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Scary Stories

A Weird Woman's Oeuvre of Original Frightening Fiction
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The Gruesomes of Goryville

Daddy came home early from the graveyard shift so that he would be home in time to celebrate baby Gracie’s third deathday with the family.  Of course, all of us had died on the same day, but Gracie had been three years old at the time, so it seemed only fitting to celebrate the day in her honor.  When Daddy arrived a little before midnight we were all just arising from our coffins.  It was a bit early to be up, but this was a very special day.

Oh good, you’re home in plenty of time!” exclaimed Mama, giving him a ghastly smile.  He grinned ghoulishly in return, replying, “Not only that, but wait until you see what I brought home with me!”

We children clamored to know what the surprise was, but he only shook his head and told us to be patient, as all would be revealed in good time. Brother Garrett guessed that it would be a sackful of yummy toads, while I rather thought a bucketful of graveyard worms was more likely.  Baby Gracie just gurgled and gasped in childish anticipation.  Grammy and Grampa Gruesome, still a little groggy with sleep, grimaced at us and told us to hush or there would be no surprise.  This terrible possibility put an end to our speculations, and we all went into the kitchen with Mama to help her prepare the celebratory feast.

Tonight’s meal was to be Gracie’s favorite – Slimeball Salad and Gag-me-with-a-spoon Ghoul-ash.  Garrett dirtied the slimeballs while I dumped the spoons into the Ghoul-ash.  Grampa supervised Grammy while she set the table with our worst dishes.  Mama busied herself putting the finishing touches on the Death-by-chocolate Cake.  We all chuckled at the ridiculous name, since of course we were already dead and no cake could make us any deader!  Daddy disappeared into the nether regions of the house, and we all wondered just what sinister surprise he had in store for us.

“Gilda,” Mama called to me, “put the Ghoul-ash on the table, and you do the same with the salad, Garrett.  Our feast is ready!”

We started the meal with the cake, a family tradition ever since our first deathday celebration.  Then we all dug in to the main course.  We children only had swampwater to wash everything down, but the adults indulged in blood-red wine on this special day, so spirits were high as we feasted and talked into the night.

Gracie received her special gift as the honoree of the day – a new shroud of moldy white to wear in her coffin.  Then, an hour before dawn when all of us would head back to sleep the sleep of the dead, Daddy left the room to return with our special surprise.  All eyes anxiously watched the door, waiting for it to creak open and end our suspense.

Finally the big moment arrived.  Imagine our shock and delight as the massive old door swung open with a crack and a mighty hell-hound bounded into the room, red eyes glowing and massive jaws slavering as he surveyed his new family with delight!  Garrett, Gracie, and I jumped down from our seats and threw our arms around his neck, so huge that even Garrett could not get his arms all the way around it.  Parents and grandparents watched with ill-disguised glee, and Mama literally fell to pieces when our monstrous new pet went over and placed his gigantic head in her lap.  Retrieving a wayward limb, Mama asked us, “Well, children, the newest member of our family is in need of a name, so what do you think we should call him?”

We deliberated for a while, but it was not long before we hit upon the perfect name.  We decided to call him Grim, after a fellow with whom we had all become quite well acquainted on the day of our deaths.  Suddenly, I had a dreadful thought.  “Daddy,” I said with a fearful quaver, “you always told us our home was too small for a pet!  We do get to keep him, don’t we?”  The three of us tightened our grips on the gigantic hound, who towered protectively over us.

“Well, daughter, that brings me to the second half of my big surprise,” our father said with a mirthless chuckle.  “Tomorrow night the Gruesome family moves into its grand new residence!”

A deathly silence initially followed this announcement, swiftly replaced by screams and screeches that would have made a banshee proud.  “Where, Daddy, where is our new home?” we asked in eager unison.

“Do you remember that big old mansion at 666 Cemetery Circle, the one your mother has had her eye on?”  Mama protested gently that she had been meaning to retrieve that errant orb, ruefully rubbing her empty eye socket.  “Well, the previous inhabitants were exorcised just a few days ago, and I was able to make an offer on the place that the owners couldn’t refuse!”  Daddy does have a way with words, as well as clanking chains, moans, and groaning gibberish that cannot be resisted for long – even exorcising priests cannot withstand his onslaught, and I am sure the mansion’s owners decided that a quiet and happy Gruesome family in the place was better than Daddy all by himself making a ruckus fearsome enough to raise the dead!

“And best of all, the house is surrounded by a boneyard big enough for a dog like Grim!” I exclaimed.  “Oh, this has just been the best day – I haven’t been this happy since the day I died!”

The sun was threatening to peek over the horizon at this point, so we all scurried off to our coffins to avoid this horrible sight.  Gracie the deathday girl in her new shroud was given the honor of sharing her coffin with Grim, although Garrett and I insisted that we would have him on the following nights.  Mama, ecstatic at the thought of our future abode, did not protest, and we all fell asleep that dawn to dream of the most frightfully fantastic night we had just shared.

The End
Original story for Halloween (10/31/11)

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The Destruction

“You must show them no mercy – they will show none to you.”

“But I cannot just slaughter them in cold blood!”

“Then you will die.”

I recalled this conversation as I crouched in the abandoned farmhouse, awaiting the outcome I knew was inevitable.  I had exchanged these words with the old man who would become my mentor just a few short months ago.  It felt more like a lifetime had passed.  The old man was gone now, along with almost everyone else with whom I had, out of necessity, joined forces.  Some, like the old man, were dead.  Others had fled, their fates unknown.   The fate of others I knew only too well, and these I mourned the most.  Now my only intention is to avoid their fate, but before I do what I know I must, I will leave this account in the event that some other poor souls should find themselves in my situation.  I cannot give you hope, but perhaps these words will give you the strength to do what is necessary.

Before the bad times started, life for me was fairly idyllic.  The leaders of our nation were benevolent and promised to keep us safe from harm.  They made good on their promise.  No strife penetrated our borders.  We prospered and were content.  Because of this, we did not question our leaders’ methods.  We should have done so.

At first the trouble was almost unnoticeable.  Life seemed to continue pleasantly on, but a few of the more sensitive souls mentioned a feeling of mild discontent in the air.  The rest of us scoffed.  Nothing had changed – what reason had anyone to feel discontent?  As the months went by, however, the rest of us began to feel it too.  We had nothing to complain about, but the feeling of dissatisfaction grew, eventually to the point of irritation.  Police forces that had until recently had very little to do suddenly found themselves called to numerous scenes of arguments, brawls, and occasionally vicious fights.  Our jails filled almost to overflowing, and still the altercations occurred.  Worse yet, the police themselves, previously relied upon as the voice of reason, began to assault the very public they were supposed to protect.  Those of us who were still in control of ourselves began to spend more and more time locked in our homes, trying to avoid being noticed.  The situation was becoming intolerable.

Then the military troops came.  There was no attempt to talk to us or reason with us.  In their protective suits and gas masks, they began gunning people down, starting with the police force itself and then the incarcerated.  When they began going door to door to our homes, the rest of us fled into the night.  The lucky ones found hiding places the troops did not discover, and were able to survive the attack.  Eventually the troops moved on, and we survivors cautiously returned to our once beloved town.

The devastation that met our eyes was sickening to behold.  The dead were everywhere.  Beautiful buildings and parks were scorched and razed.  Lush crops and productive farmlands were burned and plowed under.  Nothing remained of the life we had cherished.  Why had this happened to us, and what were we to do now?

It was at this time that the old man arrived.  He walked into our town with an air that was both weary and determined.  We flocked around him, eager for any news he may have brought.  What he told us still brings chills to my heart after all these months.

“I was a scientist for the government,” he began.  “I was charged with helping to find ways to end the sieges constantly being waged against us by neighboring nations.  My colleagues and I discussed many options, and finally hit upon the idea of using pheromones to control aggressive tendencies.  We reasoned that if we could find a way to introduce airborne agents into the atmosphere of these adjacent countries, their will to invade our borders would be eliminated.  The method worked.   The pheromone was quite potent, and the molecule was remarkably stable.  We found that by introducing the substance in gaseous form via aerial spraying just once a year, we were able to prevent all potential attacks.

The method has been in use for over twenty years, and in all this time we have had nothing but success.  Not only were aggressive tendencies reduced, but cooperative tendencies were greatly enhanced.  Nations worked with nations, communities with communities, and individuals with individuals, to the greater good of all.  Peace and prosperity reigned.  Our solution surpassed even our greatest hopes, and we had no reason to believe it would not last indefinitely.

Then the unthinkable happened.  We discovered that the extremely stable pheromone molecule did after decades eventually break down.  To our horror, the substances into which this molecule broke down were terribly dangerous.  In fact, the effect of these new substances was exactly the opposite of that of the pheromone.  Slowly, as more pheromone molecules began to break down, the incidence of undesirable behaviors began to rise.  We worked frantically to find a way to counteract the new substances.  The conclusion we reached was that when these bad substances broke down, the resulting byproducts would be harmless.  Unfortunately, this will not happen for at least another two decades.  We could find no way to speed up the process.  Most worrisome of all was the amount of the original pheromone we had introduced into our environment.  Not realizing the serious consequences of our actions, and believing it to be harmless, our leaders not only released it locally, but sold the formula to all other nations so that they could employ it as well.  The negative side effects are worse as the dose of the breakdown products increases.  A worldwide apocalypse seems inevitable.

