Feeling Faster

It did not happen all at once, but over the course of about a month Dave began to notice that everything around him seemed to be getting slower and slower. It was as if time was winding down, yet he was left somehow untouched by the incident. At first he thought that the change in weather had something to do with it, where people were driving slower because of the oncoming of fresh rains. When he looked at his speedometer, however, he realized that he was driving the same speed, which was at or just above the speed limit.

When he exited his car it was apparent that he alone was not affected by whatever time warp was happening. Since his car was being affected as well, it was going at the same speed as everything else, yet he was somehow now traveling at a greater rate of speed. His mind swam in an attempt to grasp what was happening.

The possibilities that were available to him for how this might affect his life were now dawning on him. He could save time on doing chores, win bar bets, or become a sports star. If the current situation continued at this same rate, he wondered if there was any danger for his own health or well being in the continuum of space and time. Soon would he travel so fast that he breaks the sound barrier, or the speed of light? The thought frightened him, but his thought was interrupted by the sound of screaming from a woman nearby in the parking lot. He knew what he must do, but destiny was not on his mind at the time.

Abandoned?

It was sad for Gerald Cooper to see the town in which he had grown up to be hit so hard by the bad economy. He saw families that he knew most of his life lose their jobs and their homes, and forced to move in order to find any work. The numbers at the First Christian Church went downhill fairly quickly, and before long it was forced to close its doors. He even outlasted the minister, who had stayed long after they could no longer afford to pay him, but to support his own family had to take a job at another congregation.

Gerald had gone to the church his entire life. It was where his parents had gone when they were alive, where he was baptized and married, and where his kids had gone before they went away to college and had families of their own. Every nook and corner of the building was familiar to him, from the humble piano near the front of the sanctuary, to the fake wood paneling on the walls. He now walked through the classrooms where lessons were taught on flannel boards and the kitchen where many potlucks had been held and friends and strangers alike were fed.

He stood in the small library in silent melancholy at the sparse, yet important, books filling the shelves around him. The knowledge in this room matched that of any other mega-church in the region, yet few even knew of its existence. He ran his fingers across the spines of the familiar volumes, occasionally lifting one to examine the cover. There was a glass case against one wall containing several ancient artifacts from past missionary and archaeological journeys from before even his time, each with a card describing its Biblical importance and the person who had found it. Tears began to well in his eyes, knowing the people who would miss out on what he had learned in this church. He leaned against the case, something he always told the children not to do, but under his weight it shifted unexpectedly.

His vision slightly blurred, he started to move it back into its place, but upon closer examination at the floor beneath it he noticed what appeared to be a handle set into the ground. He shuffled the case completely out of the way and revealed a small trap door of which he had never known was there. Scratching his head, he bent down and pulled on the handle, opening the unused door with surprising ease to a set of stone steps leading down deeper than one would expect in such a building.

There was no light down there, so Gerald had to go out to his truck for a flashlight. He returned and descended into a musty darkness that closed in around him. He swept the light across shelves of trinkets and unlabeled boxes. There were bicycle parts and clothes from the Civil War folded neatly and masked with a coat of grey dust. He found letters and heirlooms of long-dead members, including some belonging to the same man mentioned in the glass case on the floor above him.

His discovery brought him momentary joy because he knew, if anything, some of these things could be auctioned off, or he could even turn the church into a museum of local artifacts, bringing a tiny semblance of tourism to his dying town. The thought was swept away, however, and replaced by a sense of dread by what was in the farthest corner of storage.

In the corner, blocked away by shelves and barrels, was a sort of shrine surrounded by candles and incense burners. At its center was an ornate book stand with an antiquated tome resting on it. He stepped in front of the stand and tried to read it, but it was in some archaic language that he could not understand. He lifted the cover to see if the rest of it was more of the same, but doing so, he felt the air around him move, and the flashlight in his hand struggled to push away the darkness, dimming so noticeably that he shut the book again. Something was not right. He looked around for clues as to where this shrine had come from, but the only thing he could find was that it had been used more recently than he wished to admit. The wax candles did not have dust on them.

