Writing Stories For This Blog

I've decided that I'm going to start publishing short stories on this blog. At least I'm going to publish one here and see how it goes. Feel free to comment on the story, telling me what you did or didn't like. If this goes well, I will be putting up another story. Short stories are where I stretch my muscles on different genres. I am mostly comfortable writing fantasy stories, as this is where I sort of grew up, so to speak. My first story here is a horror type story. 

I wrote this story by hand at first. I do enjoy writing longhand, but it gets tedious, especially knowing eventually it has to be typed into the computer. I wrote the first draft by hand with a Lamy Safari fountain pen and then did subsequent drafts by hand, eventually putting the final draft into the computer. I find myself at odds all the time about whether I should write by hand or on the computer. I sometimes think that I'm more creative when writing by hand, but I'm just not so sure. I know others who write by hand do say that their creative output is much greater than on a computer, but for me, I guess I'm still on the fence. Anyway, on to the story...

Some Never Leave

If I thought about it for a moment, I should have realized I was a dead man from the beginning. Maybe then I would have done things differently. I probably would have gotten out of the damned house right from the get go. It was smart though; clever and it knew what it was doing.

At first everything was fine. A few things going bump in the night was all I ever heard, but that was par for the course in an older house. But things quickly got out of hand. I just wished I had seen it for what it was.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here. I’ve never actually seen her, but I feel or maybe sense her sometimes.

The lights had gone out in the house after I locked myself in the front bedroom. I’m in here, baseball bat in hand, because of the wailing voices of children. They cried out, trying to say something, a warning perhaps, but I couldn’t decipher the howling code.

Sweat ran down my face, stinging my eyes. The room was dark, but moonlight filtered in through the large window illuminating the bed and dresser.

I wiped at my eyes with my shirt. If something was coming to get me, I wanted to be able to see it and get a good swing at it.

The noises coming from the house stopped abruptly. In my guts I could feel that the time was coming-the time when it would come for me. It didn’t want me to leave, I was positive of that. Too many times I made plans for having people over or take off to a ball game or movie. Each time I would trip on a suddenly popped floorboard, sending me crashing to the ground with a sprained ankle or a bad headache and a good sized knot on my forehead.. Many things of this nature happened causing me to think I was losing my mind.

This was why I was so certain that it was after me; too many coincidences and strange happenings.

Once I broke my ankle going down the stairs. The stair I was going down to sort of slid back just enough that tumbled me the rest of the way down.

Sometimes, when I was talking to my ex-girlfriend, and the possibility of a late night rendezvous was brought up, the phone would inexplicitly go dead, and I was unable to call her back. The phone company had to think I was nuts; always complaining about losing a dial tone. They never once could find a problem.

            I took a home run swing at the wall. “Damn House!” Rocking from foot to foot I waited for a response. Nothing came though. It was as if I was floating around out in space with nothing around me, nothing to interact with. A few short breaths later the lights flickered back on.

            The floorboards squeaked as I turned round and round waiting for whatever may come, and I was sure it was going to come, I just didn’t know from where or how. I never knew and it was driving me nuts. Survival was my only instinct now. I had to get out of this house in one piece.

            The black and white pictures that hung throughout the house stood watch for the house, making sure I didn’t escape. I thought many times of taking the baseball bat to the pictures of the woman with the long black hair and eyes that commanded the room. It was her that I thought was behind all of this. I could sometimes feel the evil coming from the pictures of her. Once, I had decided to cover all the pictures with her in them. I had taken kitchen towels, bath towels, and anything else that I could find to do the job. When I woke the next morning, every single towel was lying on the floor in a heap below each one of the pictures. It was as if someone had come along and pulled the towels all off and left them on the floor. But that was crazy. No one came into the house, and I didn’t hear anyone walking around. I checked the doors and windows the next morning: nothing was broke and the front and back doors were both locked.

            There was one picture of the woman in the bedroom. She was holding her young boy as he sat in her lap playing with an action figure. The boy looked like he was having a good time, but the lady just sat there with a straight face. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning either. It was like the Mona Lisa where there was just the hint of a smile, except with the lady with the black hair; there was the hint of evil in her eyes.