There is only one ray of hope.  A few individuals seem to be resistant to the effects of this dangerous molecule.  Our leaders decided that the best way to minimize the danger was to strike preemptively.  By eliminating people showing symptoms, the likelihood of those with immunity surviving increases.  Thus, if our species survives, ensuing generations will become more and more resistant, and the negative effects less and less severe.  By the time all of the bad substances deteriorate, the human population should have stabilized to the same level of aggressiveness seen before the pheromone was used.

We are running out of time.  More and more people are succumbing to the negative side effects.  Our leaders and our military can no longer be trusted.  Since I seem to be one of the few who are resistant, I have taken it upon myself to reach as many communities as I can, warning them of the danger and telling them of the strategy to minimize that danger.  I am heartened to find so many in your town without symptoms.  Perhaps your relatively isolated community has a higher percentage of those with immunity, in which case you must help each other to survive.  I will show you how to neutralize the affected ones, and where to go to best protect yourselves.  God help us – I hope that we have a chance!”

The old man was as good as his word.  He took us to a place where other survivors like us had taken refuge.  We fortified our stronghold as best we could with supplies and weapons, and prepared to fend off attacks.  Then we waited.

At first it was as the old man had predicted.  Roving parties of aggressors attempted to invade our refuge, but we became more and more skilled at repelling them.  We began to hope that with time we could lead some semblance of a normal, if circumspect, life.  This was not to be.

What the old man could not know was that our immunity was relative.  Although we did not immediately succumb to the effects of the dangerous substance, eventually some of us began to show the signs.  At first we merely expelled the affected ones from the refuge, and out of fear they ran off, never to be seen again.  Then, as more cases became evident, those we turned out began to return and lay siege.  They became more organized, and we began to suffer casualties, the old man among them.  The morning before he died, he took me aside and into his confidence.  He had always had a liking for me, and seemed to think I was one of the ones who stood the best chance of surviving.  With great sadness he told me there was something I needed to know.

“My friend, “ he said, grasping my hand in both of his, “I am afraid that I have failed you.  I assumed that all of the survivors possessed the same level of immunity, and that assumption is wrong.  It seems that the level of immunity differs with each individual.  Now I am not certain that anyone is permanently immune.  I cannot even predict who is likely to be more immune – there is no correlation to age, gender, race, degree of health, or any of the other factors that can be taken into account.  I tell you this because I believe that if you remain here you are in great danger.  Your best option is to strike out on your own.  You must leave here tonight and go to the place I will describe to you.  But once you are there, you must heed what I tell you next.”

What he told me next frightened me to the core, but I promised I would do as he asked.  Then I begged him to come with me.  If I was in danger, then he was even more so.  The old man replied that without him my chances of reaching my destination were much greater.  The journey would not be easy.   He would only slow me down, and would probably not remain alive long enough to reach the site.  I begged him to reconsider, until he finally relented and told me he would think about it.  Two hours later he was dead.  I have always wondered if he deliberately put himself in the way of the crazed individual who killed him to spare me the burden of trying to make the journey that night with him.  I will never know.

He was correct in stating that the trip would be difficult.  Many times I barely escaped murderous hordes who killed together, then turned on one another and murdered erstwhile comrades.  I finally reached the destination to which the old man had sent me.  It was an old farmhouse in an isolated area owned by him and unknown to anyone else.  He had already stocked it with supplies, so with luck it might be possible to survive here without being discovered for many years.

I arrived five weeks ago.  So far I have remained undetected.  Today something happened to remind me of my promise to the old man.  I have begun to feel the negative effects of the bad substances.  I have only a few more hours before these effects take control of me and I start upon my own murderous rampage.  I promised the old man I would not let this happen, as it reduces the chances of any who are truly immune surviving.  In front of me is the poison he gave me to end it all.  I will drink it now, but have enough to leave behind for anyone choosing to use it after I am gone.   I wish the human race luck – I know you will need it.

The End
Original story for Friday the 13th (7/13/12)

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Peripheral Vision

Jack Lansing rubbed his eyes and stifled yet another yawn.  He had been driving since five o’clock that morning and now, nearly twelve hours later, the strain was beginning to tell.  He regretted having left the main highway in favor of the two-lane country road he was presently travelling.  At the time it had seemed like a good idea, trading the dreary monotony of the interstate for this scenic route through upstate New York, but even the golden beauty of autumn woods and pastures could no longer dispel the fatigue, and he had lost a lot of time on these winding lanes past endless small towns.  The light of day was fading quickly, and he still had another hundred miles to go before reaching his destination.

Scowling at the empty coffee thermos on the seat beside him, Jack debated whether to stop at a diner for yet another cup of bad coffee or to keep on going.  His stiff, cramped leg muscles ached to get up and stretch, and his fingers were numb from gripping the steering wheel for so many miles.  On the other hand, his gas tank was still over three-quarters full and the section of road he was on now was practically deserted.  Deciding to complete the rest of his trip nonstop, Jack edged the speedometer up to seventy and turned the radio up louder, hoping that the raucous music would help to keep his senses alert.  He had almost fallen asleep at the wheel twice already, and without some kind of stimulation would surely do so again.

Dusk was falling on the autumn evening, and Jack, struggling to keep awake, noted the changing shadows that loomed and lengthened as the sun sank in the western sky.  Too much coffee and too little sleep were taking their toll on his nerves, however, and every leaping shadow made him start.  To calm this edginess, Jack began to think about his journey’s end.  He imagined himself home at last, in Huntington, with Susan anxiously waiting at the door, her face lighting up with relief and happiness when he returned safely from yet another convention.  Perhaps after he got his promotion these trips would no longer be necessary.  Or maybe the company could fly him out instead of expecting him to find his own transportation.  Jack liked his job and was good at it, but the constant travelling it entailed was beginning to wear on him, and if the promotion did not come through, he was not sure he could stay on.  Even Susan was urging him to find a new situation, but jobs were tight these days and it would not be easy.  Maybe Monday morning he should go in and talk to Mr. Jenkins, his boss.

Jack’s thoughts were interrupted abruptly by a sudden movement on the side of the road.  Although he had only seen it out of the corner of his eye, Jack could have sworn he had just witnessed a shadowy human figure jump into the weedy roadside ditch.  He slowed the car as he passed the spot where the figure had disappeared.  Nothing was there.  Jack silently cursed his overwrought nerves as he again pressed down on the accelerator.  He hoped his mind was not going to play tricks on him now when he was so close to home, especially as the deepening gloom made it that much more difficult to rely upon his overworked senses.

The road before him stretched on, long and empty.  There were no more small towns before Jack reached his home, and he had just passed the last service station a few miles back.  On both sides of the lane tall tress grew right up to the edge, and the twilight was accentuated by their overhanging branches.  A faint glimmer of sunshine still shone, but it only served to increase the sense of blackness all around him.  The headlights of his car cut a pitifully small path through the darkness.

Jack found himself hunching his shoulders tensely and squinting his eyes in a vain attempt to penetrate the gloom before him.  The last ray of sunlight flickered out, and it was night.  A blurred radiance from the half-moon above was the only light now, save for that of his headlights.  Jack forced himself to relax and leaned back in his seat.  No sense in giving himself eyestrain and a headache when he was almost home.  In another hour he would reach the city limits of Huntington, and this thought caused him to accelerate the car a bit more.  His travel-weary eyes became heavy.  Now that it was dark, there was almost nothing to see but the road ahead, dull grey in the headlights.  This lack of visual stimulation was dangerous, Jack knew, but he could think of no way to alleviate it.  He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands, and the small pain temporarily roused him, but he did not know how long this would be effective.  His tired mind fought his attempts to force it into alertness.  Jack  became alarmed.  Perhaps he should pull over.  He began to slow the car, when suddenly he was jolted to wakefulness by a movement near the side of the road.

Had it been his imagination, or had he just seen a figure dash into the woods beside him?  Remembering his optical illusion earlier, Jack was inclined to dismiss this as another of the same.  Nevertheless, he once again accelerated and swept past the spot where he thought he had seen the thing.  If it had been and optical illusion, there was no reason to stop, but if it had indeed been a person, then he had no wish to investigate further.  Vague stories of solitary motorists hijacked and murdered on lonely back roads flitted through Jack’s mind, and he judged it prudent to continue rather than take a chance on stopping.  Besides, the incident had revived his tired senses, hopefully for the duration of his trip.

