THE STAIN By Harris Tobias

The Stain

    

    

I never would have noticed the stain if Lynn hadn’t walked out on me. When she left, I went into a deep funk and, drinking even more than usual, lay around the house staring at the ceiling from one horizontal position or another. I wasn’t used to being alone. The house seemed so empty without her presence, singing or weeping depending on her mood. And our daughter, my little Sharon, where is my little girl?

I don’t blame her for leaving. I’m not the easiest person to live with. I slipped into a kind of gray zone laying on the bed staring at nothing. That’s how I first noticed the stain. A rusty brown blob with no color and no apparent shape. I watched it for hours. After a couple of days, the stain took on a shape I recognized. Sort of like a baseball diamond. I could, if I tried hard enough, make out the pitcher’s mound and the evenly spaced bases. It reminded me of that time I threatened Lynn with a bat. I was drunk, of course. I never would have actually hit her with it but I could see she was terrified. I did manage to bust up the furniture some and those two lamps her mother gave us. I was awful sorry the next day. Lynn took me back. Good old Lynn.

A couple of days later, the stain took on the aspect of a face, a man’s face, but I couldn’t place it until I noticed the cap. A policeman’s cap complete with badge and everything. I could even make out the badge number—387. It was the face of that young cop who came to the door that time I was so high on booze and pills I could barely stand. I must have taken a swing at him because I woke up in a cell in restraints. That was a bad time and I’m sorry I scared you, honey. You bailed me out yet again. I hardly deserved such loyalty.

The stain grows larger. There must be a leak somewheres though it hasn’t rained in weeks. Today the stain looks like a woman, a very unhappy woman. I can see her sad face. The tears streaming down her cheeks, her hair a tousled mess eyes pleading for me to stop. But I don’t stop, do I? I hit you to make you stop crying. I slap your tears away. I strike our daughter, my precious little girl. And what was it you did to make me so angry? I can’t remember. I am always angry.

I fall asleep staring at the stain. It is definitely bigger now and the color is turning from a rusty brown to a kind of greenish brown. My mind struggles to make a picture of the new shape. It is sinuous and complex. At first I think it’s you standing in the doorway our daughter behind your back. You are shielding her from my fury but that is not it. Then it snaps into focus. It is a dragon, its coils wrapped around its victim, a man, his head inside the dragon’s mouth. Whoever it is is being devoured. Somehow I know it is me. I am being devoured.

As I stare transfixed, the stain detaches itself from the ceiling. Is this a hallucination? When is the last time I had something to eat or drink? I’m sure I’m hallucinating. It’s so real, it’s almost funny. I try to laugh. But my mouth is too dry. I try to scream but whatever sound I manage to make is muffled by the dragon’s moist and toothy maw.

         

BIO:

Harris Tobias lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of several novels and dozens of short stories. His fiction has appeared in Ray Gun Revival, Dunesteef Audio Magazine, Literal Translations, FriedFiction, Down In The Dirt, Eclectic Flash, E Fiction and several other obscure publications. His poetry has appeared in Vox Poetica, The poem Factory and The Poetry Super Highway. You can find links to his novels at: http://harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com/

YOU ARE WHAT I EAT by Harris Tobias

Harris has been absent from TK'n'C for a while. He's back, and he's hungry...

You Are What I Eat

It was a fine recital, better than some, better even than some before the war. The stage in the half burnt auditorium was still mostly intact, littered though it was with debris. The charred and fallen timbers opened the stage to the night sky. The rest of the school was a burnt and tumbled ruin, matching every other structure in the world. Desolation, destruction and ruin was what the post war world had become. It wasn’t like anyone missed the old world, they never had any use for buildings, only their inhabitants.

The dancers, young and lithe, their bodies in the mold of dancers everywhere. Limbs made strong from frequent repetition. Young bodies, muscled, grey skinned, shuffled lifelessly around the stage; their movements devoid of rhythm and grace; their dark eyes sunken in their skulls; their tights and tutus filthy and torn. The overall effect of this sad desolation went unnoticed by the audience or the troop of young dancers. Is that that our child on stage? a mother asks. Is it? No one in the audience could say for sure. Even if they had video cameras, they wouldn’t use them. No one remembers or cares what recitals were all about. Only dim recollections of life before the war remain in the collective unconscious of the victors. How different the world was then - not better, not worse, just not what anyone from the losing side would recognize as normal. None of that mattered to the victors, none of it.

The audience twitched nervously watching the children dance. They were hungry, thinking about their next meal. They were always hungry. It was their hunger that drove them to destroy the world in the first place. The record player’s needle skips and wanders across the grooves. Strange, sounds fill the space, not at all like music. The needle, glides weightless on a pillow of dirt, hardly making contact with the spinning disc. The effect would be weirdly disconcerting if anyone remembered what music was supposed to sound like. In this crowd, no one does; the memory of music having been completely forgotten. The presence of the record player itself, the result of an impossible set of circumstances which, like the recital itself, somehow survived in this new world. Strange which cultural artifacts survived while almost everything else was lost. It’s purely random. Most of what once passed for civilization is lost forever, but against all odds, the idea of a recital endures.

When the recital was over, the dancers joined hands and took an awkward bow, their heads bobbing randomly to the silent house, those in attendance having forgotten applause.

Before the war, it was the custom to take the little ballerina out for an ice cream sundae or chocolate shake, but such things were pre-war and, even if the memory of such a custom survived, it was no longer possible. For one thing, there were no ice cream parlors anymore. Nor was there any ice cream for that matter. The very idea of ice cream had entirely faded from the world. Maybe some of the cattle remembered the frozen treat but who knew what the cattle thought. They were only food.

It was safely before dawn when the family returned, stiffly to their den. Mother found a severed arm in the market and gnawed greedily at it. Father grabbed it from her and, when the little ballerina reached for it, he struck her across the face with the bloody thing. This was the new custom - after the recital, a feast. It was no better nor worse than how it was, it was just different. The fact that there was a market was an encouraging sign. Perhaps a new beginning.

