Endings and Beginnings

I never imagined that writing a book would be the end of me. The idea came to me as I awoke from the most frightening nightmare I’d ever had in my thirty years. Most of the details were fuzzy, but I remembered that the girl in my dream had unwittingly become a conduit to the Netherworld, and she was about to become the doorway into our world. I couldn’t remember what she’d done for this to happen, but since I woke trying to scream, shivering and sweating, I knew it would be a best seller, if I could just convey the feeling of terror it had given me.

Going to work on the novel proved fairly easy, as horror is my normal genre. I fleshed out my character, and knew her intimately, but I was stumped on the how…as in ‘how could this have happened without her knowing’? I went in old bookstores, puttered around antique shops and visited cemeteries to see if I could find any inspiration. I took a few road trips to some purportedly haunted places. None of it helped. This went on for weeks. I was frustrated, losing weight and not sleeping well. I thought if I could get back to the dream somehow, I might be able to figure out the how, but I couldn’t seem to reach REM sleep at all.

Late one night, as I sat at my computer trying desperately to get the words to come, I felt a tingling in my fingertips as they rested against the keys. Suddenly, they were moving on their own, typing words that made no sense to me whatsoever. I couldn’t stop, try as I might, and I wasn’t certain I wanted to, even though I felt horrified at having no control over my own body. I typed for what seemed like hours, unable to move from my chair or look away from the monitor. Just before dawn, I was released from my paralysis, and stumbled to bed, passing into a deep slumber. I awoke to find myself sitting at the computer again, reading the last of the words I had typed aloud.

~Aaaaaaaaaaaah.” A deep sigh echoed in my mind. “At last.” The voice was deep and gravelly.

“Who…what…”

A dark chuckle tickled my synapses. “You followed orders very well, little slave. Went to all the proper places, so I could gather the spiritual essence I needed to open the door. I’ve been waiting a very long time for the right candidate. Then you came along, your tender mind so open and easy to claim.”

The terror from my dream shot through me, and now I could remember what the girl had done…especially since the girl was me. I whimpered, shaking my head. The evil laughter came again.

“Tonight, as the moon rises full, so shall I rise through you. After I enter the world, you shall be my…companion…for all time.”

The moon has risen just now. My story ends and His begins.

498 words {without title}
@Angelique_Rider

The Suspect
By Lisa McCourt Hollar

He never imagined the butler would be his greatest threat. Yeah, I see the smirk on your face. Let me explain.

My name is Sam Malone, Private Eye. Okay, quit laughing. I know I don’t look like your average private dick, but don’t let the lipstick and short skirt fool you. I can pound pavement along with the best of them and the legs get me in places other detectives can’t. In this case it was Packard’s Lounge. The butler answered the door on my first ring, took one look at what I was packing…. My 36 Double D’s.. He said Mr. Finch was expecting me. I didn’t find that hard to believe, I had been asking all over town about the man. Mainly I was spreading the word that he was a douche.

Trenton Finch sat behind a big mahogany desk, smoking a cigar. I got the impression the little guy was compensating for something.

“So, you’re Sammy Malone’s daughter. I knew your dad once upon a time.”

“If you knew my dad, then that makes you a bigger douche than I thought.”

He frowned. “So what is it I can do for you, Samantha… or do you go by Sammy?”

“Sam. Last person that called me Samantha is dead.”

“Oh, who’s that?”

“My dad.”

“I’d heard that you’d been his doer… wasn’t sure I believed it. “

“Tanya Davis.”

“Excuse me?”

“You asked what you could do for me. You can leave Tanya Davis alone.”

“I don’t believe…”

“You might know her as Roxy Devine.”

“Ah, yes, one of my most requested girls.”

“She’s not your girl.”

I bent over his desk, looking him in the eye. Trenton leaned forward so that his nose was pressed towards mine. It could have been very hot, if I didn’t find his breath so disgusting.

“I have a contract that says otherwise.”

“She wants out.”

He laughed, blowing his fetid breath up my nose. “And why would I let her go? She brings in quite a bit of money.”

“Because if you don’t I let everyone see these.” I tossed a manila envelope onto his desk. Looking at me, curious, Finch picked up the envelope and shook out the contents. They were all photos of Trenton dressed in drag.

“I don’t think you would appear to be such a tough guy once these got out.”

“It was then that I heard the sound of a gun cocking. I turned to see the butler sporting a very impressive piece. He shot the douche, right between the eyes.”

“I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“You killed him… in cold blood.”

“Look.” He nodded towards the desk. Trenton sagged to the side, a gun hanging limp in his hands.

“He was going to kill you.”

The police detective switched off the recorder. On the table were photos of Trenton Finch… minus most of his head.

“So, you seriously expect me to believe the butler did it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it always the butler?”

Word Count: 500
@jezri1

My Big Mouth

I never imagined that one throw away comment would be the beginning of the end of my boring life.

It was that idiot at the bar who started it, going on and on about how wonderful his new found friends, the fairies, were. He just wouldn't shut up, so of course that set the rest of them off. Brian started on about seeing a werewolf when he was younger, Pete and his old 'my neighbour is a vampire' story and of course Shelly dragged up how she was saved from a robber by a dragon!

God, my head was spinning, didn't they realise how mad they all sounded, I just couldn't take any more.

"Come on, you lot can't be serious. Let me spell it out for you. What your talking about is nonsense! There are no fairies, dragons, werewolves, vampires, gnomes, pixies, demons, devils or anything else your silly little brains can think up!".