For the next fifteen minutes, Jack continued to drive in a tolerably alert state.  His eyes and mind adjusted to the autumn darkness, and even the slight mist that had arisen did not worry him.  His headlights still pierced the blackness before him, and the emptiness they revealed was reassuring.  Still, at the back of his mind there lurked a suspicion of shadowy creatures crouched at the roadside, just beyond his range of vision, eagerly watching and waiting to spring the moment his alertness faded.  Jack smiled grimly at this foolishness his exhausted mind had conjured up.  He was not normally a fanciful person, and was a bit surprised at how little it took to provoke the imagination of a tired brain.  It was, he thought, definitely time to speak to Mr. Jenkins about that promotion.  If he went on like this much longer, he was likely to become a nervous wreck, and no good to the company or Susan.  The thought of Susan made him smile again, this time tenderly.  Best not to tell Susan about these hallucinations, Jack decided.  She already worried enough as it was, and these little incidents would only make matters worse.

The minutes dragged by and Jack fought doggedly to stay awake, but once more he could feel weariness overcoming him.  He struggled to keep his eyes open.  The dark night enveloped him like a soft blanket, however, and his eyelids began to droop.  His efforts to resist became weaker.

Just before his eyes closed, a movement at the edge of his vision roused him once again.  Was it just another hallucination, or had he really seen a shadowy figure loping alongside his car?  Glancing down at his speedometer, Jack realized that he had been driving just over eighty miles her hour.  No one could possibly run that fast!  He gave his head a violent shake, and dug his nails into his palms once more for good measure.  Perhaps he really should pull over.  These visions could be dangerous.  What would he be seeing next, flying elephants or spaceships from outer space?  What if he actually fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident?  Still, he was only about twenty minutes outside of Huntington now, and surely he could stay awake that long.

Cranking up the radio even louder, Jack drove on, determined to fight off his increasing sense of drowsiness.  The night mist had thickened, and he could barely see the distant lights of the town ahead.  The strain of trying to see through the mist made his eyes feel dry and heavy, and without realizing it Jack was once again succumbing to exhaustion.  His tired brain only dimly registered the movement seen out of the corner of his eye, and when the indistinct figure running by the side of the car suddenly spurted ahead and veered in front of him, Jack just barely managed to yank the steering wheel around to drive into the deep roadside ditch.

********

“Mrs. Lansing?” a harried-looking young doctor addressed the woman in the hospital lobby.  “I’m Dr. Mitchell.  Your husband was in a very bad accident, but it looks like he’s going to make it.  I’m afraid he’s going to be here for some time, though.  He’s under sedation right now, but if you’d like to look in on him, I’ll have the nurse take you to his room.”

Dr. Mitchell watched as the nurse led the distraught woman down the hall and shook his head.  With two broken legs, a broken back, and some minor internal bleeding, Mr. Jack Lansing was in for a very long stay indeed at the hospital.  If never ceased to amaze him that people would push themselves beyond the limits of endurance and keep driving when they were utterly exhausted, even though everybody knew how dangerous it could be.  Mr. Lansing was lucky to be alive.  Why, the man had been almost stark raving mad when the paramedics had first brought him in, babbling some nonsense about peripheral vision and the sinister figures that lurked there.

Shaking his head once again, Dr. Mitchell turned and began to walk down the semidarkness of the long corridor, tossing his crushed coffee cup into a litter basket.  He was on the fortieth hour of a forty-eight hour shift, and it had been a very busy time.  He had managed to grab a couple hours of sleep, but that had been about thirty hours ago and the strain was beginning to show.  Weariness fogged his thoughts as he made his way to his next patient’s room, and his eyelids began to droop.  He snapped quickly awake, however, when out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a shadowy figure lurking in one of the darkened rooms…

The End
Original story for Halloween (10/31/12) 

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Little Green Men from Mars

Now, ordinarily Hannah and I don’t go in much for stocks and bonds – too risky, you see, and the Lord knows we’re not exactly rich.  So I suppose you’re wondering why we put every last penny of our hard-earned savings into shares of an obscure little chemical company hardly anyone here has ever heard of.  Well, it’s kind of a long story, and I doubt you’ll put much stock in it, so to speak, but I’ll give it to you for what it’s worth and you can make up your own mind.

You know that when I retired, Hannah insisted on moving out to this God-forsaken little town.  She’s always been an avid gardener, and I have to admit that our apartment in the city didn’t give her much chance to pursue her favorite pastime, even if it was convenient for my business.  Anyway, the old girl had given up a lot for me over the past 35 years, so I felt it was time to let her have her turn.  I figured I could find plenty to keep me busy, having always had a knack for carpentry and all-around tinkering.  So, the long and the sort of it was, out we moved to Titusville.  I’m not complaining, mind you, but it did take a little time to get used to the nerve-wracking quiet of the place.  Not much has ever happened here, and not much ever will, I thought at the time, and after living in a big city all our lives, this lack of excitement was a little overwhelming.  In about six months, though, we settled into a fairly comfortable routine, Hannah in her garden and me in my workshop, and the days passed quite pleasantly.

Then one day, just last spring, things began to happen.  Only little things at first, more annoying than alarming, but after having adjusted ourselves to no surprises whatever, Hannah and I were a little puzzled.  You see, we live way on the edge of town, about two miles from our nearest neighbors, and we had never been bothered before.  Not even the mailman comes into our yard – he just leaves the mail in the box by the gate, and we hardly ever see even him, let alone anyone else.  And now, all of a sudden, we started losing things.  First it was Hannah’s old straw gardening hat.  She never goes out without it, and she keeps it hanging on a nail just inside the garden shed.  Well, one day it just disappeared.  We had just finished breakfast and I’d gone out to my shop when Hannah came in with a little frown on her face and said to me,

“Sam, where did you put my gardening hat?”

Surprised, I replied, “Your gardening hat?  Now why in the world would I take your old hat?”

“Heaven only knows, Sam,” she said, still frowning.  “You know I always hang that hat in my shed and now it’s gone.  I didn’t take it so it must have been you.  Where is it?”

I was beginning to get a little irritated.  “I don’t know why you should think that I took it, my dear.  Pinching gardening hats is not my idea of fun.  I did not take it and I have no idea where it is.  Maybe you mislaid it, forget where you put it last time you used it.”

“The last time I used it was yesterday afternoon, and I distinctly remember hanging it up again as usual,” Hannah retorted.  Then the frown left her face and she gave me a worried look.  “Sam, do you think there are vandals in the neighborhood?”

The very idea set me laughing.  “In this neighborhood?  Honestly, Hannah!  And what vandal in his right mind would want to take your silly hat anyway?  Maybe the wind blew it away or rats carried it off – who knows?  We can get you another one easily enough.  Don’t worry about it, honey.”

“Oh, I suppose you’re right, Sam.  All those years of city living seem to have made me a little paranoid about thieves,” Hannah said with a rueful smile.  “Still, it is rather annoying.”

In the end we went into town that same morning, bought Hannah a new hat, and promptly forgot the whole thing.  Then, two days later, the next and even more perplexing incident occurred.  Once again, it was just after breakfast and I was in my shop.  Right away I sensed that something was wrong.  Unlike Hannah, I’m not an especially tidy person, and if something is missing in my shop I just assume it’s around somewhere and work with something else until it shows up again.  This morning, though, I needed a particular size of screwdriver, and I had made sure the day before to leave it where I could find it right away, in the middle of my work table in a little cleared spot.  Only it wasn’t there.  At first I thought it had rolled off, even though I had made pretty certain it wouldn’t, so I looked all around the area but found nothing.  Then I thought maybe Hannah had borrowed it.  She almost never comes into my shop – can’t stand the mess, she says – but if she really needs some tool or other she will come in now and then.  I was just about to go looking for her when she actually came bursting in, waving something about in her hand.

“Sam!” She exclaimed.  “You’ll never believe this, but… my old gardening hat is back!  See, here it is!  It was hanging on its old nail, right on top of the new one.  What do you think of that?”

“Hannah, you didn’t happen to borrow a screwdriver of mine, did you?” I asked her, fairly sure I knew what her answer would be.

“I haven’t been in this shop since the day this old hat disappeared.  Why, Sam?”

“Well, honey, one of my tools is missing now, and I think we’re the victims of some silly practical joke.  Not vandals, just someone playing tricks on us.  It’s probably just the Anderson boy.  He’s a little wild, and with school out he’s likely bored and considers these pranks rather fun.  I’ll just have a talk with his parents and see if they can’t speak to him about it.”

Hannah agreed that this was the most likely explanation, and for the next several days nothing happened, although Pete Anderson stoutly denied having pulled the pranks.  The next incident vindicated him anyway, since he was out of town visiting his grandparents when it took place.  This time, a plastic watering can was missing from Hannah’s shed, and not only that, my screwdriver was back where I had originally put it.  To top it all off, these things happened in spite of the fact that both shed and shop were locked up tight as a drum.  Hannah and I were beginning to become a little concerned.  Granted, the “borrowed” objects were of relatively little value; still, it was rather upsetting that someone seemed to have free access to our things without leaving any clues as to how and when they came.  I asked around town to find out if anyone knew who the practical joker might be, but all likely candidates were eliminated for one reason or another.  I also found out that Hannah and I were the only ones experiencing these annoyances, which inclined me to the belief that we had been singled out as the newcomers to town, as well as being the most isolated.  I mentioned our little problem to Titusville’s sole representative of the law, Sheriff Fred Barnes, and he agreed to keep his eyes and ears open, but pretty much told me that if Hannah and I didn’t see or hear anything, it wasn’t likely that he would either.