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Bio: My books http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/harris-tobias

My podcasts http://tobiash.podbean.com/

My Blog http://harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com/

Harris Tobias lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of two novels and dozens of short stories. His fiction has appeared in Ray Gun Revival, Dunesteef Audio Magazine, Every Photo Tells, Quantum Muse, Thrillers, Killers & Chillers, Eclectic Flash, E Fiction and several other obscure publications.  You can find links to his books at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/harris-tobias

CONFESSIONS OF A JACK-O-LANTERN by Harris Tobias

Harris has been very patient. We've been holding on to Confessions of a Jack-O-Lantern for ages - but all in a good cause. It's the story that inspired the concept of a TKnC Halloween special and so gave birth to this week's horror showcase - Hellicious Halloween.

This story turns the cards on the traditional pumpkinfest. So when you raise you knife later today to slice and gouge - listen to the voices...

CONFESSIONS OF A JACK-O-LANTERN by Harris Tobias

I started life like any garden variety pumpkin—a seed, a blossom, a bee on a flower. I soaked up the sun and sucked nourishment from the earth. I grew round and fat. One by one my siblings were removed until I had the vine to myself. I was fed a special diet and I grew enormous. I was a competition pumpkin destined for the blue ribbon at the county fair.

I don’t know what the boy who raised me used for plant food. It must have been some special mixture of his own invention. It had a strange result. Instead of making me grow in size, I grew aware. My plant fibers became more like nerves and, before the season was through, I could think and feel almost as well as you. I couldn’t speak or see but I could feel the sun on my skin and the rain washing over me. I could sense the days getting shorter and the nights cooler. Eventually frost nipped my vine and the growing season was over. I had grown large but I wasn’t in the same league as the real heavy weights. I must have weighed around eighty pounds. A good sized squash. The biggest pumpkin at the fair that year weighed in at 370 pounds. No blue ribbon for me.

Instead, I was taken to a place where hundreds of my kind were gathered. Bins filled with pumpkins were picked through by eager hands, admired for their shape and size, then sold for purposes unknown. Being as large as I was, I was kept in a special area. Lined up with the other big pumpkins, waiting for a customer to come along and purchase me. It took a few weeks but eventually I was rolled onto the back of a truck and taken to a suburban house a few miles away. There I was rolled across the front lawn and given a prominent place on the porch. I thought I would end my days watching the children play on the lawn and the traffic beyond. I was mistaken, fate had something else in store for me. Here’s where my story takes an unhappy turn.

I don’t suppose you’ve ever been carved. It’s not an experience I’d recommend. Being stabbed repeatedly is bad enough but carving large holes into one's body is especially cruel. Under the supervision of an adult, four demon children began the ordeal. First they cut a large opening in my head. I couldn’t begin to describe the pain that caused. Sawing deep into my flesh until the roof of my skull was pulled free of my body was pure agony. I was close to fainting but my ordeal had only begun. Despite my torture, happy laughing hands pulled on my stem, removed the top of my skull with a yank. It made a sucking sound. I screamed silent screams and passed out but did not die.

Then those same dirty little hands entered my body, diving up to their filthy elbows into my guts. They dug out handfuls of my insides until I was a hollow shell. It was like being pulled apart by jackals. The pain of that hollowing was beyond description. Think of how you’d feel if your lungs and liver were pulled out by demons and you’d have some idea of what I felt. If I could have screamed, I’d have screamed long and loud, but I couldn’t scream, I had no mouth. At least not yet.

Worse pain was yet to come. My tormentors were not quite through with me. A different knife was stabbed into my side repeatedly. In and out, in and out several times until two large triangular holes were sliced into me.The pieces were removed leaving me with crude approximations of eyes. The burning, searing pain of those cuts stay with me to this day. The cutting out of eye holes was so cruel and almost more than I could bear. 

But the ordeal wasn’t over, more slashing ensued and another large piece of my flesh was brutally removed for a nose. A nose. What did I need with a nose? If I had any blood, I’d have bled rivers of it, gallons of it. But I couldn’t bleed. I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t beg them to stop. I had to stand there and take it. Oh the pain, the terrible pain. Did they have no pity? I could never do that to them.

By the time they finished sawing a huge jagged opening for a mouth, I was almost beyond caring. They sawed a crooked toothy rictus which gave my butchered face an evil grin. I looked almost as angry as I felt. My innocence was lost. Was this the reason I grew fat and round and wholesome? I could have fed dozens but instead I was turned into a caricature of a human face, an effigy of a head? For this I was tortured and killed? If I could bleed, if I could scream, if I could run away I might have saved myself but I could do none of those things. I was a dumb thing, a vegetable. I shouldn’t blame the children, but I do.

When I thought there was nothing further they could do to me, they found one more painful indignity for me to endure. The children placed a lighted candle inside my head. It burned, oh how it burned. It hurt with a steady smoldering pain that never let up. Think of a fire in your brain. Imagine your brain slowly cooking and you have some idea of how I spent my last few days. I’m sure I glowed splendid and frightening, but I cooked from the inside and I died.

My pain and suffering were at an end, but I could still think. As my spirit drifted away from the burnt, rotting thing I had become, it should have achieved peace. It should have returned to the earth like all vegetables to be re-cycled and reused. But that peace too was denied me. For while my body did indeed return to the soil, my spirit did not fade. My consciousness continued and it seethed with bitter resentment. I became an angry spirit seeking revenge. Revenge on those ignorant humans who abused me so. Especially on the children, I hated them all.

And so I wait for spring and another growing season. I hang over the pumpkin patch like a black cloud of anger and pain. Maybe I'll slip into a pumpkin seed and grow and fruit again. Maybe my fruits will again become the grinning face you call a jack-o-lantern. Maybe. Only this time I'll be ready. This time I'll bite back.