A shadow shifted in the corner of his eye. He whipped the flashlight across the room, then hesitated, listening. Gerald could not hear anything but his own breathing, yet he felt the presence of someone else, or something else, down here with him. Somehow, he knew it had something to do with the book, so he returned his focus on it. He again lifted the cover, this time flipping through the pages for something he might be able to understand, when it opened to a scrap of paper written in English. It began:

As translated from the Liber Kanon: The Book of Summoning.

The paper went on to describe horrific things which brought about even more terrible results of other realms of which Gerald assumed were demonic. Most of all he wondered what something like this was doing in his church, when a voice spoke to him.

"You are probably wondering how this got here, aren't you? This is a place of healing and protection. However, I fear there is not much protecting us now."

Photo by Sarah Parker

Through the Gate

The graveyard came to life at night. Beginning at dusk, when the sun was out of sight, yet its glow still hinted over the horizon, with the clouds turning from pink and orange to a darker purple, new sounds and smells began to emerge from untold places within the walled field. The structures and stones on the mounds were distorted in the shadows, and appeared to become beasts and creatures arching their hunched forms from slumber to partake in a funereal dance.

Despite the growing darkness, Warren mounted the steps leading to the grassy cemetery. The front gate stood gaping, swinging slightly on a chilling breeze, like a limp and lifeless mouth on a sleeping giant. The fog was beginning to roll in, obscuring the gravestones enough to make him think he was walking into a dream. Still, he knew it was necessary to enter in order to see for himself if the rumors were true. His flashlight played across the iron gate, throwing striped shadows across the lawn, moving with inhuman speed as he swept it from side to side.

There was no point in delaying any more. Warren squeezed through the open gate and into the cemetery.

A Monster In My Closet

There is a monster living in my closet.

At night I can hear it scratching and rustling and thumping as I attempt to fall asleep. I can occasionally hear it growl or grunt as it attempts in vain to turn the doorknob to escape. I imagine the difficulty it has with the doorknob by the frustrated sounds I hear, and I imagine large, sharp claws thankfully impairing its dexterity. The thought of it escaping causes me to worry.

You may think that I am your every day eight-year-old boy manufacturing a monster out of shadows and faint sounds, but I assure you I am a grown man in his thirties, living alone in a recently vacated musty old house. The real estate market has been somewhat volatile as of late, and this was the only place that I could afford. I began hearing the sounds the first night I slept here, and the noises grew increasingly more violent as the nights progressed. I swear I am not just hearing things; I have proof.

I wonder at where the thing goes during the day, for I have found myself regularly probing through the closet when the sun is up to no avail in finding any deadly monsters. The scratch marks toward the back of the closet were enough evidence to know that I was not going insane, at least not from hearing sounds of make-believe monsters. If I was going to uncover the reality of this thing, it would take much more ingenuity on my part.

That first night in my house, I lay there staring at the ceiling as the wind rattled the flimsy glass in the windows. Moonlight fell in through those windows sending shadows cascading across my bed and down the wall in tendrils of fluid movement. The erratic rhythm of the wind, the shadows, and the windows began to lull me to sleep. I neared unconsciousness, but my breathing caught in my lungs when the shadows that I thought were those of the giant oak spread out in the dark moved apart from the sounds that the wind provided. My eyes snapped open.

"Is someone there?!" I shouted over the howling wind.

Nothing responded but the rattling windows.

I pulled myself out of bed and searched through the house, turning on the light of each room as I entered. I found nothing or no one, and the silly thought of something in the empty, lonely house made me laugh to myself. "Stupid," I said to nobody in particular, except for maybe myself.

I returned to my room and turned on the light, as with the other rooms, and the shadows retreated as they were illuminated. They all retreated, although those nearest the closet seemed to disappear somewhat slower than the others in a lurching speed I could barely discern from the corner of my eye. I stepped to the closet door, and then wrenched it open.

There was nothing there but clothes.

I laid in bed for what seemed to me hours. Finally deciding that I was going to get no sleep in my room that night, I went into the living room and bundled myself up on the sofa with several blankets, leaving the light on in my bedroom.

The next day, I woke early to the crunch of a branch of the ancient oak outside snapping and falling to the ground. I jerked my head from the throw pillow and wiped a bit of drool from my lip. Finding my slippers, I made my way outside, still wearing a blanket I had pilfered from my bed the night before. In the bitter cold I stood there staring at a massive limb filling the yard, thankful that it had not fallen on the old house. I looked over the roof and side of the house, checking for damage. There was none, however when I glanced over my bedroom window, I saw a shape quickly recoil from view.