To make a long story short, all that month and the next these little disappearances from our shop and shed kept happening.  At first I tried to stay up nights to catch the thief, but since the occurrences were not on a regular basis and I could never be sure what night he would be there, I soon gave that up.  It was almost as if the thief were keeping tabs on me, because he would invariably strike on the one night I happened to nod off.  However, since the things taken were never valuable and were always returned in perfectly good condition after a few days, Hannah and I eventually resigned ourselves to these minor aggravations.

Then, in late August, things began to disappear from the house.  First it was an old vase from the living room.  Neither of us had liked that vase much – it had been a wedding gift from my old Aunt Mildred, who had never been especially fond of me anyway – but Hannah insisted I see Fred Barnes again immediately.  I had to admit that the idea of an elusive stranger prowling in and out of our house at will didn’t set too well with me either, so I drove into town and went to see the sheriff.

“ ’Morning, Fred,” I said as I walked not his office.  “our sneak thief has started on the house now, and Hannah and I are getting a little worried.”

Fred looked up and wrinkled his brow.  “I’m sorry to hear that, Sam,” he replied, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his chin.  “I guess something’s got to be done.  Anything valuable gone?”

No, no, same old story,” I answered.  “Just an old vase, and it’s no great loss, either, but I think this has gone on long enough.”

“And you say you still haven’t seen or heard anyone in the, let’s see, almost three months now that this has been going on?” Fred shook his head.  “Seems hard to believe.  No signs at all?”

I was getting a little impatient.  “Look, Fred, I’m not a detective.  Why don’t you come over and look for clues.  After all, that is your job, isn’t it?”

Fred sighed and heaved himself to his feet.  “All right, all right, I’ll come on over.  But don’t expect too much.  I’m no detective either, just a small-town sheriff.  Besides, look at it from my point of view.  Useless objects stolen and then returned, no sight or sound of the culprit in almost three months – if I were a detective, I would deduce that you and Hannah were just imagining things, or making it all up to pull my leg.  Anyway, we might as well get going, Sam.”

I gritted my teeth to keep from flinging back a nasty reply and followed him out the door.  After all, he did have a point.  There really wasn’t that much he could do unless the thief got careless and had left some clue to his identity.

True to his word, once back at my place Fred found nothing that would lead to the identification of the culprit.  When I asked him what he thought we should do, he shrugged and said, “I wouldn’t call in the state cops yet if I was you – I doubt they’d even believe you.  You might try hiring a private investigator if you want to waste your money, but if you ask me, it’s probably just someone playing an extended practical joke.  Can’t say as I know who it might be or how they do it, but they don’t seem to mean any real harm, and nothing valuable has been taken.  Why don’t you just let it go?  Maybe if you ignore him, whoever it is will get bored and give it up.”

I pointed out to him that we had been ignoring our thief for three months now and he was just as active as ever.  With another shrug, Fred merely suggested we just keep ignoring our thief, then went back to town.  After talking it over, Hannah and I decided to wait two weeks before taking any further action.  Then, if the thefts still continued, we would put an end to it once and for all, even if it meant hiring a dozen detectives and calling the National Guard to boot.

It was exactly two weeks later that things finally came to a head, and believe me, it didn’t end at all the way Hannah and I had ever imagined it would.  The two of us had just returned from a morning shopping trip to town.  I had needed a pound of nails and some plywood to finish some birdhouses I was building, and Hannah wanted to get a few things for her garden – some fertilizer, a new weed killer, and some chrysanthemums that were on sale.  On the way home we discussed the theft situation.  Things were still being taken – not many, and nothing valuable, and they were always returned in a couple of days none the worse for the wear.  It even appeared to us that the thefts were becoming less frequent, as though the thief were finally getting tired of his joke.  Even so, it was an unsettling feeling having someone enter your house whenever they felt like it, and we decided to talk to the state police whether they believed us or not, as well as a private detective if need be, that very afternoon.  We ate lunch, and I went to take a nap before making the call, figuring I would need to be wide awake and alert for my talk with the police when they arrived.  Hannah went to work in her garden, and I was alone in the house.

Did you ever wake from a sound sleep with the feeling you were being watched?  Well that’s exactly what happened to me that afternoon.  I had been asleep maybe fifteen minutes at most, when all of a sudden I awoke with a jolt, dead certain someone was staring at me that very instant.  At first I didn’t move, straining my ears to try and catch the sound of breathing, or of feet shuffling – anything to confirm my feeling.  Hearing nothing, I sat up slowly, then gazed all around the room.  Nothing – I saw absolutely nothing.  I was puzzled, but also relieved, and proceeded to put on my shoes before going to make that phone call.  And then it happened.

I had just finished tying my shoes and was halfway out of my seat when I noticed a sort of green mist shimmering not four feet in front of me.  Fascinated, I sat down again and continued to watch.  The mist seemed to grow denser, and the shimmering quality gave way to a kind of quivering, and all of a sudden I found myself face to face with the most extraordinary creature I had ever seen.  It was built like a man, with arms, legs, hands, feet, and a human-type face, but it was only about three feet tall and its skin was a vivid green.  So astonished was I that it didn’t even occur to me to be frightened.  I sat there like an idiot with my mouth hanging open, until finally the little green man spoke.

“Hello, Mr. Weber,” the creature said in a pleasant, cultivated voice.  “I hope I haven’t startled you.”

My voice no more than a croak, I managed to stammer out, “Who are you?”

“Well, for one thing, Mr. Weber,” the green man replied with a smile, “I am your sneak thief.  My name is Xan, from the planet you call Mars.”

Don’t ask me why, but the first thing that came into my head when I heard this was, “Of course, little green men from Mars!”, as if this explained everything.  After that my thoughts were in a whirl.  Curiosity, caution, fear, puzzlement – out of the chaos and confusion in my mind I was only able to drag forth another question, albeit brief.  “Why?”

Still smiling, Xan answered calmly, “You wish to know why I am here, and why I have been carrying off various objects from your household?”  Dumbly, I nodded, and Xan continued, “The reason for carrying off the objects is simple.  I needed to test them to determine any potential detrimental effects these objects – or rather, the materials from which they were made – might have upon my people.  You see, Mr. Weber, mine is a thriving race.  Our planet has at last reached the point where no more inhabitants are possible.  Therefore, we intend to establish an experimental colony here.”

My whirling thoughts at last latched on to the meaning of his words.  “And… what about us, Mr. Xan?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me that Earth was probably just about as crowded as Mars.

“Oh, your species poses no threat to us, Mr. Weber.”  Xan’s complacent reply came as no surprise to me.  Somehow, I’d been expecting something like that.  “You see, of all the objects I temporarily confiscated from your property, absolutely none of them proved in any way harmful to us.  In any way, Mr. Weber,” Xan added, and suddenly I realized that we were communicating by telepathy, and that he had read my thoughts about the old army pistol I kept in the hall closet.  Now I was good and scared.  If he could read my thoughts so easily, there was no way I could escape from him.

“Ah, you are wise, Mr. Weber,” Xan said, pleased by my sudden realization of helplessness.  “You see, our physical makeup is totally different, although there is some superficial morphological resemblance.  From each of the objects taken from these premises, and from thoughts read from countless beings like yourself, we were able to construct all of your so-called weapons.  All proved to be completely ineffective against our kind.”

“But you can’t expect to just come here and wipe us all out without a struggle,” I protested, more from desperation than from any real conviction I felt that I could prevent their doing exactly that.  “Not unless you intend to make the whole planet unfit for habitation by anyone, that is.”

“There is some truth to what you say, Mr. Weber,” the creature admitted with a frown, “which is why I am here now.  We wish to obtain this planet with as little unnecessary destruction as possible, and to do that we must study your species more carefully.  Mr. Weber, I have come for you and your wife.  There are certain experiments that must be conducted, and the two of you will be quite adequate as our first test subjects.”

By then my blood had turned to ice in my veins.  Hannah and I were to be guinea pigs, and from us these monsters would begin to learn how to most efficiently destroy the whole human population of Earth!  Almost without thinking, I made a lunge at Xan, and by golly, I almost had him.  I saw the look of surprise on his face, and then suddenly I was frozen in place.  My muscles just went rigid, and I could not move.

“Mind control, Mr. Weber,” Xan explained.  “I did not think I would need it, but evidently your will to survive is stronger than I expected.  Come, Mr. Weber, and we will find your wife.”