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BIO: Find Harris Tobias at http://tobiash.podbean.com and http://harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com

THE RAIN By Harris Tobias

The Rain

     The rain never stops on Fender 4, except it isn’t really rain. At least it’s not like any rain on Earth. Here rain is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons and amino acids that has exo-biologists puzzled. It falls like rain but it’s a slimy, warm soupy substance that’s probably alive.

     This nutrient stream feeds a remarkable biota; plants that resemble enormous lichen, or perhaps fungus more accurately describe them. Thin towering fronds a mile high in some places and as long as the Great Wall of China. Whatever they are, they’re colorful, and they cover every inch of Fender’s surface like slimy paint. In some places the paint is knee deep. In others it’s only a few inches. Then there’s the black stuff. You had better avoid the black places as they can easily swallow a man.

     My name’s Winslow, Alan Winslow, I’m the communications tech for our 3 man survey team. We’re one of a dozen teams scattered around this dreary rock. Fender 4 was only recently discovered. It’s one of the rare planets that have a breathable atmosphere and a hospitable climate. The big wigs think it’s a valuable piece of real estate and have a lot of money on the line. They envision farms and colonies, cities and spaceports. Personally I don’t like the place, it creeps me out. I especially don’t like the rain. It sticks to your skin like it wanted to colonize you. It takes a lot of scrubbing to wash it off. The rain adheres to every surface with a tenacity I find disturbing. I don’t see humans living here anytime soon. After being outside for even a few minutes you’d understand.

     Teams like mine are the first to spend any real time on Fender 4. We’re supposed to do the initial recon, make rough maps, catalog the dominant life forms and assess the planet’s live-ability. Our team consists of a surveyor/map maker, an exo-biologist and an all around techie— that’s me. Lieutenant Lupo is our mapper and the person in command; Sergeant Pine is our exob, she’s number two, then there’s little old me, I take care of the gear, the rations, our shelter, power, water, radio, etc. etc. Low man on the totem pole gets all the shit jobs.

     Actually, it’s not so bad. Lupo and Pine are good people. I’ve bunked with a lot worse. It’s the rain that has us all spooked. It beats down on our shelter and slimes down the windows like mucus, like phlegm. It’s like the whole planet had a runny nose. The walls of our shelter are coated with slime. You could scrape it off with a shovel if you wanted to go out there. Of course no one does. Sometimes I worry the extra weight will bring the whole structure down on our heads.

     It’s a fight keeping us warm and dry. Our life support module is strained to the max. As for communications, forget it, they’re sketchy at the best of times. The slime covers the antenna making it hard to contact the other stations or the mother ship. We have an emergency beacon if all else fails, but so far it hasn’t come to that.

     Today we were outside most of the day. Everything was going fine until Sgt. Pine stepped in a patch of green, a color that none of had seen before, and was swallowed up. She must have slid down a hundred feet before coming to a halt. I stayed over the spot while the lieutenant went back to the shelter for more rope. I could hear her whimpering and calling for help. “Stay calm, Didi,” I called “We won’t leave you. We’re getting more rope. Stay calm.”

      When we finally pulled her out, she was so freaked out that she was screaming hysterically. Lt. Lupo had to slap her hard to bring her around. She swore the fungus was trying to ingest her. “Dark, so dark,” was all she could manage to say before another round of shudders and screams overtook her. We got her back to the shelter and let her soak under the shower until she was herself again, but she was traumatized, I could tell, and she never quite regained her footing. She had nightmares and a vacant stare as though what she saw down there was too hard to process.

      

      There are many mysteries on Fender 4. The rain is at the heart of them all. How does it pick up all those nutrients? Maybe the clouds are alive with bacteria no one has been able to study them yet.

      Another mystery is the drainage. No one understands how Fender drains. Somehow the snotty rain gets absorbed by the fungus, it extracts the nutrients and excretes the water. Where does all that water go? There don’t seem to be any rivers or streams?  There’s an ocean and the teams on the coast report the ocean is 99% water. The drainage thing vexes Lt. Lupo no end. As a map maker he is supposed to map rivers and mountains it frustrates him no end that he can’t see them.

      That’s another strange thing about Fender, no mountains. This place has a very strange topography. The fungi fill in all the irregularities you’d expect a rocky world to have. On Fender, hills and valleys are smoothed over with an even layer of plant matter, leaving the surface a vast featureless plain. Radar images show an uneven surface beneath the fungus, but the plants grow to precisely the same height. No one can explain it.

      Sgt. Pine has been behaving strangely ever since falling into the deep fungus. I tried to radio HQ about her condition but I’m not sure the urgency was understood. They said that everyone was having problems, they would only respond to serious emergencies and we should soldier on for another three weeks. Typical head quarter’s bullshit. They can’t be bothered to understand what we were going through, only their schedules are important.

      The emergency beacon is beginning to look better and better. Lt. Lupo has been going out on his own while I stay inside with Sgt. Pine and struggle to keep our life support systems operational. I worry about him out there but I worry about our shelter too. It needs constant maintenance.

      Didi Pine spends most of her day in the bathroom compartment either showering or doing god only knows what. I noticed she was clogging the filters more and more. I hear her crying in there. I try to respect her privacy, but today I heard a scream and then a thump. I called, “Didi, are you all right?”

      There was no answer so I busted the lock and found her on the floor of the shower stall, her body covered with large lumps. I carried her to her bunk and gave her a sedative. She wept like a child and called for her mother. I resolved to wait for Lt. Lupo to come back; I’ll press him to use the emergency recall device. Only he didn’t come back. I tried all day to raise him on his suit radio to no avail. I fear he’s been swallowed. There’s nothing for it but to go out and look for him. I suit up and tell Sgt. Pine I’ll be right back. I show her where the emergency call button is but I don’t think anything I say registers. She feels feverish. I give her some more sedative and go outside.

      The rain reaches for me with slimy fingers. I feel it trying to work its way up my sleeve and down my back. It’s a cold, clammy feeling. I head west where I know Lt. Lupo was working. It was foolish of him to go out alone. I stay on the light colors, as I know from experience they are the shallowest. Dark colors are deep and must be avoided. Suddenly it dawns on me that the colors are the key to the topography. An arial photograph would be an accurate map of Fender’s peaks and valleys. The different colors are like a relief map. It’s so obvious I don’t see how we didn’t see it before.

