Horror Fiction

The Trees - original poem

Each Halloween

  colossal oaks

    lurk along streets, parks, hollows.

Stripped of their yellow, brown, and red veneer,

    they shiver

                ever

                     so

                         silently

      in the October twilight.

They seethe among shadows,

    their twisted trunks grinning.

The squirrels

  usually scurrying and hoarding acorns

    have sought the safety of the pines.

The sparrows too

  have fled to the elms and maples.

A young boy - on a dare -

  takes the short cut

    through the darkest hollow.

He hears the branches shiver

  in the wind while he wipes

    the sweat from behind

      his mask.

He suddenly realizes

    it has been an Indian summer

      and there has been no breeze.

Each Halloween

   these colossal oaks -

       silenced since early settlers

        hacked and sawed

         them into submission -

    twitch in anticipation

      their thick roots

        reach out to trip

      their skeletal branches

        anxious to snatch

          a solitary

           trick or treater.

The boy shifts

                     ever

       

                         so

                           slightly

   to the far edge of the path

    and clutches his bag of candy tight

      just in case.

     But all is silent.

     The movement must have been a trick of the twilight.

There is a tug

  and he turns to see a slender branch

    caught on the bottom of his bag.

It tugs again,

  almost 

   eager

    and the bag splits

      and his candy spills

        onto the path.

Then the boy stumbles on a thick root

  that had not been there before.

He slips into the tall grass

   beneath the trees.

He hears the branches shaking

    as if a storm is brewing.

It must be his friends playing a trick.

Then each ankle is snatched,

   each wrist encircled.

Dried leaves and foul bark

   fill his gaping mouth.

Dust and splinters

   clutter his disbelieving eyes.

The branches tug

   more eager than ever

     and the boy splits

       and he is spilled

         into the trees.

Now a storm is brewing

  the oaks creak and moan

    as their bases bend and

    their branches snatch.

This is no trick at all.

  The trees have their treat.



She Closed the Window - Original fiction

            "Wwwhyyizzzdadammmnneddoooorlocckkeed?" Jim part grumbled but mostly slurred.  The screen door was clenched in his left paw while he wrenched the handle to the front door with his right.  It was unrelenting.

            "Opppennnupppppp!" He bellowed and threw his right flank into the wooden door. It refused to yield.  Jim didn't know it, but there was a heavy duty dead-bolt lock attached to the frame just that afternoon.

            He looked down Third Street.  The taillights on Steve's car blinked at him from three blocks away and took a left.

            It was Friday night, actually Saturday morning.  Jim was just going to go out with Steve and Jerry and a couple other guys from the firm for a beer or two, which was their ritual.  But a bar tab worth an entire paycheck later, Steve and Jerry were dumping Jim into his driveway at three am, this too was another ritual.

            Jim tried hurling his right mitt against the door, but to no avail.  Jim also didn't know it, but several boxes, recently picked up from Erl's Market, were filled with Sara's belongings, folded shut, and taped just beyond the bolted door.

            A few lights in the neighboring houses flickered to life.

            "Nosy pricks," Jim thought.  "Better not call the cops again.  It was all I could do to get the charges dropped last time."

            Giving up on the impenetrable door, Jim stepped back off the front step with his right foot.  What little balance he had was lost.  He clung to the flimsy screen door with his left fist.  The screen door shrieked since he had never oiled it in the three years they lived in the house.  His right hand and foot flailed in the air trying to restore his equilibrium.  But his 260 pounds were too much.  With a final scream the screen door wrenched free of its rusted hinges.  Jim spilled onto the tall, wet grass, which he still had not mowed.  He might have spent the early morning there cuddled in what was left of the screen door had the mosquitoes not been upon him instantly.

            After several seconds, Jim hoisted himself up onto a wobbly elbow and then onto an even wobblier knee.

            "I'mmmnnottfixxxin'thhaatttt!" He called as he flung the mangled screen door into the driveway.

            He stumbled around the house, keeping his left palm on the crumbling siding for balance.  His knee began to ache worse than his head.

            When he made his way around to the other side, he heard the screech of one of the solid oak windowpanes scraping against the sill as it was being opened.  He halted, his breath roaring and his heart stomping.  Then he heard a heavy thud, which meant Sara was propping her big damn dictionary, the one she had wasted 50 dollars on -- that was the last time he gave her a weekly allotment, beneath the window to hold it open.

            "That's your mistake bitch!" He thought trying to creep up to the window.  As he approached, he saw the green curtains gently flowing out of the window.

            “Stupid cunt, what the hell are you doing?  The mosquitoes will get in," he wondered as he finally lurched beneath it.  Of course, Jim refused Sara's requests for an air conditioner.

            "That'sss ddaaa lassst timmme yoouuu locckkk ddaaa dooor onn meee," he grumbled.  Then Jim stood on his tiptoes, despite the ache in his knee.  His sausage-sized fingertips just grazed the windowsill when his knee buckled.  He toppled onto the tall grass again.  This time he cracked his head on some old boards stacked next to the house.  The same boards Sara asked him to get rid of a hundred times in the last two months alone.

            "Dammmmmittttt!" he roared.  If Jim had been anywhere near coherent, he would have been careful not to raise his voice and

---

d have Sara close the window and leave him to the mosquitoes.  Or he might have wondered precisely why Sara decided to leave it open knowing full well that it was his only way in.

            Now his adrenaline was surging through his system and dulling the effects of the Heineken.

            He was up on his feet again straining to grasp the sill.  Once he had it strangled in his mitts, he began hoisting himself up.  But it had been a long time since he hoisted his 260 pounds up off of anything other than the couch or the bar stool or from behind his desk.  But his fists clenched the sill firmly.  He could hear the old wood groan and crack.  His legs flailed about, bouncing off the siding of the house as they sought a foothold.  Then he was able to reach the lumber stack and gain a step. 

            Just as he pulled himself eye level with the window and was ready to raise holy hell with Sara, he peered in and saw her.

            She was holding the phone.  She pressed three digits. She whispered something into the receiver.  She hung up.

            His knuckles were turning white and beginning to burn from the agony of his bulk.

            "You're gonna get it bitch," he snarled.

            Sara calmly strode to the window.  She laid her hands on his huge, straining fists.  Her tiny, soft hands caressed his raging hands.  Hands that were far too familiar with her eye sockets,  cheeks,  mouth, and back of her head.

            "Don't just fuckin' stand there," Jim growled.

            Sara smiled.  She spoke softly, "welcome home honey."

            She let go of his hands.  Then she reached for the 20-pound dictionary.  She pulled.

            And then, she closed the window.