I reentered the house somewhat startled. I went to the kitchen for a glass of water with my heart still attempting to pound its way through my chest. On the calendar hanging on the wall there, I was reminded that this was All Hallows Eve. Too old to participate in trick-or-treating, with no children to dress up for free candy, I was resigned to remain at home awaiting the throng of witches and vampires to come begging for sweets, although the longer that I thought about it, the remote location of my house was not likely to bring very many, if any at all.

I left my house to obtain at least a small amount of candy to pass out to children, if any happened to stray this far from town. Along the way I drove past a few homes decorated with pumpkins and images of ghosts, which grew more frequent as I neared the grocery store. The store was overwhelming with orange and black decorations, all directing customers to the candy aisle. I waded through a crowd of last minute shoppers and selected two large bags of individually wrapped chocolates. I opened one of them in the car and shoved one of the treats in my mouth, letting it melt and savoring it for as long as it survived.

My house was devoid of all festive decorations, save the lone pumpkin on my front porch. I had meant to carve it weeks ago. I even had visions of my own eerie artistry coming to life as I scooped out the innards and devouring me. There it sat, mocking my lack of determination as I pulled into the long driveway.

The house was just as I left it, quiet and empty. The thought of a tomb entered my mind, but tombs were probably built much sturdier than the house. I left the candy on the kitchen counter, and then climbed the stairs to examine the damage of the tree limb from a higher perspective. I cautiously entered my bedroom, first peering into the still closet, and then the window in which I had seen something move. There was nothing in either of them. I shook my head at the idea, yet again berating myself for thinking such juvenile thoughts about monsters placing residence in my bedroom.

I spent most of the day outside doing my best to cut the tree limb into smaller, more manageable pieces. I did not own a chainsaw, so the task was more laborious using a handsaw and a set of pruning shears. By mid-afternoon I was sweating and breathing heavily, realizing how hungry I was hours after I should have had lunch. I staggered into the house and devoured a hastily prepared sandwich, plopped onto the couch, and then washed my lunch down with a cold glass of milk. I felt I should get up and take a shower before people might possibly come begging on the doorstep, but before I realized it I awoke and it was already getting dark.

"What the…" I muttered to myself as I blinked into the dimness of my unlighted house. I must have worn myself out. I had fallen asleep! I stood, wavering from dizziness, and reached to turn on the lamp next to the couch. It popped with a flash, but immediately went dark again. "Dang it," I said.

I staggered to the hallway and flipped the light switch on the wall. The brightness of the lights on the ceiling made me squint, my eyes still struggling to open. I stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom and washed my hands and face that were still salty from sweating outside. While I rubbed water in my eyes, I heard a thump come from somewhere nearby. I turned off the water, listening. I stood there silent for a while, and heard nothing. I stepped toward the door, however, and heard a second thump coming from upstairs. My dripping hands began to tremble, but my mind raced for possible reasons for noises from upstairs. Perhaps there are rats infesting the house, I thought to myself. Surprisingly, the thought made me feel better, for the alternative might be grounds for admitting myself to the state hospital.

Despite the things running through my head about what might be transpiring on the second floor, I dried my hands and went to the front door to turn on the porch light for trick-or-treaters. I poked my head out the door with anticipation of seeing dressed-up children, but all I found was darkness and the sounds of crickets.

I went back inside, this time turning on the television. I settled on an old Charlie Brown special and sat there enjoying the ruminations of cartoon kids on subjects of faith and Halloween when more sounds came from upstairs. This time I was more annoyed than afraid. I ran to dig through piles of boxes and found my autographed Mark McGwire baseball bat. I scaled the stairs two at a time and swung the door open with a thud. I fumbled with the lights, but caught sight of something moving in the dark near the corner before I switched them on. There was nothing there now, but the tendrils of shadow were now fresh in my mind, snaking their way through the darkness to their home in the closet.

This is my chance, I thought to myself. I strode to the door and flung it open. Once more, there was nothing there. Then a thought came into my mind. Perhaps it is the light.