Somehow I was moving, walking behind Xan as he headed out the back door toward the garden.  In the distance we could see Hannah stooping over her work.  She had planned to get the chrysanthemums in before I made that phone call to the police, and was evidently still hard at it.  How I wished I could shout, or run to her and tell her to get away while there was still time!  But I had lost all control of my body.  I walked behind Xan like a zombie because he willed it, and although my thoughts were my own, my power of speech was not.  So intent was Hannah on her work that she did not even notice our approach.  When we were about three yards away from her, Xan willed me to speak.

“Hannah,” I called out gently.

“Oh, Sam, I’m sorry I took so long, but I finally finished planting the mums,” Hannah exclaimed, turning to face us, “so I thought I would try the new weed killer and… gracious heavens!”

Hannah has always been the nervous type, and her reaction to the situation was pure nerves.  So startled was she at the sight of little green Xan that she aimed the hose, with weed killer attachment, straight at him and in her shock let him have it full blast.  And bless me if she didn’t save us both, and the entire human population to boot!  This unexpected onslaught caused Xan to release his mind control hold on me, and I was all set to tackle him,  but it proved unnecessary.  He suddenly just went all limp and sort of brown, and slowly wilted to the ground, “like a great big dandelion” according to Hannah.  No wonder the creature had not been concerned about any of our standard weapons – he and his whole confounded race were nothing but animated plant life!

So there’s my story, make of it what you will.  No doubt you probably think it’s just a lot of malarkey, and I can’t say as I blame you.  Hannah and I scarcely believe it all happened ourselves.  It is possible, as some of our more tactful friends had hinted, that the whole thing could have been a shared hallucination brought on by our precipitate plunge into the unaccustomed isolation of country life.  The only thing they can’t explain is that lump of decaying vegetation over by the fence there.  I sent a sample to our county extension agent, by the way, who declared that it was the most unusual botanical specimen he had ever encountered, although unfortunately far too decomposed to make any sort of identification possible.  He even asked us to send any fresh specimens we happened to come across – heaven forbid!

Anyway, all of this finally brings us to that little investment Hannah and I made with our savings.  You see, that obscure little chemical company we bought shares in is the one that makes the weed killer Hannah was using on that memorable day.  Say what you will, that weed killer is damn good stuff, as we ought to know, and we’ve never regretted our investment for a single minute!

The End
Original story for Walpurgis Night (4/30/13)

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The Sea Creature

“I wouldn’t be telling you this story if I wasn’t so damned drunk,” the old man confided to me over his beer.  We had been sitting side by side at the bar for over four hours, steadily downing beers until it almost became a sort of competition between us.  I was attempting to drown my sorrow over a disappointment in love; I didn’t know then what he was trying to forget.

“Forty years ago I was a young graduate student studying marine biology,” he continued, musingly rubbing a grubby hand over the stubble on his chin.  “You wouldn’t think it to look at me now, but at the time I was considered a most promising young scientist.  I had what it took – an inquiring mind, complete objectivity, and the discipline to examine a question thoroughly from all angles, no matter how long it took.  My professors were so impressed with me that they decided to include me on a summer expedition to South America to explore the waters off the coast.  There had been reports of a recent upwelling from the ocean floor in this area, and it was thought that these rising currents might sweep some previously unseen denizens of the deep up to the surface.

The trip down was pleasant and uneventful.  The group of seven scientists that I was accompanying had chartered a good-sized boat and crew, and it seemed that no expense had been spared.  All of the latest equipment had been brought aboard and carefully set up, and a team of competent technicians was hired to assist us.  There were even a ship’s doctor and a professional cook on board, to ensure our complete physical comfort.  The expedition promised to be a landmark experience in my budding career, and so it was, but not al all in the way I thought it would.  I wish to God that I had never gone…

The weather was favorable and we reached the site of the upwelling in record time.  As soon as we arrived, Dr. Alderson, the organizer of the expedition, ordered a team into scuba gear and over the side to reconnoiter.  I was one of this team, and my eagerness and enthusiasm as I entered the water knew no bounds.  We had been warned to stay out of the current of the upwelling itself, and to simply survey the area and keep an eye out for any unusual fauna.  Almost immediately we were in luck.  One of the team members began gesticulating excitedly, and swam rapidly away from the group.  The rest of us followed, and we soon saw the cause of his excitement.  Half a dozen fish of a deep sea species known only from a few incomplete specimens swam before us, still alive but obviously on the point of death, the sudden decrease in pressure already proving fatal to them.  I remember reaching out and touching one as it floated listlessly by me, feeling a sudden pang of pity for the dumb creature that had been forced so brutally from its calm life in the deep to an agonizing death at the ocean’s surface.

This touch of compassion was only momentary, however, and I was soon engaged with the others in netting two of the fish to take back to the boat.  A special pressurized chamber had been designed and installed on our vessel.  Any unusual specimens found were to be captured and transported as quickly as possible to this chamber, to minimize any damage caused by the sudden pressure change and to keep any creatures alive as long as possible for study.  Unfortunately, both of the fish died only a few hours after their capture.  Nevertheless, even as preserved specimens much could be learned from our find.  We had been remarkably successful on our first day, and spirits were high as we congratulated each other on a job well done.  Scientists and crew alike were fascinated by our unusual catch, and all looked forward to more important discoveries in the days ahead.

The next ten days brought no new discoveries, however.  We prowled the ocean ceaselessly, watching the upwelling current for any new creatures, but to no avail.  Although the current was very strong, it was a very narrow one, and I suppose the chance of anything running into it was rather small.  We had been very lucky to be successful on our first day; nevertheless, the disappointment of no further finds was very keen.  We had another week to continue with our observations, but after that we would be obliged to return to the States.  Our initial high spirits were dampened considerably, but on the eleventh day came a find so unexpected and peculiar that at once all disappointment was forgotten.

We were in the habit of patrolling the area in two teams of four, in four-hour shifts from daybreak until the last rays of the sun had sunk beneath the horizon.  The first shift of the morning had the first bit of luck.  Another specimen of the same fish species we had found on the first day was captured, and this specimen was fairly healthy.  Apparently it had not been in the upwelling for very long, and had not yet suffered much damage from the change in pressure.  We hastily placed the fish in our pressurized chamber and had high hopes about getting some observations on this specimen before it, like the previous two, succumbed to its alien environment.  After this find, however, nothing else was seen in the upwelling, and once again our optimism began to flag.

About an hour before dusk on that fateful day, my team was out once again, swimming about the upwelling rather halfheartedly, tired from the day’s work and all but convinced that our efforts would be fruitless.  The leader of our team, Dr. Richards, had just decided to cut our shift short and was signaling to the rest of us to surface, when off to my left I saw an amazing sight.  It was a creature so different from anything I had ever seen that at first I believed it to be a mere figment of my overtired brain.  It was quite large, over three feet in length, and horseshoe-shaped.  The boy of the thing was flattened except for the two ends, which were inflated and rounded, about the size of a man’s head.  The color was a dark blue streaked with grey and black, and from each end an opalescent mass protruded from fist-sized holes.  It did not appear to be swimming, merely floating, and from where I was I could not tell if it was alive or dead.

Gesturing wildly to my fellow team members, I swam as fast as I could toward the creature.  Soon the four of us had the thing netted and were hurrying back to the ship, being as careful as possible not to damage it.  When we lifted it out of the water, however, the extruded opalescent masses were withdrawn into the holes at each end, and we all let out a cry of exhilaration at the sight.  We were all hoping that, once in the pressure chamber, the creature would be able to survive and more intensive studies could be conducted.

Our find was surprisingly heavy, and it took all four members of our team to lift it out of the water.  The body was hard and shell-like, and its weight was such as to suggest that this shell was quite thick.  We carried the creature quickly and carefully to the room containing our pressurized chamber.  The chamber had been hastily divided into two compartments by the technicians so that the creature, if it was still alive, would not damage the specimen we had collected that morning.  As we released it into its chamber, the strange creature slowly sank to the bottom and came to rest.

At first all eight of us sat around the window to the chamber, watching and waiting eagerly to see if the creature would once again extrude the gelatinous masses we had seen earlier.  Dr. Alderson gave it as his opinion that our find was some species of mollusk, totally unrelated to any species with which he was familiar.  He and Dr. Hoffmann, another highly respected marine biologist with an interest in malacology, began a perfunctory argument over the probability of the thing belonging to an entirely new order, but the focus of everyone’s attention was the motionless creature in the chamber.  The dinner hour arrived, and a member of the crew came to fetch us.  Several left the room, but the rest of us doggedly remained.  Our patience was rewarded.

Slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity, the masses at either end began to emerge.  We watched in breathless silence as these masses started to pulsate, and suddenly the creature was swimming, or rather floating, about mid-level in the tank.  Initially the two ends with the protruding masses were oriented toward us, which was the direction in which the creature had come to rest on the bottom.  Soon, however, it began to turn to the right, where the divider separating the chamber in half was located.  With a gentle undulating movement, the thing began to move toward this divider.  It did not slacken its speed even when it came into contact with the barrier, but instead seemed to be attempting to push through.  The transparent divider was perforated rather than entirely solid, so that the water from the two halves of the chamber intermixed freely.  With a sudden exclamation, Dr. Richards declared, “I believe the creature is after our other specimen!”