            When I moved into the house, I knew that there would be the belongings of the last family that had lived here, but I didn’t expect it to be a family gone since the time Elvis first stepped on stage. I would walk through each room late at night, beer in hand, and just look at all the family photos. In every single one the woman, the mother of a boy and girl, would have the long black hair straight down and a dress that buttoned all the way up to just under her chin. It was sort of like those dresses the Amish women wore; at least that’s what it reminded me of. Sometimes the dresses were a lighter shade and sometimes they were darker, the pictures were all in black and white so it was hard to tell exactly. She was always with her two children and her husband

 Her expression captivated me. I would sometimes spend hours looking closely at each picture and noticing how every single one of the lady with the long black hair was identical. I knew this for a fact because I took a tape measure and made measurements of the corners of her mouth to all four sides of the picture. I finally had decided that she wasn’t frowning and unhappy, yet she wasn’t content either. It was as if she knew something, some knowledge that she had that she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell. It was a burden she carried by herself it seemed.

            All I could think of was escape. I knew that if I let go of that thought I was a goner. Whatever happens, I must get out.

            I opened the bedroom door wincing at the creak it made. For some reason, I felt that I should try to be quiet, even though the damn house could tell where I was anyway, or she could. I thought this while glancing at the several pictures lining the hallway. It was like I was alone in the house with the boogie man and he hadn’t found me yet…yet.

            My sweaty palms gripped and re-gripped the baseball bat in a twisting continual sort of comforting movement. It was the last shred of sanity to hold on too. Nothing else made sense.

            The walls of the hallway held the pictures of the woman and her family. I somehow knew that she would be watching, she was always watching. That straight face… I couldn’t see her face in any of the pictures, just the sides of the black frames, dusty with years of neglect. I knew she was there though, I could feel her watching me.

            Step by slow step I crept down the hall. My last hope, my ace-in-the-hole, was getting out the backdoor. There was little that could stop me there. The floor was covered with a  green shag carpet, so none of the floorboards could trip me up, and there weren’t any pictures of her either, thank God. Two small windows overlooked the washer and dryer and one could get a good view of the backyard. Just some green grass and a grill back there.

            As I walked down the hall, I took one hand from my bat-it was like a security blanket to me- and ran my hand along the wood paneling as I went. The walls seemed like they might be able to tell me when another imminent out lash was coming. The pictures and the images within could start to be seen - Just enough to know that she was there. Clenching my teeth, I started by, then I felt another ripple, it was coming through and along the wall.

            The ripple was growing and the faint sound of screaming could be heard. It was almost like the sound of a loon in the mist of a small backwoods pond. The scream was faint, but there was no mistaking the sound.

            The ripple was now a large bulge in the wall. It was about the size of a bowling ball and growing the closer it came to me. It seemed that the wood paneling shouldn’t have been able to bend like it was without bursting apart. Pictures flew from the wall as the bulge, now the size of a beach ball, careened towards me. The screaming was getting louder and louder, the closer the bulge came. The pictures flew, smashing into the opposite wall and landing haphazardly on the floor. Some of the pictures lay face up and some lay face down; glass was everywhere.

            The screaming rang in my ears. The mound was almost to me. I was sick of being the kid scared shitless. I was going to do something about it this time.

            I took a large breath; then a huge instep to make the home run swing of a lifetime, hitting the beach ball sized lump dead center. The bat splintered, while the wall exploded out sending dust and wood flying through the air, slamming me against the far wall, wrapping my head on the pale wood paneling and then to the floor.

           

            The screaming of the house grew strong and louder. It wasn’t just a noise any longer. Now it was a force of energy; it blew my hair and pumped dust around the hall. It reverberate through the floors and walls. I could only imagine what it must sound like outside, possibly like a tornado siren. I started to get up, putting my hands in front of me, push up style, and that’s where I froze.

            A black and white picture lay just in front of me. Shards of glass littered the floor all around. The man and the two children stared back, but she was gone.

            I grabbed the frame and picture, not caring about the glass slicing into my palms and looked closer. I even tilted it so that I might be able to see inside and around the corner of it. Of course, that didn’t work.

            The screams started to fade. Newspaper, dry and yellowed hung out of the hole where the wall blew out. I could see pictures of Al Capone and a president in a stiff suit and horned rimmed glasses. I wasn’t sure which one; I was horrible at remembering those sorts of things. The best I could do was remembering the names of the people I delivered pizzas too.