      By some miracle I come upon Lt. Lupo’s pack and close by I see his surveyor’s transit. I call out but the gooey rain muffles all sound. I try the radio and I think I hear something. Frantic, I look around but everything is flat and featureless. I get the idea to check his transit and see where he was looking. I squint through the eyepiece and see his surveyor’s marker a couple of hundred yards away. I trudge off in that direction. I can hear his cries over my suit radio, I must be close.

      When I reach his marker I understand what must have happened. There is a ribbon of gold running through the pale yellow. The darker color indicating a greater depth but the change is subtle and easily overlooked. I can hear him clearly now. He sounds frightened. He’s overjoyed to hear my voice. I see where he slipped off the shallow fungus into the deep. He isn’t that far down. I lower the rope to him and pull him up. You never saw anyone more grateful. He was down in the depths far longer than Sgt. Pine. His suit is covered with growing material. I help him back to the shelter. It’s quite a ways and I have to stop and rest several times. I suspect the fungus growing on his suit has penetrated his body but I won’t know for sure until I get him back and can strip off his suit. He is feverish and babbling. We should be getting close to the shelter but I don’t see it. Usually it’s the only thing you can see on the level plain of Fender’s even surface.

      Then I see it. It has collapsed in on itself from the weight of the rain. I drop Lt. Lupo and run to the squashed shelter. I can barely lift up a wall to call inside. I hear no reply but I see a pale leg covered with growths in my flashlight’s beam. Sgt. Pine is dead. I search for the emergency extraction button but do not find it. Already the shelter is covered with the same yellow fungus that surrounds us.

      I look back to Lt. Lupo. He is half covered with yellow growths. He twitches feebly but I can see there is no saving him. It dawns on me that I am alone. I choke back my urge to scream. There’s no sense in wasting energy. My only hope for salvation is a ten-day march to the nearest survey station. I doubt if I can last that long without food or water but what choice do I have? I head south but soon see it is impossible. A wide ribbon of black fungus stops me in my tracks. I turn west and follow the black line. The fungus sucks at my legs. I’d give anything for a long hot shower, anything.

     

     

BIO: Find Harris Tobias here:

http://tobiash.podbean.com/

http://harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com/

OWL HEAD LAKE By Harris Tobias

Owl Head Lake

 One wonders how these places get their names. There was nothing especially owlish about its 60 acres of surface or the little islands that poked their domed heads above it. It was a pretty lake, peaceful and pristine. Exactly the kind of place Monty needed for a few days of splendid isolation. Fishing, reading, getting back in touch with his inner man. A few precious days to decompress before the firm reeled him back in and sucked him dry.

     There were a couple of reasons Owl Head Lake appealed to him. One was its inaccessibility. Three miles of dirt road to a primitive campground ruled out all but the most determined campers. The second was its unpopularity. The lake had acquired a bad reputation ever since people began disappearing from its shores—a group of teenagers vanished a few years ago, their tents and gear untouched. Before that a family went missing without a trace. And those were just the two that he knew of; he supposed there were more. On both occasions the lake was dragged, divers sent into its murky depths, to no avail. The divers reported the lake was uncommonly deep and cold but harbored nothing out of the ordinary. So the stories grew that the lake was cursed and as the stories multiplied, the locals kept away and its campsites gradually fell into disrepair.

     If tall tales and ghost stories kept campers away, that suited Monty just fine. The last thing he wanted was company, some garrulous stranger making chitchat about the weather or some tedious retired couple from Des Moines. No Owl Head Lake was just the tonic he needed. Who knew what happened to those teen-age campers. Kids are famous for making stupid decisions. He could imagine them yelling, “Watch this” just before plunging over a cliff.

     As for the lake’s reputation for being haunted or stalked by a serial killer, well he was a city boy and violent death was all around him. He knew the odds of being killed by a stranger were greater than getting struck by lightening. And besides as a lawyer he made his living defending the most depraved sociopaths on the planet. No, he wasn’t afraid of a violent end, he was afraid of some friendly camper destroying his solitude.

     His heart sank when he first drove in and saw the bright blue of a tent pitched near his favorite site. He needn’t have worried the neighbors were packing up and leaving. The man came over to Monty his face showing obvious signs of distress.

     “I wouldn’t be staying here, fella, if I was you.”

     “Oh, why’s that,” an obviously relieved Monty asked.

     “There’s something wrong with that lake. Something evil. You hear them stories about people disappearing and all?”

     “I heard ‘em,” Monty said. “A lot of old wives tales if you ask me.”

     “Maybe, but I aint staying to find out, we all heard weird noises last night and now my dog’s gone missing. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye open for him. If he shows up would you give me a call?”

     The old man handed Monty a slip of paper with a phone number on it. Monty promised he’d do that. He watched the man pack his gear calling “Rufus” every few minutes until he finally drove away leaving nothing but blissful silence behind. When the neighbor was gone, Monty tossed the phone number in the fire, mixed himself a cocktail and sat facing the lake.

     The sun was low in the sky, the birds were active, ducks, geese and herons making their living from nature’s intricate web. The graceful herons, like statues working the margins while flotillas of ducks and Canada Geese patrolled the deep water like opposing fleets. On the small islands, a glint of white, an owl or bald eagle. Fabulous, this is the stuff his spirit thrived on.

     In spite of the scenery, his mind drifted back to his high-pressure job. He had to admit it was a hell of a way to make a living. Sure everyone is entitled to the best defense they can afford blah, blah, but his rich clients knew they could buy their way out of almost anything. Did it make him feel dirty? No, not really. He was a hired gun. Someone had to safeguard the civil rights of wealthy child molesters, drug dealers, thieves and murderers. How should it make him feel? He didn’t make the rules. Still, thank goodness for places like this, islands of peace and quiet to soothe a troubled mind. Nature restored his soul. He raised his glass to the setting sun by way of thanks.