This did indeed seem to be the case.  Frustrated in its attempt to push through the barrier, the strange mollusk began to creep along its surface in the direction of our fish specimen.  Once directly across from it, the creature again tried to force itself through the barrier, without success.  I remarked with interest that the fish on the other sided showed no discernible reaction to the mollusk.  Dr. Alderson opined that the trauma suffered by the fish in its rise from the deep with the upwelling had probably rendered it insensible to any potential danger, while the mollusk’s tough outer shell may have protected it from severe damage.  The other members of the expedition had returned by now, and a rather heated discussion was begun on how to prevent our new find from damaging itself in its struggles to cross the barrier.  It did not seem to comprehend the impenetrability of the divider, and its attempts appeared to be becoming more strenuous.

In the end, we decided to do nothing.  There seemed to be nothing we could do, short of giving our fish specimen to the creature.  Neither one would probably survive the trip anyway, but at least we could keep both alive for as long as possible for observation, which we decided to conduct continuously.  Each of us volunteered for a shift, and then returned to our normal tasks.

Over the next several days, the creature continued its attempts to cross the divider, never stopping to rest or slackening its struggle in any way.  The fish, on the other hand, visibly appeared to be weakening.  Finally, on the fifth day, the fish died.  The mollusk’s reaction to this event was abrupt and unexpected.  It simply fell from the side of the barrier to the bottom of the chamber, the opalescent masses once again retracted.  After two days it still lay where it had fallen, and we concluded that it too had died.

The time allotted for our expedition was up, and we began the journey back home.  We had discovered no new specimens, but our peculiar find more than compensated for this disappointment.  It was Dr. Michaels, the physiologist, who suggested that we dissect the creature on the ship.  We still had about five days before we reached our destination, the water was relatively calm, and we had all the equipment and instruments we needed.  Drs. Hoffmann and Cumberland objected, stating that a find of this importance demanded a more carefully controlled and fully outfitted setting, but the rest of us, in our seal for more knowledge about the animal, overruled them, and we set about preparing for the dissection.

I was to assist Dr. Santiago in removing the creature from the chamber and setting it up on the dissecting table so that he and Dr. Michaels could perform the dissection early on the following day.  Accordingly, at seven o’clock the next morning, Dr. Santiago and I carefully netted the thing up and, with the assistance of a special pulley rigged up by the technicians, got it out of the tank and onto a sturdy gurney.  We were about to wheel it off to the dissecting room when Dr. Santiago discovered that he had forgotten the keys to the room.  Telling me to stay with the animal until he returned, he left to get the key from Dr. Michaels.

Not more than a minute after he left, one of the crew members entered the chamber room.  I recognized him as Henley, and greeted him cheerfully.  Henley had an inordinate and almost childlike interest in the creatures of the sea, and we had struck up a friendship when he asked me to teach him “some of them fancy science names you doctors is always spoutin’ off when you see them things”.  All of the crew had sneaked in for a peak at the curiosities we had managed to find on our expedition, but Henley was truly fascinated by them.  He asked me if he could take a closer look at the thing on the gurney, and, warning him to be very careful, I gave him permission.  As he examined it solemnly from all sides, I glanced down to make a few observations in my notebook.  While I wrote I could hear Henley muttering remarks to himself.  All of a sudden, he called out, “Hey, Doc Bowers, what’s this here thing?”

I looked up from my notebook, about to admonish Henley yet again for addressing me as a “Doctor” when I had not yet earned that title, when he let out a yell of pain and surprise and I saw him jerk back from the gurney.  To my horror, I saw that the first joint of his right index finger was firmly clamped in the opalescent mass in one of the ends of the creature.  Henley screamed again and called for me to get the thing off of him.  I was in a panic; I had no idea how to extricate his finger from the creature, and it was obvious that Henley was in tremendous pain.  For lack of a better weapon, I stuck the end of my pen into the gelatinous mass and was aghast to see that my pen was irremovably clasped in the mass as well.

At that moment Dr. Santiago returned with Dr. Michaels, and the three of us struggled without success to detach the creature from Henley.  Dr. Michaels tried to cut into the creature with a scalpel, but this too was tightly held in the mass.  Others began to arrive, but their efforts were also in vain.  Attempts to cut through the body of the creature with an axe were useless; the shell was too thick.  Injections were impossible, and we were afraid to throw acids or other chemicals onto the now rigid mass for fear of injuring Henley.  Almost half an hour had passed, and Dr. Michaels began to whisper urgently to us that amputation of the finger joint might be necessary, when suddenly Henley let out a wail and staggered back across the room.

Immediately Henley was rushed to the ship’s tiny sick bay, still screaming with pain.  The medical doctor on board, Dr. Lewis, examined the afflicted finger.  Aside from a slight swelling and several small puncture wounds like pinpricks, there appeared to be very little damage.  Henley was still moaning, however, and told Dr. Lewis that, although abated somewhat, the pain was still noticeable.  Dr. Lewis, fearful that the creature was perhaps venomous and that the poison would have no known antidote, anxiously requested the ship’s captain to contact the authorities to have Henley transported to the nearest hospital.

With all of the pandemonium created by the creature’s attack on Henley, all thought of dissecting the creature was forgotten.  Indeed, it now seemed unlikely that any of our instruments would have been able to penetrate the tough outer covering of the thing anyway.  A few of the scientists dumped it rather unceremoniously back into its chamber, where it lay immobile and inactive for the rest of the trip.

Two hours after the attack on him, Henley had quieted down considerably.  The pain appeared to have lessened, but Henley now complained of a slight itching in his hand, particularly the wounded finger.  A few minutes later a helicopter arrived to take Henley to a Latin American hospital, and I requested permission to accompany him.  I felt responsible for his predicament, as I had been the one to allow him to approach the loathsome creature, and there was also the consideration that it would not be right to leave him in a foreign country by himself in his uncertain condition.  Accordingly, I flew with him and checked into a hotel close to the hospital where he was taken.

Henley had been given a sedative for the trip to the mainland, and its effects did not wear off until about eight o’clock that night.  I had spotted by the hospital half an hour earlier, and was just about to leave his room when I heard him groaning.  I approached his bed anxiously.

“Henley, are you all right?  Should I call the nurse?” I asked him.  He did not appear to hear me, but began writhing and tossing in the bed.  His groans became louder and soon he began to shout, at first incoherently, and then in short sentences.

“Make them stop!  Oh, how it hurts!  I can’t stand it, make them stop!” Henley repeated these words over and over, and I rushed to find the nurse.  She hurried back into the room with me, and tried to calm Henley, but his thrashings had become violent now, and we were forced to get more help.  Several orderlies entered the room and held the poor man down, but the pain was apparently so great now that Henley was in the throes of a fit.  Medication was administered and the doctor examined Henley carefully, but he was completely mystified as to the source of Henley’s pain.  An entire battery of tests were being run, the doctor told me, but thus far nothing had been found.  There was no trace of any type of poison in his system, and no known viral, bacterial, or fungal infection had been discovered.  The only anomaly was a slight viscosity of the blood, but this was most likely due to dehydration and Henley was on intravenous fluids for this.  We puzzled a bit over Henley’s reference to “them”, but decided that he had merely been delirious and dismissed his words as meaningless ravings.

Henley’s condition had worsened considerably by the next morning.  He was being kept sedated continuously now, as he became uncontrollably violent whenever he was conscious.  He was also receiving potent painkillers intravenously because his suffering was so acute that even under sedation he writhed in agony.  The entire hospital staff was at a loss to know how to treat his condition.  Though the hospital was not a large one, the doctors were highly trained and competent, and were unquestionably administering the best possible care.  One doctor desperately suggested exploratory surgery, but another one impatiently snapped back, “For what?”  It was not even clear what type of specialist, if any, should be called in to examine him.  Finally it was decided that Henley must be flown to one of the larger hospitals in the States, and that as quickly as possible.

Once again I accompanied poor Henley, this time with a medical team in constant attendance.  His pain was by now so acute that even painkillers could not keep him lying quietly, and he was strapped down to the bed in which he was transported.  I was not permitted to ride in the same compartment with him, but even so I could hear his terrible moans and the voices of the doctor and nurse as they attempted to calm him.

By the time Henley had been checked in to a hospital in Texas it was clear that a crisis had been reached.  He was no longer violent, and appeared in fact to have lost consciousness entirely.  Worse yet, his once strong and powerful frame seemed to have shrunken into itself, and his skin was a ghastly grey in color.  The doctors despaired of any recovery, and merely gave him enough medication to let him rest comfortably until the end.  They did not have long to wait.

