Henry and the Others

We all love a Ghost Story, don't we? I have been busy working on my NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge which I finally finished about an hour ago, 17 hours before the deadline. As I am unable to share this until such time as all entries are in and confirmation emails received, I thought I would share my spooky story written last term at College. I may not be close to that novel yet, but I could probably produce a book of short stories, thanks to Creative Writing and all who attend.

Henry and the Others

Ralph looked at the old house, he had passed it every day since mother bought it, but today he was moving in.  Mother had fallen in love with the dilapidated red-brick property with the fragile paned windows and had excitedly announced to Ralph and his father that this was her “project”.  Father did little to resist her determination and Ralph was in awe of the towering decrepit house.  He had only been once before and had stayed with Grandma whilst Mother began the renovation.

From the outside Ralph thought it to look exactly as before, this cheered him somewhat.  He stroked the intricately carved brass door-knocker and banged hard three times.  His mother appeared, flustered, happy, smeared with dust and shavings in her hair.  “Ralph, you’re here, why on earth are you knocking my dear boy? This is your home now, come in darling, come in”.

As Ralph made his way into the vast hall, he wondered what on earth his mother had been doing for the last eight weeks.  The entrance hall was roomy, airy and eerie.  Whilst the front door was now firmly shut an uneasy breeze blew down the hallway and grasped at Ralph with a chilly touch.  Its fingers circled around his body, tenderly fondling every inch of him as he huddled into his mother for warmth.

“Oh my sweet boy, come on in here where it’s warm” gathering him to her she lead him into the drawing room where a fire crackled and spat in the hearth.  The floors and surfaces became dustier, the floorboards creaked into life and there was torn paper hanging off the walls everywhere that Ralph looked.  The vintage furniture remained broken, unused, and superfluous. “Darling I have missed you.  We are going to have the best time.  Why don’t you take off your shoes and jacket and go and put them in your new bedroom.  Top of the stairs, third door on the right. There are clean pyjamas under your pillow”.

Ralph walked cautiously up the walnut swirling staircase, his footfall muffled by the threadbare carpet whose pattern had become obscure through dirt and wear.  He found his room instantly, it was exactly the same as it was in his other home, but bigger, much bigger.  His toys and models all had pride of place on the prodigious panelled shelving his father had so lovingly built, along with his toy box which sturdily sat beneath the sash window which was more bare rotting wood than white paint.  Ralph lead on his bed and drifted off to the muffled sounds of his mother fussing below.

Henry visited Ralph on his third night in the house.  After dinner, he returned to his bedroom and found Henry sat on his bed.  “Hello Ralph” he beamed up at the startled face before him.

“Who are you and what are you doing sat on my bed?” Ralph questioned.

Henry jumped up and stuck out an eager plump hand “I am Henry, it’s a pleasure to meet you Ralph”.

Ralph and Henry became firm friends and it was not too long afterwards that Henry introduced him to the others.  They would play together in the attic with its low beams and borrowed light, intermittent between the dusty gems. Every one of them had been stored in battered boxes and garbage sacks for later use or enjoyment. In truth, it was a graveyard for these treasures, a place for them to quietly die amongst the cobwebs, tainted by mildew and dankness.

This didn’t bother Henry and the others, they would while away the hours, scourging for forgotten riches, laughing and playing in clouds of dust, the occasional rat scurrying from a forgotten crevice.  Ralph excitedly told his mother about his new-found friends and she smiled, patted his head and whispered “that’s lovely Ralph, it’s nice you have made friends”.

“When is father coming” he asked.

“He will be with us soon Ralph, he just needs to tie-up some loose ends in the City” she mused.

This comforted Ralph, he missed his father and couldn’t wait for him to meet his friends.

It was a particularly cold autumn evening.  Ralph and his friends were housed deep within the rafters watching the rain falling in crazy chaotic drops, the gusting wind carrying them in wild vortices one moment and in diagonal sheets the next, banging against the lichen laden slates, causing them to clatter and shake.  Ralph giggled at the occasional droplet seeping through an exposed defect and landing on an oblivious Henry.

Through the vibrating voice of the rattling roof Ralph heard the crunch of tyres and jumped excitedly to his feet, standing on the tips of his toes so he could peer out of the attic window.