     Weren’t there three islands in the middle of the lake? Oh yes. From this angle it looked like two but there were the three little mounds. He knew them well; he called them the 3 knobs. They looked like the tops of three heads, dome shaped and symmetrical. They reminded him of three bathers wearing forested bathing caps. Something spooked the Canada Geese just then. They broke the placid surface of the lake in a spontaneous dash into the air sounding their alarms. He admired the natural world. Now there was a system of justice that made sense. Eat or be eaten, the strongest survive, that was how it should be. There was no plea-bargaining out there, no sir-ee-bob.

     When his attention returned to the islands, they were spread out in a line before him. The sun was a golden ball spreading jewels on the rippled surface. The fleeing geese reminded him of the case he just finished litigating. Chichi Maldonado. What a piece of work. If ever anyone deserved to be locked away, it was Chichi. Bargaining down multiple felonies to a few months in a country club prison due to a technicality. That’s why he made the big bucks. He even got a bonus for that bit of work. What a system.

     Was he mistaken or was the configuration of the islands slightly different? One of the knobs seemed to have drifted closer. It must be a trick of the light. The sun was almost down. What a scene. A sky striped like cotton candy and grape soda. The reflection on the lake was flawless. What a picture. He pulled out his camera and snapped a few for posterity. The heron called and took wing. Calling it a day he guessed.

     The ducks too took wing. Where do ducks sleep he wondered. He loved the sunsets on this lake. He was here six months before. He looked back in the little camera’s memory and pulled up some shots he’d taken in May. Yes, that was another soul satisfying sunset. What was different about that earlier shot? The knobs. In the earlier picture they were somewhere else entirely. That’s strange he thought. It was his last rational thought before the island dragged him kicking and screaming into its toothy maw.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE by Harris Tobias

The Haunted House


The idea came to mayor Schienbaum like the proverbial bolt from the blue. “A haunted house,” he said out loud. “A really top notch haunted house, one that will be the envy of the tri-county area. A house so filled with Halloween special effects that people, even grown ups, will pay good money to see it.” It seemed the perfect solution to the town’s current budget woes.

“It will draw folks from all over the tri-county area and put North Croyden on the map.” The mayor looked around the council chamber. He could count on their support. He knew them well and they knew him. They all had their hands in the same cookie jar. “We could raise a ton of money,” he said, then added hurriedly, “for all kinds of good causes—Little League, the library." Here he practically winked at his council cohorts. "Maybe we could divert a portion to the new town hall.” The new town hall was, at that moment, little more than a hole in the ground. When finished, it would sparkle like the Taj Majal.

The mayor turned to Beatrice Abastic, the town’s librarian. She was a rail thin woman with a bookish manner, librarian hair and tiny bird like hands. Her thick glasses magnified her piercing gaze. A humorless spinster, she turned a blind eye to the corruption around her. Just as long as the council kept its greedy paws off her library. She ruled that little brick building on Market Street like the dowager queen and had for as long as anyone could remember. She was quiet, smart and unassuming when left alone but calculating and mean when angry. And she was angry now. She knew the council. She considered them greedy children.

When her budget got cut, she became the council’s nemesis. She rejected their foolish ideas like building a new town hall, something she referred to as the mausoleum; She kept their decisions from being unanimous which irked Mayor Schienbaum no end. She was in short a pain in their collective rear ends.

Bea Abastic didn’t like the haunted house idea from the get go. “We’re broke, remember,” she reminded them loudly. “You cut my after school reading program because the town couldn’t afford it. But somehow it could afford to build the mausoleum as a shrine to our mayor. Now you want to spend money we don’t have on a stupid haunted house? Well, I object.”

“Duly noted,” said Elsa Brighton, the council’s big boned secretary.

“Oh come on, Bea. Give it a rest,” groaned the mayor. “This isn’t the god damn United Nations. Your vote doesn’t count and your objections are tiresome in the extreme.”

“Give the library back its usual budget and I’ll keep quiet.”

“The haunted house hopefully will generate so much money we’ll build you a whole new library.” Bea waved the mayor away. What was the use of arguing? They would only ignore her.

Elsa Brighton, called for a vote on the haunted house proposal. One by one the hands went up. The Haunted House Project passed five to one. Bea Abastic sat there with her arms crossed silent, steaming, protesting as hard as she could. It was resolved that the town would consider investing resources in the creation of a haunted house.

“Scaring folks is no way to raise money,” she protested. “Why is there money for this foolishness and not enough for the library?”

Bea expected to be ignored and she wasn’t disappointed. What she was going to propose had zero chance of even being discussed let alone passed. She was going to call for an audit of the town’s finances. She wanted to know where all the money went. Those fat cats on the council, that’s where.

No one paid her any mind; Schienbaum actually yawned. The council appointed a committee to find a suitable house and another to negotiate a loan. Then Elsa Brighton slammed her gavel and the meeting was adjourned.

She accosted Schienbaum as he was leaving. “How much money are you going to borrow?” she asked.

“Why as much as we can, darlin’.” He put his arm around her oozing the charm that won him three consecutive terms, “As much as we can.”

“But what if it rains? What if we can’t pay it back?”

“C’mon Bea,” the Mayor’s dentures flashed skeletal in the moonlight, “have a little faith. We’re gonna make loads of money.”

There was really only one house suitably spooky enough in North Croyden. That was the old Earl house. It sat on a hill not too far from Main Street. It sat empty and boarded up for almost sixty years. It might have made a good home for a large family or a cozy bed and breakfast if it wasn’t for its reputation. None of the local people would go near it ever since Danny Earl went berserk and hacked his family to bits sometime during the Korean War.

The house itself was perfect for the role of Haunted House. A decaying old Victorian pile with a wrap around porch and a bat filled tower. It had been boarded up for so long, even the interior was made to order for the part—blood spattered wallpaper and rats in the walls. Elsa Brighton and Dana Prince walked around and declared it perfect.