I had been allowed to sit with Henley as he lay dying, since he was beyond the point of being dangerous to anyone now although I was instructed not to touch him or approach too closely.  At a little before eleven o’clock, less than two days after he had been attacked by the horrible sea creature, Henley died.  I was by his side, and saw his body stiffen as the end came.  To my indescribable horror, I also saw something else.  At the moment of Henley’s death, I noticed a strange movement just underneath his skin.  Suddenly, his skin began to erupt in tiny boils, and then the boils burst open to reveal tiny, opalescent, almost transparent threads.  I had buzzed for a nurse when I saw that Henley was near death, but when she entered the room and began to approach his bed, I grabbed her arm wildly and shouted, “Don’t go near him, for God’s sake, unless you want to die like he did!”

I had told the doctors at both hospitals assigned to Henley’s case the history of his condition, and had emphasized the fact that the creature that had attacked Henley was totally unknown to science and could therefore have afflicted the poor man with something untraceable by any known medical procedures.  Henley’s rooms had been quarantined, and only authorized personnel had been permitted entrance.  This made the next task slightly easier.  Wearing protective covering and cautiously approaching the bed, and without touching directly the body the doctor and I removed Henley’s remains to an airtight body bag, which was then removed and cremated.  His next of kin were merely told that Henley had contracted an exceedingly dangerous contagious disease, and for that reason the body could not be returned to them.

It had seemed to me that the tiny threadlike masses had expired upon contact with the air – they had not doubt been expecting seawater.  Nonetheless, the bed and bedding from Henley’s room were burned, and the room was thoroughly fumigated as well as disinfected.  No other cases similar to Henley’s have been reported, so it would seem that the horrible creatures were completely destroyed.

And what about the original?  About a month after Henley’s death, I hear from Dr. Michaels.  He had taken charge of the creature upon the expedition’s return to the States.  After hearing my story of Henley’s end, Dr. Michaels had taken extreme caution in ensuring the creature’s demise.  Perhaps the thing was already dead by the time it arrived in the States, or it could have been killed by the concentrated formalin treatment to which Michaels subjected it.  At any rate, it was dead and Michaels, dedicated scientist that he was, decided to go ahead with the dissection.  When the creature was, after much difficulty, finally opened up, there was really not much in the interior to see.  Dr. Michaels informed me that there was no digestive system, no circulatory system, no internal structures at all, except for thousands and thousands of tiny egg sacs, each with a small needlelike appendage at one end.”

The old man rubbed his bleary eyes, which were wet with tears.  “Don’t you see the irony of it?  Here we were, eight scientists with years of collective experience among us, and yet we couldn’t recognize a simple parasite when we found it!  We assumed that the monstrous creature had tried to reach our fish specimen because it was hungry, when all it wanted was a host in which to deposit its eggs.  All ships were warned away from the area of that cursed upwelling, but a few months later the current stopped as abruptly as it had started, and now almost nobody remembers exactly where the site was.”  Heaving a sigh, the old man said, “I had to give up any idea of pursuing a career in marine biology, of course.  I have a morbid fear of the ocean now, or any body of water as a matter of fact, and the mere sight of a snail makes me shudder.  And I can’t forget poor Henley.”

Downing the last of his beer, the old man turned his ravaged and haunted face in my direction.  “You look like a sea-faring fellow, son.  Take my advice and stay away from the waters off the South American coast.  Hell, get yourself a nice, safe land job and keep away from the water entirely!  The sea and her creatures will always be a mystery to land-dwellers like us – a cold, cruel mystery we would all do best to avoid.”  And with a final despairing shake of his head, the old man slid clumsily off of his stool, made his unsteady way to the door, and walked out into the night.

The End
Original story for Halloween (10/31/13)

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The Well

“I expect you’d like to see where it happened?”

With a guilty start, Robert turned to face his interrogator.  At eleven years of age, he was well aware of trespassing and its consequences, and, judging from the gruff, quavering voice that addressed him, Robert fully expected to be confronted by the glowering frown of some grizzled old groundskeeper.  Instead, to his relief, Robert found himself meeting the rather vacant, blue-eyed gaze of a frail-looking elderly lady.  Dressed in a long, old-fashioned black dress, she was tiny and bent, her gnarled and shriveled fingers clutching a thin black cane.  A network of fine wrinkles covered her face, and patches of delicate pink scalp were faintly visible through the wispy locks of fluffy white hair.

Relaxing a little, Robert gave her his most innocent look and asked, “Then this is really Langley Manor?” knowing perfectly well that it was.  Years of experience with grandmothers and great-aunts had taught him that elderly women were particularly susceptible to the charms of boyish innocence, and he made a special effort to look convincing in this case, as the history of the place interested him enormously.

With a lady-like sniff, the old woman replied huffily, “Of course this is Langley Manor!  There isn’t a grander estate within fifty miles, as any fool could tell you.”  Then, softening a little, she repeated in a more genial tone, “And now, boy, would you like to see where it happened?”

Robert hesitated.  His parents were constantly warning him about the dangers of talking to strangers.  He glanced uncertainly at the big wrought iron gates through which he had crawled from the main road.  It really was a very isolated spot, and he had, of course, told no one where he was going.  Even so, as Robert took another look at the tiny old lady, he told himself that she was an unlikely-looking criminal.  Why, she was barely more than an inch or two taller than he, and probably weighed somewhat less.  Surely he, a strong, active, healthy boy, had no need to fear her?  His eagerness to learn more about the sinister mystery of Langley Manor finally overrode any pangs of conscience that remained.  In eager tones, he answered, “Oh, yes, please, ma’am, if I could!”

With a half-amused smile, she gave a little nod and said, “Very well, then.  Come with me.”  The old woman caught his wrist in a grip of surprising strength and led the way slowly down a grassy, neglected path.  “You may call me Mrs. Wilton, boy.  And what might your name be?”

“It’s Robert, Mrs. Wilton,” he replied, attempting as politely as possible to free himself from her grasp.

“Robert?”  Her odd gaze rested for a moment on his face in a troubled manner.  “That was his name, you know.”

“Was it really?”  Robert was terribly excited.  Perhaps this other Robert had been involved in the mystery of the manor.  Although he had heard vague rumors about some tragedy that had occurred at Langley Manor, he had been unable to find anyone to tell him the tale.  Presumably it was not fit for childish ears, and therefore all adults, when questioned, were reluctant even to admit having heard it.  Robert and his parents were only to be in town for another two weeks, staying at the home of a distant relatives while they were away in Europe.  Robert had despaired of ever discovering just what the dark and sinister event at Langley Manor had been, and for this reason had decided upon the rather hopeless plan of entering the grounds to look for some evidence of the secret.  Now, it seemed, if he were very careful and clever, he might actually be able to wheedle the whole story out of feeble Mrs. Wilton.

Robert was shrewd enough to know that the situation required delicate handling.  If he appeared too eager to learn the secret of the manor, Mrs. Wilton might suddenly recall that the story was considered unsuitable for children.  Therefore, in an almost nonchalant voice, Robert merely observed, “It must have happened an awfully long time ago.”

Mrs. Wilton, staring vaguely up the path, replied mildly, “I suppose forty-five years seems long ago to you, my boy, but I was a relatively young woman then, and it seems like only yesterday to me.  Married only a year, I was, and already with a dear baby son.  How I thought the world of my little Evan, God rest his soul… he died a year later, you know, of rheumatic fever.”  She paused, tears glistening in her eyes.  Then, blinking the tears away, she continued, “Robert was very fond of Evan too.  Even though he was only ten, he was ever so gentle and patient with his little half-brother.  Always asking to hold him, or touch him, or play with him – how his father and I laughed to see him care for Evan so tenderly!  You see, Robert was my husband’s son by a previous marriage.  John, my husband, had lost his first wife three years earlier, and Robert was their only child.  Robert was terribly broken up by the loss of his mother.  I don’t think he ever fully accepted me as his stepmother until Evan was born.  Robert became so protective of his baby half-brother that my dear husband used to joke that Evan need have no worries for his future, as Robert’s mother left all of her considerable fortune in trust for her only son.  John was comfortably well off, but he wasn’t really wealthy.  Robert, on the other hand, upon reaching the age of twenty-one, would be a millionaire many times over.”

Mrs. Wilton paused in her relation of family history to look absently at the boy by her side.  Robert fought to hide his impatience.  Was there any connection between her story and the secret he longed to know, or was the old woman merely rambling?  Hoping to get Mrs. Wilton’s thoughts back to the Langley Manor mystery, Robert asked, seemingly out of polite curiosity, “Is it very far to the spot, Mrs. Wilton?”

At the sound of his voice, the old woman appeared bewildered.  “Why no, Robert, it’s just at the end of this path.”  Her voice sounded surprised.  “The old well, you know.”  Then she looked at him again and shook her head.  “Oh, but of course you don’t know.  You’ve never been here before.”

Ignoring her momentary confusion, Robert asked, “Were you here when it happened?”