I stepped backwards to the light switch with the closet still open. With my eyes trained on the open door, I pushed down on the switch. At first, I saw nothing move, and heard nothing. As my eyes adjusted, I could better see the outline of the doorway, along with the shapes of my clothes and several boxes of unpacked junk. I stood there silent for several minutes, holding my breath, yet still there was nothing. I let out a breath.

"Are you the Great Pumpkin?" I asked with a smirk. I immediately let down my guard and began to chuckle to myself. I turned to leave the room when I heard a shuffle come from behind me. I turned to see what made the sound, but I felt as if my body were submerged in molasses. My arms were unable to lift the bat, my body frozen despite my instinct to run or swing wildly. I stood there motionless for several minutes, now hoping to see something, anything to reassure me of my own sanity.

Something moved from within the darkened doorway. A long, slender shadow reached out and rested on the floor a foot from the closet, and then was still. Behind this shadow a much larger bulk was pulled into view. The room was black, but the shadow before me was devoid of all light, and despite its relatively small size I felt dread creep down my spine. Whatever this was, it was definitely not something I have ever seen or heard of before, and from wherever it came I immediately knew to be a wretched place.

I could not tell if this thing could see me, but when I accidentally bumped the bat against the door frame I could visibly see its shape become tense and wary. It did not make any threatening sounds or movements. It merely sat there in the unlit room studying me and waiting, as I was doing to it. The tension was removed when the doorbell rang.

We both jumped at the unexpected sound. I was expecting some funereal tune by the looks of the house, but it rang in a normal ding-dong fashion. I leaned the bat against the door frame and left the shadowy thing to its own thoughts in my room. Downstairs, I poked my head from behind the curtain to see several small creatures on my doorstep. I relaxed and picked up the bowl of chocolate, opening the door to a fairy or princess, or perhaps a fairy princess, protected by Superman and a somewhat tentative Frankenstein's monster, followed by an impatient-looking adult pleading for relief.

"Trick-or-Treat!" they shouted in unison.

"Wow, you're the first ones out here tonight," I feigned enthusiasm. I placed multiple objects into each of their pumpkin-shaped baskets. "Be safe tonight." I finished.

"What do you say?" said the man I assumed to be their father.

"Thank you," the kids said.

I had to inquire. "So what are you doing way out here?"

The man spied his kids, who were engrossed in the act of inspecting my generosity, "We had heard someone moved in here, and after last Halloween, we wanted to see if anything would happen this year. Apparently everything seems to be fine."

"What happened last year?" I asked.

He continued. "Last year on Halloween, the old woman that lived here mysteriously disappeared. Every year, kids would flock to her house to get candy because she would decorate it with fervor and greet them all as if they were her own grandchildren. People went out of their way to bring their families to see her decorations, and each year they would become more and more elaborate. Halloween was like her Christmas. She lived for it, and last year on this day, she vanished."

"Did anyone find out where she went?"

The man again looked at his kids to see if they were listening. When he found them still looking through their candy he continued. "They assumed she was killed, for the only trace of her they found was in the upstairs bedroom. They said that there they found a small trace of blood near the back of the closet."

"That would have been nice to know when I bought the house," I said as jokingly as possible and the man laughed.

"Yeah, talk about creepy, especially tonight," he said. "Don't let that keep you up all night! Ha ha! Just kidding. Well… we'd better get going. Thanks again!"

The family walked to the street and piled into a waiting minivan. I stood there on the porch staring at the illuminated front lawn for several minutes. Could whatever is in my closet have killed the old woman?

I went back inside, shutting out the wind and the night and set down the bowl of candy. From where I stood in the doorway, I could hear the thing scrabbling and scratching upstairs. I sighed. I had to do something. I either had to leave the house, which may be exactly what this shadowy creature wants, or I would have to confront it. Since I had no intention of leaving a place I had just moved into, and because my curiosity was now greater than my fear, I steeled my will against my quickening pulse.

Again, I climbed the stairs and turned to go to my bedroom. I thought twice against turning on the light, assuming that this monster would be deterred by it. Instead, I reached for the baseball bat that I had leaned against the door, only to find that it was now gone. I quickly scanned the dark with unadjusted eyes, searching for moving shapes and shadows, but nothing in the room moved. My last option was the closet, which now was closed in spite of the way I had left it. Without thinking, I stepped to the door. I grabbed the knob as silently as possible, but briskly swung it open. Nothing stirred. I groped my way to the floor, feeling my way through outlines and shadows, and before I could make my way to the back of the closet I came across the wooden bat.