The dim light that managed to filter through the plywood covered windows made the old place look menacing even at mid-day. Elsa’s size made the floorboards creak and groan. The two committee women beat it out of there as fast as they could.
Mayor Schienbaum twiddled his thumbs as Dexter Pinkwater shuffled through his papers on his big desk. The North Croyden Bank and Trust had been in the Pinkwater family for three generations and considered itself one of the town’s most important institutions.

“We’ll have to get the house appraised and inspected,” Pinkwater said assuming an air of due diligence, “but I don’t foresee any problems giving you a loan.”

The mayor flashed his mirthless grin. Of course he’d get the loan. With what he had on Pinkwater in his safe in the town hall would ruin the man forever. “I’ll need a hundred thousand dollars to start and another hundred in a few weeks. I need to hire carpenters and set designers, then there’s publicity. Oh this is going to be big, Dex, really big. I anticipate ten thousand people paying ten bucks apiece. What is that a million bucks?”

Pinkwater smiled inwardly at the mayor’s poor math skills. He didn’t care whether the money went to the mayor’s stupid scheme or directly as blackmail. He knew he’d never see it again.

In the day and weeks that followed, the Earl house was slowly transformed from a real life house of horrors to a Hollywood version of one. Schienbaum and the rest of the council were happy. There was plenty of cash to skim. The mayor quickly set up several bogus companies to do the construction and padded all the bills. He signed off on all the inspections—electrical, structural, fire— without actually performing any of them. While it lasted, the project was a big cash cow for the council. Envelopes of cash fattened their pockets.

A small army of craftsmen labored on the old house for weeks installing elaborate lighting, sound effects and machinery. When the council came for their private inspection two weeks before Halloween, they were as excited as teenagers. It was in the words of Elsa Brighton, “over the top spectacular.” And it was too. In spite of cutting every corner and stealing half the money, the end result was pretty damn impressive.

Ghouls, goblins, witches and assorted animatronic monsters popped out of every closet; vampires slept under beds and zombies walked the halls all to an overly loud soundtrack of screams, roars, evil laughter and creaking doors. The lighting too was spectacular, black lights and strobes added to the effects.

The council gathered in the big front parlor where the wallpaper dripped fake blood and toasted their success. “To the best haunted house in Ohio,” said an ecstatic mayor raising his glass.

The council, with the exception of Bea Abastic, joined him in a self-congratulatory toast. Bea thought the whole thing was a waste of money and generally in poor taste. But that was just Bea. No one paid her any mind. The party went perfectly until the overloaded electrical system blew its main breaker and left the celebrants in the dark. Under Schienbaum’s orders the offending breaker was propped open with a paper clip and the celebrations resumed.

On the publicity front, things were going swimmingly. The house was getting mentioned everywhere. It got a feature spot on the local news and a two-page spread in the local paper. Papers as far away as Cleveland were talking up the North Croyden spectacular. Schienbaum was very excited. A full twelve hours before the opening costumed families began lining up at the ticket booth. Ice cream and food vendors arrived and the whole scene in the parking lot took on the look of a carnival.

By that evening, the line stretched for a quarter of a mile. The original plan was to let people tour the house in small batches of fifty or so. The council had arranged for a shuttle service to take people from the ticket booth up the long driveway to the house. When Schienbaum saw the long line, he told the ticket sellers to, ”Let everyone through. If they want to walk up, let ‘em.”

Within minutes several hundred people were hustling up the hill, racing to be the first to experience the haunted house. Concealed lights cast ominous shadows on the walls and speakers, hidden in the shrubbery piped out eerie sounds. The people of North Croyden were in a festive mood as the early birds raced to be first through the door. The volunteers manning the four ticket booths were selling tickets as fast as they could. Every few minutes a council member relieved them of their excess cash.

As the first customers approached the front porch, they were met by the ebullient mayor dressed as a short, round Count Dracula. When he judged the crowd large enough he called for silence and attempted to deliver a short welcoming speech. The good citizens of North Croyden were in no mood for politicking. They pushed their way onto the porch sweeping the mayor aside as an army of town’s folk surged inside.

Things started to go wrong almost immediately. Thelma Harlowe, a sixty-year-old woman dressed as the Wicked Witch of the North, stumbled and was trampled by the crowd. Several small children narrowly escaped the same fate. There weren’t enough police to keep order and several fights broke out among rowdy teenagers. The mayor hollered for calm but he was drowned out by the booming sound system. The trampled Mrs. Harlowe was hustled away in an ambulance that Schienbaum had the good sense to have on standby. The sight of her mashed body looked like one more special effect to the cheering throng.

Inside the house, it was bedlam. As axe wielding skeletons and mummies sprang from a closets and trap doors, people standing too close were injured. One zombie swung its axe in the crowded room injuring Nigel Dern who clutched his bleeding head and tried to leave. He was greeted with cheers from the crowd for his realistic make up job. Several people were hurt when the crowd recoiled from hidden surprises. More and more people pressed their way inside. There was no place to go but up the stairs or into the kitchen on the ground floor. The scene became surreal as costumed monsters met mechanical ones and human screams blended with recorded screams in a nightmare chorus.

The screams inside only excited those waiting to enter. People pushed their way inside eager to see what all the screaming was about. From the outside, the evening looked like a big success. Inside was another matter entirely.

The old house, its structure so long neglected, was taxed to its limit by the sheer weight of humanity. The joists supporting the floors groaned and shifted. The staircase stringers weakened by years of dry rot began to crack. No one heard the sounds or noticed the signs amidst all the tumult.

On the porch, the council was giddy with success. “Even the weather is perfect,” the mayor beamed. They stood on the porch, proud and happy, and congratulated each other on a job well done.

When the overburdened electrical system finally sparked and sputtered itself into smoldering blackness, the real panic began. Suddenly thrust into utter darkness, people blundered about looking for the exit. Things might have ended better if someone hadn’t smelled smoke and raise the cry of FIRE!