“It’s father” he yelled happily at the eager faces and scarpered from the roof space as fast as his legs could carry him.

“Father. Father, I’m here” he shouted, in time with his stampeding feet, but he didn’t seem to hear him and Ralph watched his father disappear into his bedroom.  Ralph paused for a moment, confused and then made his way through the open door.  His mother was lead sobbing upon Ralph’s bed, clutching his pyjamas, his father sat beside her, stroking her hair.

“What’s going on?” asked Ralph, but neither looked at him.

“My darling Evie, we need to go, leave here.  You cannot stay holed up in this rotting house anymore, please Evie, come with me”.

“But he is here James, I hear him, I feel him all around me, I can’t leave him here all alone” she pleaded.

“Evie, Ralph is gone.  You know deep in your heart that he is gone.  You saw him fall from the attic window. You saw them take his broken body away.  You were there Evie, eight weeks ago when we buried our darling boy with his Grandma.  Oh, Evie please, I need you and you need me, we can get through this, but we need to do it together, it’s been two months and I can’t bear to be without you any more, please come home with me”.

Ralph started screaming “I am here. Why can’t you see me? Why can’t you hear me? I’M HERE” he tried to run toward them but he couldn’t move.  Henry and the others appeared and held on to him tight.  He watched as his parents sat holding each other, rocking, weeping and eventually his father picked up his mother in his arms and took her from the Ralph’s room.

All that was left were Henry and the others.

Hayley Mars

(Madness Makes) Misery

Happy New Year! 

Hope you all have had a wonderful and restful Christmas holiday.

I finished my first 10 weeks of Creative Writing (part deux) just before Christmas.  I still have a couple of assignments yet to post, this being one of them.  Task was to take a classic novel and put your own twist on it.  Whilst I have never read Misery I have seen the film several times so I downloaded an exert from the book and adapted the same.  Some of the text is Stephen King's original work, some of it mine, all of it fiction.  I think we make a great team! 

I am back for my next 10 weeks on the 18th January 2017 and my NYC Flash Fiction Challenge is due to start on the 20th January 2017, it is still not to late to enter and details can be found at http://www.nycmidnight.com/Competitions/SSC/Challenge.htm

(Madness Makes)

Paul rolled his eyes in annoyance, “bring her back” was the woman insane.  Well yes she was a soupçon deranged, after all this is the woman who threatened to chop of his ‘other’ leg should he try to escape, and slice of his fingers, should he refuse Misery’s return. It was fair to say that Annie had issues.  If only she was not so damned hot.  He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled her earthy aroma, she was not interested in him. Paul believed he just filled her with tired revulsion, all Annie cared about was Misery. It was then, whilst momentarily mesmerised by her buoyant breasts and injudicious hemline a plan began to formulate.

“Annie” he whispered, looking at her earnestly.  She glared at him, tears formulating in her captivating cerulean eyes.

“Annie” he repeated “I will bring Misery back, I will bring her back just for you.”

Annie gasped and then exhaled slowly.  Paul awaited the detonation.  This could go either way he thought, he could lose more limbs or, he dared imagine, she would be wrapping her limbs around him.  He watched her measured expression apprehensively, after all this was a woman who could go from Mother Theresa to Myra Hindley in a nanosecond.

“A novel! A wonderful big novel” she exploded.  “Like the others, no wait, maybe even bigger than the others” she began to pace back and forth, back and forth, her delicate, but deadly, hands clasped between those wonderful voluptuous breasts.  Suddenly she lunged toward him “what can I do Paul? How can I help?” Her perfect face was just inches from his own and it took all of his self-control not to take those plush, slightly parted, pink lips into his own and devour them, however the thought of what this modern day Delphine Lalaurie might slice off next, suppressed his ardent urge.  He had to tread carefully, which was fantastically farcical, given he only had one leg!

“Annie, will you tell me one thing?”

“Of course, Paul.”

“If I write this story for you”

“Not a story Paul, a Novel! A nice big one.” She declared.

He studied her face, her flawless features.

“Yes Annie, a nice big one! Will you take care of me Annie?”