Something grumbled from behind a pile of boxes in front of me.

I grasped the bat and pulled it close, standing and backing out of the room. In the hallway light I examined the bat, finding it had been scarred or even chewed on, covered all over with something like teeth marks down its length. Obviously this caused me great concern, for it was in mint condition before, and Mark McGwire's signature was now illegible. This was the last straw.

I stormed back into the room not wielding the bat, but furiously shaking it at the closet. "Look at this!" I shouted. "Look at what you did!"

The monster crept from the closet and sat there on the darkened floor before me. Its shapeless head tilted to one side and I saw its body quiver, which in turn made my skin crawl.

"Sorry", the thing said with a gravelly voice which could have been imitated by rubbing together a pair of cinder blocks.

It caught me off guard, but regaining my composure I shared more of my disdain. "What do you want anyway? You've been keeping me up all night with your scratching and shuffling in there. And did you have anything to do with that tree branch?"

The monster swayed in place, making me slightly disoriented, and then responded again. "Scary."

"Wait, you did all those things because they're scary? Are you trying to scare me? Why?" I asked.

"Scary," it croaked again.

"That doesn't help. Are you trying to get me to leave?"

"No. Scary."

"Great," I said, "so you're scary. I've got to ask you then. Do you know anything about the woman that used to live here?"

It shifted its weight, if it had any, and responded. "Me."

I assumed the most logical thing coming from a supposed monster. "You killed her." I stood my ground, gripping the gnarled bat defensively.

"No. Me," it repeated.

I hesitated, not quite understanding. "What do you mean "you"? What did you do to her?" And then I realized the truth. This thing crouched on my dark bedroom floor actually was the old woman that used to live in this house before me, or at least used to be. Something horrific happened last year on this night which took the life of that woman and transformed her into a creature of shadow and fear.

"You used to be the old woman that lived here." I said.

The monster bounced and let out a horrifying squeal of glee in affirmation.

"But how? Why?" I asked.

"Scary," it repeated.

"You, the woman, did this on purpose to be scary?"

The shadowy monster bounced and squealed again.

"There's something I don't understand. I was told that they found blood near the back of the closet."

The thing shrank back and made a sound of distress, or maybe even sorrow. It could not find the words to explain itself completely, and it disappeared back into the closet. I thought that perhaps it did not like where the conversation was going, but it returned carrying something small and rectangular. It held it out to me, but I was not sure if taking it was wise, especially coming from a creature of unknown origins. After a short time, it laid the object on the floor by my feet and backed away in silence.

I stepped forward in the dark room and picked up the object, immediately knowing that what I held was a book. I left the room and the monster in my bedroom and stepped out into the light in the hall. On the cover of the book there were two words in something I did not know, like Greek or Latin, but not quite either one. It read: LIBER KANON. I flipped through the pages, and the words were just as foreign to me as those on the cover. When I reached the end, a scrap of paper fell from the book. I picked it up and read in plain English describing some sort of incantation from another world, speaking of dark places that I did not wish to even think about. What I gained from it was that it was some sort of incantation summoning a creature from another realm to act as a personal servant. Either the incantation had not been done properly, or the ultimate ramifications of the spell were far greater than it described. I thought of what an improper translation might have done, but the thought that this might be a proper translation left me even more chilled.

Shoving the paper safely back into the book, I returned to my bedroom and encountered the monster.

"I know what you did. You liked Halloween so much that you wanted to make your house as creepy and scary as possible. The only problem is you ended up giving your life for it, and you became this monster."

The creature quivered as it did before, chilling my bones.

"I don't know what to tell you, other than I am not leaving this house. You can stay here as long as you leave me alone, especially when I am trying to sleep."

The monster sat there motionless for a couple of minutes, and then spoke one last time. It said, "Home."

Throughout the year, I catch glimpses of shadowy inconsistencies in the dark and feint growls and scratches from upstairs. Occasionally, strange things happen that cannot be explained that I can attribute to that creature in my closet. It is on Halloween each year that I can expect the most activity out of my monster. It finds a curious sense of joy in fostering fear in anyone who might venture far enough from the bustling residential streets to the larger rural homes in search of higher quantities of candy. It is for this reason that the woman who lived here called upon this creature to begin with, for her love for the holiday.