The panic was on in earnest. Sparks from the ancient wiring ignited the equally ancient wood in the basement. Smoke and flames put a swift end to the last shreds of laughter. Now the only screams were human. The crumbling staircase, choked with people clawing their way down, collapsed with a resounding crash spilling dozens of more bodies on top of those scrambling to get out. Their added weight stressed the rotten joists to the breaking point. The floorboards opened and swallowed a host of screaming citizens into a flaming, smoking hell.

The collapsed staircase effectively trapped many families upstairs. Those who could, leaped from the second story windows as the smoke and flame raced to cut off their escape. Mothers threw their children to people below. The fire, now freed from its basement confines, engulfed the first floor trapping dozens more. The haunted house had become a death trap. The mayor and council members who were responsible for the debacle stared at the ruin in disbelief.

The final toll was 63 dead 104 injured 16 missing. The surviving council members were arrested and charged with grievous crimes. The subsequent inquiry named them co-conspirators. Indictments were issued for fraud, embezzlement and negligent homicide. No trace of Mayor Schienbaum or Secretary Brighton was ever found.

Some residents of the town thought they perished in the blaze trying to save those trapped inside. But no trace of their remains was found among the carefully sifted ashes. Others assumed that they escaped with their ill-gotten gains and are living the high life far from North Croyden. Every now and again someone claims to have seen one or both of the fugitives on a beach somewhere. Neither of these stories is true.

Mayor Abastic sits behind her desk in the town’s sparkling new library, built where the new town hall was supposed to go. Ask her what she thinks happened to the mayor and, if she’s in a talkative mood, you might get a strange response. “He’s in his mausoleum,” she may say; or “He’s visiting the Taj Majal.” No one knows what she means.


BIO:
Harris Tobias was raised by robots disguised as New Yorkers. Despite an awkward childhood he learned to read and write. To date Mr. Tobias has published two detective novels, The Greer Agency and A Felony of Birds, to critical acclaim. In addition he has published short stories in Down in the Dirt Magazine, Literal Translations, Electric Flash and Ray Gun Revival. He currently lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

THE ALARM By Harris Tobias

The Alarm



A terrible clanging in the middle of the night roused me from my bed. I put on some clothes and hurried into the street there to mingle with my bleary eyed neighbors. At first we thought it was a fire but there was no smoke or flame to be seen. We stood in the cold and beat our arms, the cold air made ghosts of our breath. The clanging didn’t let up so we traced it to its source. It came from the old tower on the edge of the village. The rough stone structure had stood there for as long as the village itself. Silent, locked and largely forgotten it stood watching over the village like a rotten tooth. Its thick oak door locked tight, the key long ago lost. I suppose a monkey or an agile youth could have climbed it but no one bothered that I ever heard of. Now it had suddenly come to life and was sounding an alarm that no one knew what for.

“There is one who might remember,” said the mayor, “Old Havermeyer, the beggar.” So we hurried over to his hut and shook him from his slumber. Old Havermeyer was so old that he was almost completely blind and deaf. He lived in poverty in a tiny shack on the edge of the village. Subsisting on handouts and the begrudging charity of the village’s wealthy merchants. He hadn’t heard the alarm and didn’t understand what we were so excited about. So we got him dressed and brought him to the tower and placed his hands on the oaken door so he could feel the vibrations. Only then did realization dawn on his wrinkled face.

“Ah,” he said. “the tower. The alarm sounds. The dragon wakes. We must flee.”

This statement caused no end of confusion amongst the good people of the village. Our village was prosperous and peaceful, unused to emergencies of any kind. “What dragon?” many villagers wanted to know. “There are no dragons,” said others. “Superstitious nonsense,” interjected the more educated. The incessant clanging continued shouting out all reason and rational thought, so we hurried away to the school house where we could hear ourselves think. We stamped the snow off our boots and lit the stove and soon we could hear old Havermeyer tell what he remembered of the tower, the alarm and the dragon.

“When I was a boy,” he spoke in a weak quavering voice we had to strain to hear, “my grandfather told me that his grandfather helped build the tower. In those days the dragon would come every few years and lay waste to half the village. It would fly in like a great winged bird spitting fire, trample the crops and eat the peasants. It was a force of nature. Nothing and no one could stop it. The only way they knew to save themselves was to give it gold. All the gold. For if any of us held back, the dragon would know and its vengeance would be swift. Dragon’s love gold more than anything and, when they wake, they are hungry for it.”

“These are only old stories to scare the children,” said the mayor. “It’s been over two hundred years since your grandfather’s time and no one has ever seen or heard of a dragon. It’s all nonsense I tell you.”

“Well those old stories scared me plenty,” said the old man. “I for one have never forgotten them. They say a buried chain connects the tower to the dragon. One end is fastened to the bell and the other to the dragon’s leg. When the dragon stirs, the bell rings. It gives us time to get away or get our gold together whichever way we decide to save ourselves from ruin.”

This was just too much for many villagers to absorb. The whole idea of a fire breathing dragon in this modern age was ridiculous.

“I’m not going to flee my home or lose my fortune because of a bunch of old legends,” was the general consensus. Or on the say so of a senile old man was the unspoken subtext. But the seed of fear and doubt had been planted.

“Do as you see fit,” said the old man. “My time in this world is nearly done. I’m too old to flee and I have no gold. I’ll stay and share your fate. I’m curious to know if the old stories are true.” And on this ominous note old man Havermeyer closed his eyes and said no more. At that moment the incessant clanging from the tower stopped, just as suddenly as it began. The sudden silence struck us all as louder and more worrisome than all the clamor, for it meant that the dragon, or whatever it was, had either gone back to sleep or had broken the chain and was awake.

We were a tired and nervous bunch as we shuffled back to our homes. The sky was already beginning to lighten in the East and we hurriedly agreed to meet again at noon the next day. “Come to the village office,” said the mayor, “after we have had some time to think about what to do.” The mayor was a good man. A widower and my only real friend. He was respected by the villagers but not loved. I don’t know if there village had much love to spare.