“Oh Paul, of course I will, haven’t I already?”

He looked down at his severed limb and thought to himself “oh yes Annie you have been an absolute delight” instead he smiled warmly and nodded.

She jumped to her feet “come on then hop to it” realising what she had said she giggled.

Dear god, Paul mused as he looked at her beautiful face, her wonderful curves, the slight dip at the nape of her neck as she struggled to get him into his chair.  Loose blonde curls tickled his chin and her creamy cleavage was inches from his hungry lips.  Annie really was a pulchritudinous psychopath!

“I need you to help me Annie, if I feel alive I can bring Misery alive, you do understand that, don’t you?”  He could tell by the blank look on her face that the abyss inside her head had no concept, so he tried a different tact.  Shifting slightly in his seat he leant forward and took her hand, stroking her fingers, he gently kissed each finger.  She didn’t stop him, more importantly she didn’t kill him!  He watched as the veil of recognition shadowed her face.  When she whispered “I am glad I burnt that book” he knew he was in!

And so, it began.  Hour upon hour, day after day, Paul let his fingers re-create Misery.  It wasn’t too difficult Misery had been in his life for so long, the chapters just spilled out of his fingers onto the pages.  In return Annie, true to her word, relinquished herself to him, little by little, chapter after chapter, with Misery’s comeback came Paul’s pay-off.  Tantalising teasers of the grand finale. Paul knew what Annie wanted and he drip-fed it to her with every strike of the key.

Some weeks later, after an exhilarating penultimate chapter. Paul was resting in his bed when Annie walked in, the manuscript clutched in her fist. “Oh Paul” was all she said.  Paul was unsure if it was a favourable or unsavoury “oh Paul” he was weary and unsure of what mood elevator she was currently stationed on.  After all she was a walking talking bottle of nitro-glycerine, he imagined that when he got chance to bounce her around a little, there was a risk she may explode.  He didn’t have to wait long, releasing the manuscript from her clenched fist, letting the filled pages float to the floor, she pulled back the sheets and Paul groaned as her head disappeared between his thighs.

Paul began the final chapter.  He took great care and paid meticulous attention to detail to ensure that it was just right.  He endured Annie’s constant interruptions as the prize was in sight.  Paul was growing increasingly fatigued; the pain had diminished to a dullish ache.  He wasn’t a Doctor but due to his crude severed leg he suspected septicaemia had set it.  He deadened the pain by focusing on the rumbustious reward and his lascivious longing for the maniacal Annie.

Annie entered the room and closed the door, slowly behind her.

“Is it finished” she purred.

“It’s finished Annie, it’s Misery’s greatest climax ever!”

Annie gasped, covered her mouth her eyes widely expectant.  She looked like an extra from Moulin Rouge, all frills and feathers, however Paul cared not, for him it was what lay beneath those feathers.  Oh, boy was he going to enjoy plucking her later.  Annie reached out to grab those all-important final pages and Paul held them above his head.  “Me first Annie, remember? Me first!”  For the next few hours Annie gave Paul everything he wanted, and more.  She was like a drug, a lethal, deadly insatiable high.  Paul couldn’t get enough.  She was as intoxicating as she was toxic.  As delicious as she was demented, he absorbed every pernicious pore of her lithe young body.

Sated, Paul reached for a cigarette, inhaling on it slowly he nodded toward the discarded papers.

“Go ahead Annie, Misery is waiting for you.” She leapt from the bed.

He watched her read. Watched and waited.

“Nooooo” the long, painful howl reverberated around the small room.  Her face became distorted, his words taking her to a hellish dystopia.  “What have you done? What the FUCK have you done?” she screamed, over and over.

“I killed her Annie, just like before, but this time she is NEVER coming back.  It’s over Annie, Misery is dead.”

She began rambling “no Paul she can’t be, you promised me Misery, you must do it again, yes, it’s not a problem, you can re-write the final chapter, yes that’s what we’ll do Paul, you and I we will bring her back, third time lucky!” she laughed, hysterically.

In her delirium, so absorbed was Annie in her second resurrection of Misery, she never noticed Paul close his eyes, take his last breath, and slip peacefully into an eternal sleep with a single white feather resting on his now still chest.

The End