There is a monster living in my closet. Not all monsters are dangerous, but from what I have seen, it does not take but an obsession to become one.

The Unfinished Rite

From the shadows of a musty adjoining room, the cleric entered the temple on bare feet carrying a cup with two hands. Light from flickering candles danced across ornate statues and glittered on gold and silver surfaces throughout the room, though especially concentrated at one end. There, raised on a dais, were dozens of items all gilt in gold surrounding a large stone basin.

The cleric padded his way to this end of the room and stepped up to the raised platform. He poured out the contents of the cup into the basin, and then placed the cup at his feet. From within the folds of his robe he pulled a small glass vial. He removed the stopper and very carefully poured a single drop of its contents into the basin. He stepped back with haste as vapor began to swirl before him, and there he fell before he could finish the rite, the knife still protruding from his back.

On Writing Daily

Writing daily has been an eye-opening endeavor. I began this experiment to test myself to see if I had the chops to write every single day for an extended period of time. It started off well, following the rules I had set for several months. I then decided on pushing myself into the process of writing a novel. This did not last as long, until more recently, when I lowered the daily word count to something I felt was more attainable. During this time, I have come upon several things which I think could be helpful for others interested in writing.

Some of these thoughts are as follows:

1. Your daily writing does not have to be good. Editing is much easier when you have something to edit. It is much more difficult when there is nothing there. Get it written even if you think you'll remove it later. What you think is horrible now may actually turn out to be worth keeping in the final draft.
   


2. Your word count does not have to be high. One hundred words a day is attainable, as I have already written more than that in this post. If that is too much, try fifty. If it is too little, make it five hundred. Every little bit adds up over time, and it may even lead you to write more each day than you have set as a goal.
   


3. The more you write, the more ideas you will be able to build on. Several ideas for short stories and novels have grown from simple writing prompts or randomly generated ideas from various sources. If you keep the ideas in your head, you are not very likely to ever write them.
   


4. Find a time that works best for you to write. At first I wrote right before I went to sleep, but I found myself staying up later than I should have in order to make my word count for that day. I recently used a drop in my work hours to my advantage, finding an extra hour after work where it made no sense for me to go home before I had to pick up my wife from work. This extra hour has been invaluable in that I have found it to be productive in writing anywhere from one to five hundred words each day on various projects.
   


5. Life has distractions, and they can be an excuse not to write. I found a nice place to write in the local mall. I found some tables near the front door with heavy foot traffic. The tables are across from a Starbucks where everyone orders their drinks. It can be noisy sometimes. Try writing during lunch breaks, with your morning coffee, or even sitting on the couch while someone else watches T.V.
   


6. Having other people read your writing as you go can lead you to be a better writer. Putting my stuff out for everyone to read and comment on has made me more receptive to criticism. I think it has helped my writing improve, and like anything, the more you do something, the better you will get at it.
   


7. Even if you get out of the habit, you can forgive yourself and get back on it. There have been a few times that life circumstances have made it impossible to write. There have been times that I have just been lazy and found excuses (not specified in my list of excuses) to put off writing. The temptation is to give up completely, but by putting the past behind you, the ability to keep going is always there.

I hope some of these things I have learned are helpful and encouraging to others. Hopefully there will be much more to read from me.

The Travelling Letter

The almost illegible handwriting on the front of the letter was unmistakable. The only thing Mark wondered was how it happened to find him here, so far away from his home. He took the carving knife from the counter and carefully sliced it open at the top. Reading the text gave him mixed emotions, of disgust with a hint of triumph.

It began:

Dear Mr. Greene,

It brings me no great satisfaction in bringing you this news, for I know the benefits you will receive, and you very well know the disdain I have held for you in the past. It is with complete misfortune that I must be the one to inform you that you are needed immediately to return to discuss the terms of our agreement.

I am unable to dispense this information and its intent to anyone but yourself, but cannot forbid you from doing so on our behalf to any other applicable parties of which you are aware. Please return quickly so that this can be resolved.

Sincerely,

Thomas Edison

Mark refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. He wrote in pen on the front, above his own name:

Thought you might like to see this!

And he folded the letter, placing it into a fresh envelope and began to address it:

Nikola Tesla