A curious look crossed her face.  “I certainly was, young Robert, I certainly was.  And if anyone knows the whole truth of the matter, it is I.”  Staring up the path again, Mrs. Wilton reverted back to her original story.  “The year before Evan died, my husband’s fortunes took a turn for the worse.  He did his best to assure me that our setback was only temporary, and that we would be able to ride out our sudden loss of funds with prudence and frugality until everything had been set right again.  I was worried nonetheless, and asked John if we might possibly borrow against Robert’s trust fund, the money to be repaid as soon as we were financially able to do so.  This John declared to be impossible, he being unable to touch the money his wife had left for her son’s inheritance.”

Mrs. Wilton gave her companion a perturbed glance.  “Poor little Robert was very upset about all of this.  He had a general idea that he had quite a lot of money in the bank, and could not understand why he could not give some of it to his father if he wanted.  As the weeks went by, it became more and more obvious that our money worries would continue for a longer period than even John had anticipated.  The atmosphere in the house was strained, and tempers flared.  John became sullen, I tearful, and sweet, gentle Robert crept about the house as timidly as a mouse, frightened at this sudden change he could not understand.  Even baby Evan was unnaturally quiet, as though fearful of provoking a scene, and the servants kept out of the way as much as possible.  And then one day, Robert disappeared.”

As Mrs. Wilton paused again in her story, Robert’s heart gave a hopeful leap.  Was this finally the secret he had been waiting to hear?  He wished Mrs. Wilton’s memory would cease to wander as it seemed to do; right now she was staring at him as though seeing him for the first time.  Once again turning an innocent gaze upon the old lady, Robert urged, “Oh, please finish your story, ma’am.  What became of the little boy?”

“Yes, Robert, yes, I will finish.”  A sudden urgency filled the woman’s voice, as if recounting the end of the story were of the utmost importance to her.  “A search was begun for the boy immediately.  At first our efforts were unsuccessful, and a kidnapping was feared.  The police were informed and a more thorough search was conducted.  The next day, our unfortunate Robert was found.”  The old lady stopped again, but before the boy by her side could comment, she exclaimed, “Ah, here we are.  See, just ahead, that pile of stones?  It surrounds the old well where the poor fellow drowned.”

This revelation surpassed all of Robert’s hopes.  To actually see the spot where a mysterious death had occurred was far more than he had expected.  He fought down the urge to leave Mrs. Wilton’s side and dash to the well, so that he might hear the rest of her story.

“No one knew why Robert had come to the well, or how he had met his death.  He had often been warned to keep away from the spot, as it was dangerous, and being an obedient child Robert had never disobeyed.  There was no evidence of foul play, and no injuries save those incurred in falling down the well.  Naturally, all sorts of rumors flew at first.  Some of the servants even speculated that Robert, becoming concerned about his father’s financial situation, had committed suicide so that John would have the use of the trust fund.  It was true that Robert was a sensitive child, and that he had appeared terribly depressed at the time, but the idea of suicide seemed quite unlikely.  After all, he was only a child, and no one could say for certain that he understood the significance of his trust fund anyway.  Even more cruel were the suggestions that John or I had done away with the boy for the same motive.”

Mrs. Wilton’s faded blue eyes once again blurred with tears.  “I remember John coming into my dressing room to break the news of those rumors to me.  He was so kind and considerate, choosing his words so carefully to soften their effects upon my feelings.  He also assured me that all of the rumors about the trust fund were totally absurd.  According to John, the money did not come to him at all, but went, along with Langley Manor, to his first wife’s next of kin.  You see, Langley Manor had belonged to Robert’s mother’s family, not my husband’s.  At John’s insistence, his first wife had left all of her property to her own blood relatives rather than to him.  The only one to gain by Robert’s death was her nephew, a young man of eighteen who lived several hundred miles away and could have had no part in Robert’s death.”

By this time the two of them had reached the well.  Even as he listened to Mrs. Wilton’s tale, Robert kept casting furtive glances at the scene of the tragedy.  He longed to get closer, and to look down into the dark depths of the pit.  However, Mrs. Wilton had not yet finished her story, and he forced himself to stay by her side until she had had her say.

“The coroner finally ruled Robert’s death an accident, based upon the evidence at hand.  I was not present at the inquest, having been in poor health ever since the day John had come to break the news of the rumors to me.  Two weeks later, John’s finances began to improve, just as he had predicted, but this did little to cheer us.  It had been decided that Robert’s cousin, Stewart Langley, would not claim Langley Manor until he was twenty-one, and we were kindly allowed to stay on until then if we wished.  John was tempted to move away from the scene of our recent tragedy, but at about that time Evan became ill, and we feared to move him.”  Tears now coursed down the delicate network of wrinkles on the old woman’s cheeks as she whispered, “Less than a year later, Evan was dead.  After that, my husband became withdrawn and morose, and I could do nothing to rouse him.  He committed suicide several months later, and I became a widow.”

The old lady had been gently propelling Robert toward the well the whole time she was relating the end of this tragic story.  Now they stood side by side at its edge, and her sad blue eyes gazed down upon him with a queer look.  “Stewart Langley moved into Langley Manor, and he invited me to remain in my old home unless I had other plans.  As I had nowhere else to go and only a small income to live upon, I remained.  Stewart has been quite kind to me, and I have lived here quietly ever since.  And now, Robert, you must look into the well.”

Robert looked up at her in surprise.  Although this was what he had been secretly longing to do the whole time, her insistence upon it was unexpected.  Most adults, he felt, would have hustled him away, declaring the spot to be too dangerous for a child considering what had happened once before.  He wondered why the well had not been sealed up, then noticed a heavy, round wooden cover lying on the ground beside the well.  For some reason, the cover had been removed.

Robert realized that this might be his only chance to see into the well.  Whoever had removed the cover would probably remember this oversight and return to rectify it the next day.  Nevertheless, he hesitated.  Again he remarked the loneliness of the spot, especially now as the sun began to set and long shadows from ancient trees stretched upon the ground about him.  Mrs. Wilton stood patiently by his side, smiling gently at him and giving him small encouraging nods.  Well, Robert thought to himself, if she thinks it’s all right, I suppose there’s no harm in just peeping over the edge for a moment.

Shrugging off the vague uneasiness that had momentarily assailed him, Robert took a couple of steps closer to the well and peered cautiously over.  It was quite dark in the pit, and impossible to see anything.  Robert leaned over a little farther, in hopes of penetrating the gloom.  So intent was he upon this, that he barely felt the head of the thin black cane as it came down between his shoulders, of the shove of those surprisingly strong old hands as they sent him tumbling into the depths of the black well.

“You shouldn’t have come back, Robert,” murmured the old lady softly.  “You have thwarted me at every step since the day I pushed you into this well forty-five years ago.  First the money, then my baby, and finally my husband… all your doing, Robert.  They should never have removed your body from this well.  I knew you would come back for me one day, and I have been waiting.  Now you have returned to the well, and I am safe.”

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

“Well, there you are, Aunt Millie!  We were beginning to worry about you,” Stewart Langley exclaimed as his aunt approached him out of the darkness in the entry hall of the manor.  “You shouldn’t go roaming about the grounds by yourself for hours like that.  What if something should happen to you?  Why, Aunt Millie, where is your cane?”

Old Mrs. Wilton looked up at her nephew-in-law with affection in her faded blue eyes.  “I am afraid I lost it in the woods, Stewart dear.  I somehow strayed from the path and became quite lost.  In my panic I suppose I dropped my cane.  Fortunately, I found the path again, and made my way back home.”

Stewart hurried to his aunt’s side.  “My dear, I simply cannot allow you to wander about like this any longer!  From now on you must ask one of the gardeners to accompany you.  I should never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”  He paused, and then added in a worried tone, “You haven’t been down to the old well again, have you?”

When she did not reply, Stewart continued in a more authoritative manner, “Aunt Millie, I have quite made up my mind that the well will be filled in.  The thing is dangerous, and should have been dealt with years ago.  You do understand, don’t you?”

To his surprise, Mrs. Wilton replied quite agreeably, “Do as you like, dear boy, do as you like.  I shall no longer visit the well.  Robert will never return to me now.  If you don’t mind, Stewart, I think I will go to my room.  I have had an exhausting day and wish to retire early.”

The hallway was too dark for Stewart to notice the cunning and satisfied look on his old aunt’s face as she passed him.

Later that evening, Stewart Langley remarked to his wife, “I do believe Aunt Millie is improving.  You know how vehemently she has opposed filling in the old well where my cousin Robert drowned all these years ago.  It was all I could do to get her to allow me to cover it over.  Poor Aunt Millie, I think she still expected little Robert to return to her from that well and did not want his means of escape blocked.  Well, today she told me that she is sure Robert will never return.  Poor old dear; how sad it must be for her to give up hope like that!  Still, she did not seem overly downcast.  It is fortunate that this improvement should come now.  I had quite made up my mind to have the well filled in.  The workmen were out today to have a look, and will be back first thing in the morning to do the job.  I hope they remembered to cover the well when they left this afternoon.  Oh well, I suppose it doesn’t matter; after tomorrow morning I will never have to worry about that old well again.”

The End
Original story for Walpurgis Night (4/30/14)

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