            Taking one of the sheets of newspaper, I began to pull glass out of my hands and dab the paper at my wounds. Blood absorbed into the old daily news like a paper towel and it blossomed out in red with a darker center and a pink edge as it grew. I watched with fascination as the blood flower grew. It’s funny how things can grab your attention even during the most stressful of moments.

            The red expanded and as it did so, I noticed something familiar in the paper. It was her. She had her picture in the paper. That same face with the black eyes and hair and the knowing almost smile. A caption above read: ‘Witch escapes after slaying family.’

            I read down through what I could of the article. It was covered with blood and almost half of the paper was missing. ‘Irene Debnau, 38, of Pine Ridge, has been suspected of using witchcraft within her home. According to statements taken by neighbors there have been sightings of unusual lights and noises coming from her house late in the evening. Two nights ago police were dispatched to the Debnau home after Beulah Grant, 56, notified police of screams coming from within the house along with strange noises and lights. When police arrived at the scene they found that the husband, George Debnau, and son and daughter, Billy and Sarah Debnau, were dead at the scene. Sources indicate that the children had been drained of blood and sat in chairs in the living room. Officer Bryce Turner stated, “The children sat in those chairs like zombies…or maybe mummies. If I had to guess, I would say Mrs. Debnau wanted her children to never leave. It’s as if she had placed and posed them in those chairs. The poor kids had on their Sunday best and care had been taken to pose them. The boy had one leg crossed over the other and the girl had her hands in her lap just like a little girl should. Yeah, it made my skin crawl.”

            George Debnau was found later in the master bedroom hanging upside down from the ceiling. Occult symbols lined the floors, walls, and ceiling of this room, as well as carved into the body of Mr. Debnau himself. Dan Rumsord, Chief of Police in Pine Ridge had this to say, “In my fifteen years as Chief of Police and my twenty five before that as a patrolman, I’ve never seen anything like this. We’ve got ourselves a witch. You can see it by the writings on the wall of their bedroom. Whatever she was doing in there, it was evil. I could feel it. It was like the house was watching me the whole time.”

            So far, all attempts of finding Mrs. Debnau have been unsuccessful. It was thought that she was hiding somewhere within the house, as no one had seen her leave in many days and the family car was still parked in the driveway. However, after a thorough investigation of the property the Pine Ridge Police Department could find no traces of her. “It’s like she just disappeared,” Stated Police Chief Dan Rumsford. “There’s no evidence to show that she left the house, but I’ll be darned if we can find her.”

            The rest of the story was torn off from the paper. A hasty search of the other newspapers in the wall turned up nothing. I needed to know what happened in the rest of the story. I had to know if she was found. Could she still be here? Christ, is this her doing? Did she want me to see that paper?

            A horrific, and beautifully spine chilling, single note emanated from the house. Again, it seemed to come from everywhere, like it surrounded me. It wasn’t the high pitch scream this time. It was a single wail, almost outside the range of hearing, but it got louder and louder. The rise of the volume of the wail grew to the point that I had to cover my ears. Within seconds it became louder than anything I’d heard in my life.

            The floors began to shake and the walls vibrated. I likened it to standing behind a 747 that was taking off.

            The noise was more than I could take. I heard a pop in my ears and then a warm wetness on my hands. Blood trickled through my fingers and dripped single drops down onto the hard wood floor. The pain of the noise was more than I could stand and I vomited.

            The crying wail reached a crescendo and then stopped. Suddenly and without warning, it just ceased. The silence was deafening.

            I wiped blood from my ears on my shirt as I got back to my feet. I had to reach the backdoor. It was my only chance out of here - my only shot at life. I have a sick feeling that if I didn’t make it out of this house soon, that I would end up like the Debnau’s, blood drained from my body and in a death pose.

            Step by step, I crept down the hall. The crunch of glass underfoot was unavoidable and I winced every time at the noise.

            I must be going mad. Every black and white photo that I passed, which was face up, had an empty gray space where Mrs. Debnau should have been; actually was, up until a few minutes ago.

            I started up the stairs that would get me to the ground floor and within twenty feet of the back door. Sweat poured down my face. I knew I was being watched. I could feel it. But now it was different. It was the house…and more.

