger to the body where it had been dragged twenty feet off trail.

Victim two was Chris Massey.  She too had been excluded from the park because she had been caught digging up plants in the park to take home.  Her murder was even grizzlier.  She was killed a year after the first in a similar location to where Mr. Talbot was found, but with her head cut off by some sort of curved blade.  She was easy to find because she had told her daughter where she was going.

The park is in an urban area with many entrances and no way to register those that enter the park.  Despite a plea to anyone in the metro area who had seen either of the victims in the park on the day that they were killed, or anything suspicious, there were no leads in either case.  In both cases there was no forensic evidence – identifiable footprints or DNA.  The two victims had nothing in common except for being excluded from the park, so the police assumed that there was no connection between the two crimes.

Neither murder has been solved.

I didn’t mention in the article that no one checked the shovel that I use.  It wouldn’t have been a problem anyway.  I got a new shovel.

Nobody messes with my park.

*Appears in Yellow Mama

Doug Hawley is a little old man who lives with editor Sharon and cat Kitzhaber in Lake Oswego Oregon USA.  He was a mathematician. In retirement he volunteers, collects music, hikes and writes.

blog https://doug.car.blog/

website https://sites.google.com/site/aberrantword/

The Birds Weep by Steve Carr

The air is thick with the scent of pine. Rays of purple, blood red and golden yellow are fanned out across the twilight sky. Kyle walks among the trees holding a bouquet of wilting lilies. Lost, he searches for signs of the path he wandered away from. As the sun sets, owls hoot from their perches and hawks screech as they circle about in the oncoming night sky.

At a fallen pine tree he sits on a branch and tries to remember the direction he was going. He puts the flowers to his nose. They have lost their scent. He watches the sparrows, juncos and blackbirds as they fight the cold wind on the way to their nests. The cry of a loon from a nearby lake reverberates through the forest. It gives him a sense of direction. The lake is near his destination.

Night sets in fast. The black sky is suddenly splattered with clusters of stars. The coos of mourning doves fills the air. He walks on, sensing he is now on the right track. When he reaches a clearing among a grove of sycamore trees he stops and gazes at the small group of cemetery headstones surrounded by a black fence.

He passes through the fence and finds his grave. He lays the lilies on the mound above his coffin. As he slowly disappears into the earth he knows that now that his last wish was granted to wander the Earth one final time, he would not return.  He hears the birds weep.

Steve Carr has had over 340 short stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals and anthologies since June, 2016. Five collections of his short stories, Sand, Rain, Heat, The Tales of Talker Knock and 50 Short Stories: The Very Best of Steve Carr, have been published.

Soon by Michael L. Newell

Rows of students grimly scribbling, neatly

uniformed; they know they must

PAY ATTENTION TOMORROW IS THE TEST!

What about the day after tomorrow

and the day after that?

Another test?  And another?

Soon they will be tested on whether

they can have children or marriages

that last or jobs spent scribbling in rows;

soon they will have grandchildren

in rows scribbling, neat

in their uniforms;

soon they will be uniformly in rows

laid beneath stone and earth

with scribbling on the stone;

soon there will be only the stone

with the wind scribbling; soon

there will be only the wind;

soon...

he thought

and scribbled.

*Previously published in A Stranger to the Land, (Garden Street Press, 1997) 

Michael L. Newell is a retired English/Theatre teacher.  His most recent book is Meditation of an Old Man Standing on a Bridge (Bellowing Ark Press, 2018). 

Killing Your Ghost by Linda M. Crate

the remnants

of your ghost

hang upon my flesh

even though i told you

i wouldn't be your haunted house,

and so now the monster in me

has risen;

she is an ancient beast

i have all the strengths and none of the weaknesses

of my monstrous father—

fight the damphyr,

and you will find your folly;

because you do not possess the strength to defeat me

no one ever does

because immortality can never be slain—

you, however, will fall beneath my black boots,

and i will remind you that you aren't driven pure white as

the snow as you once so kindly reminded me.

Linda M. Crate's poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines both online and in print. She has six published chapbooks, a microchap, and a novel titled Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Productions, June 2018).