Silence descended in the bar and I found all eyes on me.

"Don't look at me like that, you know deep down its true. Look, if any of these things exist then why don't they come on out, they should show themselves to us all, not just a select few. Let us embrace their lifestyle choices and have a party".

I only had time to down my beer before all hell broke loose.

Words 229
@lejamez

She never imagined her own humanity would be her undoing. This was her job, damn-it, and it made no sense that she couldn’t do it because of a single child. Hell, she’d devoured children before, had drank them down until they were nothing but hollow, empty shells with dead eyes who would never function again. Tanner touched her shoulder as she stared down at the boy who was idly playing with a set of Legos.

“Mrs. Richards?”

Her mouth trembled as she spoke. “I…I don’t think I can do it.” Her voice sounded so foreign to her, small, pathetic…weak.

“I understand how you feel. This child, he was born from parents who were members of the 77th test group in Nevada. Whatever drug they used on those people…their kids came out different. Kind of like the way we came out different. It’s their brain waves, Miranda. It makes us sympathetic to them. But that’s all, it’s not you…it’s them.” His hand gripped tighter on her shoulder. He needed her to do this, because he couldn’t do it, would never do it again.

She shook him off. “He’s just a kid, Joe!” She hissed. “There have to be other leads, other ways to get to his parents. There has to be some other way than this!”

Joe saw the look in her eye, knew exactly what it was she was a feeling. It was a sick sense of self, a harsh realization that they were in the fact the monsters, that they really weren’t helping anything or anyone. “You know they don’t call us in unless there is no other way. His parents were smart and very careful. They killed off anyone tied to them…blew up buildings just to get rid of tapes and evidence. I think they only reason they didn’t kill their son was because he was their son. In fact, our intel states that, had we been only a few minutes late, they wouldn’t have come to get the boy before we could ever had laid eyes on him.”

Miranda looked back at the small child. He couldn’t have been more than 5 years old with dark hair like his mother, and bright eyes like his father. He looked up at her then, feeling someone watching him. His eyes were large, impossibly so, and so damned innocent. He didn’t know what she was, what she was capable of. “Joe, someone else has to do this. I can’t do this.” Her hands began to shake, and she tightened them into a fist.

“Who then? Hobbs? Crascher? They don’t just eat these people, Miranda. They mutilate them.” He turned her to the kid, pushed her forward. “He’s got a better chance with you.”

The inside of her mouth turned sour as the boy looked up at her, smiled, held his hand out. “Do you want to play with me?” He asked happily.

She knelt down, her eyes bleeding from honeyed brown ink black wells. “Yes…yes let’s play a game.”

499 Words
@TheWriterMegan

Trusted Friend

I never imagined that my best friend would be my undoing. Everyone has a blind spot and he was mine. My wife warned me, but I would not listen. I had given him everything. Everything he had, he owed to me. Even when he opposed me, I forgave him. As I rose, he rose with me and now, on the brink of our greatest triumph, he turned against me. He waited patiently for me, though I was late and, as I approached, he smiled. I forgot, teeth are used more for biting than greeting. “Give me your hand, friend Brutus.”

100 words
@nickjohns999

She never imagined her own selfless actions would be her undoing. The familiar, elderly woman just needed twenty-two cents. The clerk, an older man with gray hair and thick glasses, was being a complete jerk, and he wouldn’t give her the carton of milk without it. And the woman, hobbling in on a cane and looking as if that milk may be the last thing she drank before she died, desperately needed it.

Jill tossed a quarter onto the counter, and the clerk looked to her angrily, plopped it into the drawer, and handed the elderly woman her receipt. She slapped it out of his hand and went on her way. Jill paid for her items—a pack of gum and a bottle of diet soda—with her credit card, scoffed at the clerk as he refused to even acknowledge her, and went on her way as well.

And then she missed the bus. Exasperated, she ran four blocks to the next stop, but when she reached into her pocket for change, she realized that she didn’t have enough. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she’d need that quarter. And the bus driver would not let her on without it. “Exact change only, no more, no less,” he said gruffly.

So she unhappily began the fifteen-block walk home. It was just one of those days.

It was well after seven when she arrived, and the row-house was dark. As she climbed the steps, fumbling for her keys and wondering where Jason could be, she looked down the block and realized where she’d recognized the old lady at the store. She would often see her outside her apartment down there with her dog, a Yorkie that yapped entirely too much. They’d made eye contact a few times.

Jill unlocked the door, went inside, and found her entire townhouse trashed. Her expensive lamps were shattered. Jason’s TV was pulled from the wall and impaled upon the small ivory statue of Venus in the corner. The upholstered antique chairs were ripped open. Everything had been destroyed. Everything!

“Jason,” she cried out, but the house was eerily silent.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number, but it rang straight to his voice mail. She hung up, fingers shaking, and had begun to dial 9-1-1, but a loud vehicle rumbled up the street behind her, making it impossible to complete her call.
She turned to see a dark van, its passenger-side window down and the sliding door open. She screamed when she saw Jason, tied and gagged, being held by two large, masked men. In the front seat, to her horror, sat the little old lady from the store—looking much more vivacious than before. And evil!

“One million dollars, Jill, or you never see him again. I know you have it. And I know you’ll give it, just like you gave me that quarter while I was just trying to distract you. We’ll call you in one hour. No police.”

500 words
@rastrohman