            I’d always hated these stairs. There were fourteen of them. I counted them as I went up; it’s been something I’ve always done, ever since I was a boy. There wasn’t a back to each step and so I could see through them to a space underneath the stairs. It always freaked me out before; now it scared the hell out of me.

            Hesitantly, I put my right foot on the first step. “So far so good Jimmy boy. You’re doing fine, keep moving.” I took a glance into the darkness through the slits in the stairs. “Nothing to see back there, because there is nothing back there.”

            The wail cracked through the silence like the report of a rifle. I lost control of my bladder and started sprinting up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

            Something moved from under the stairs. A shadow…my imagination?

            Out of the corner of my eye I could see black shrouds swiftly moving from under the staircase and around to the foot of the stairs. Long black hair clumped together and swung around as this creature, that could only be Mrs. Debnau, came for me.

            I was stunned for a moment. Pale, taught flesh, milky white of the type that never sees the sun poked out at the wrist and shin as her dress pulled back. The only thing different from the pictures was the knowing and extremely disturbing smile. Now it was a straight thin line of black, as if she had a job to do and I was only making things difficult.

            I let out a scream that I haven’t heard come from my throat since I was about five. It took a few seconds for my feet to register what my brain was telling them-get your ass moving!

            We caught eyes and she smiled at me. Her outstretched hands led her sprinting up the stairs. Her maniacal laughter sent me screaming to the top of the stairs and out into the hall.

            “Jimmy! Jimmy, don’t you make me come after you. You get back here this instant, you hear me?!”

            My feet pounded on the hard wood floor of the first level of the house. The wailing was there again. It was Mrs. Debnau. Her undead voice was calling to me, chasing after me.

            “Jimmy, you can’t leave. You can never leave.”

            “Get the hell away from me,” I yelled back at her. I passed through the hall and was just rounding the corner to the back room where the washer, dryer, and my freedom would be.

                        “I need you Jimmy. You have to stay with me. It’s been so long.”

I felt needles sink into the flesh of both my shoulders and then the weight of Mrs. Debnau clinging to my back.  The weight of the woman, combined with her long dress catching between my legs, tripped my up and sent me to the floor.

Her sickening breath was all that I could think of. It reeked of putrid meat. The skin of her hands felt cold and brittle.

I rolled over onto my back, trying to get away, but she had an unnatural strength. She sat atop me like a lover. Maybe I was to her?

“Why do you want to leave me Jimmy?” You can never leave. I will make it a nice home for you. Just like the others.” The depth of her black eyes revealed the madness within. Even in this moment of struggle she held a serene look, as if she knew something.

Her long black hair brushed my face like the silk falling from a piece of corn. My mind screamed to run; to get away as fast as I could, but I couldn’t move. Her eyes held me in place.

She pulled a long thin knife out from behind her and slowly cut open my shirt from the bottom to top. I was powerless to stop her.

Movement registered in my peripheral vision. Walking in small slow steps were the Debnau children. Their skin was too pale. Too pale for anyone living. They had vacant stares, yet seemed to have some understanding of what was happening. I want to scream to them. To yell at them and tell them to go get help.

The children came closer and Mrs. Debnau purred to them, “Give me my tools, child.” The daughter dutifully opened her hand revealing two small silver instruments. The first looked something akin to a needle with a sharp blade on the end. The other needle like instrument had a hook on the end.

Mrs. Debnau reached for the boy, gently cupping his jaw in her hands. He sank into her touch like a dog leans in when you find their favorite scratching spot. “Take your sister back downstairs and make yourselves suitable for company.” She glanced in my direction. “We will be having company down under the stairs again.” She let go of his jaw and he headed back towards the stairs, his sister in tow.

I tried to struggle, but my feeble attempts only bucked her a little on my hips. “Oh we will have time for that later.” It was maddening the way she didn’t have any expression, other than that knowing look. I could feel the edge of sanity slipping; the point where reality and make believe crash into each other. The break wall that normally separates the two was eroding fast in my head.

She took the instruments, setting the one with hook down on my chest. Looking up at me with that peculiar expression she said, “This is going to hurt and you are going to scream, a lot. But not as much as Mr. Debnau…I’ve learned a lot since him.”