*

The next day dawned bright and clear. What ever sense of gloom and disaster remained from the night before was drowned out by a cloudless blue sky and a bright yellow sun. We joked and laughed at our fear as we went about our morning chores. Someone pointed to the mountain that towered above the village. It was ringed by clouds or was it dragon smoke? The townsfolk eyed their mountain nervously as if at any moment that old familiar friend might visit flaming death upon them.

That morning the children went off to school; the mill wheel turned and the blacksmith’s hammer rang out. It was all so normal, the way it had always been, except there was an undertone of fear and apprehension that infused our every move.

At noon we all gathered at the mayor’s office to discuss further what, if anything, we should do. Suggestions ranged from taking down the tower to digging into the village archives for more information. Some villagers thought the whole thing was a hoax and others thought we ought to gather our gold together just in case.

Finally, the mayor stood up and spoke. “What we have here is a classic puzzle,’ he said to the crowded room. “There’s no denying that the alarm we heard was real. What we don’t know is what it really means.” We all looked at each other and nodded. At last someone was speaking sense. “The oldest man in the village remembers stories about a dragon and the old tower built as an alarm. No one knows if that is true. I propose we send someone into the mountains to seek out this dragon, if indeed there really is one.” This suggestion was met with general agreement.

“Furthermore,” continued the mayor when the hub-bud died down, “I also recommend we gather our gold and jewels together just in case the dragon proves real. That way we can buy him off and save our lives and property. If there is no dragon, we have lost nothing. If there is, we have saved everything.”

The village rose to its feet as one and applauded the mayor’s good sense. The mayor asked for volunteers to go into the mountains and seek out the dragon’s lair. The room grew very quiet and no one stepped forward.

“In that case I nominate Peer Hansel,” exclaimed the mayor. Every eye in the room turned to look at me for Peer Hansel is my name. I blushed scarlet and bowed my head. My nomination was quickly seconded and I was chosen unanimously.

In many ways I was the logical choice for so dangerous a mission. I was unmarried, childless and a relative new comer having lived in the village for only twenty years. Not only that, but I often spent weeks alone in the mountains writing and gathering herbs. I knew the mountains better than most and I was the most expendable. As a bachelor in a village filled with families I was always a bit of a social outcast. The matchmaker had long ago given up trying to match me with any of the village widows and spinsters. So I accepted the mission and told the assembly I would leave immediately. I had never been so popular. My back was slapped and my hand was shaken by neighbors who hadn’t spoken to me in years.

“We will gather our gold and jewels here,” said the mayor. “I, myself, will record your donations. Everything will be returned when the crisis is over. Bring everything you have. Remember what the old man said about hoarding.”

I went home and packed my rucksack and my blanket and headed out for the long march into the hills. It was fine weather and I made good time. As I climbed, the hills grew steep and the trees thinned until I was above them. I could see the great mountain ahead and my tiny village far below. I thought about how I lived there for so long and yet was not accepted as one of them. How willing they were to send me off to find their dragon but not willing to invite me into their homes. They were a small minded, superstitious lot, cruel and stingy they distrusted everyone including each other. I thought about what I was doing. They thought I was brave. Maybe I was. I loved being out in the wilderness and looked forward to spending a couple of peaceful nights under the stars.

*

After three days, I stumbled into the village a soiled and ragged mess. My clothes charred and my hair smoking. I announced to the council that it was all true. “After a hard march, I stumbled upon the dragon’s lair. I was frightened and when the creature saw me, I was nearly devoured on the spot.” The council gasped and sat in stunned silence as I told my tale. “It was the closest of calls. The dragon is bigger and more fierce than anything I could imagine. It has been sleeping for 200 years and it is hungry. It plans to ravage the village, devour us all and burn our homes to the ground.” The fear in the room was a physical thing.

Only one councilman had the wit to ask, “You spoke with it? It can speak?”

“Oh yes. It speaks all right and it spouts fire with every breath.” Here I rolled up my sleeve and showed them my fire singed arm. They all gasped as one.

“How much time do we have? Did you tell it about the gold? What will become of us?” Now the whole group was speaking at once. they were panicked and afraid as well they should be.

“Order. Order,” cried the mayor and pounded the table. “Let the man speak.”

“I told the beast about the gold and pleaded for our lives. Old man Havermeyer was right— only gold can distract the dragon from its hunger. I told it we would give it all the gold and jewels we had if only it would leave us alone.”

“Yes. Yes,” they cried as one. “Give it the gold and let it leave us alone. Let it sleep for another 200 years.”

“I can take the gold to the dragon as I know the way. How much is there? Can I carry it myself?”

“Just a minute,” said the mayor. “The gold is my responsibility and there is far too much for one man to carry. I shall go with you and make sure everything is as you say.”

“Very well,” I said. There was that old note of distrust I had always felt in this town. The mayor refused to meet my gaze. He divided the gold into two heavy sacks which we placed on a wooden sleigh. We bid the frightened villagers farewell and headed out to bargain for the village’s safety. it was already late in the day. Thankfully there was a full moon to light our way. We didn’t stop to make camp. Our sense of urgency kept us going all night long.

We trudged up into the hills, retracing the way I had been a few days before. We climbed above the tree line and looked back on the sleeping village. Around midnight we changed course and headed toward the pass between the mountains. The snow was deep and the going rough. We had not spoken to each other the entire way. Talking took all our strength to drag the heavy sled through the snow. I was tired and the mayor was nearly exhausted being older and sorely out of shape. We were forced to stop and rest many times. When we reached the pass we continued over it and headed down the other side until we reached a fork in the road. There we stopped to rest.

“Did you remember to pay the boy who rang the bell?” I asked. The Mayor nodded. “How about old Havermeyer? Did you pay him for his story?”

“I did everything you asked my friend,” the mayor said getting to his feet. He slung his heavy sack over his shoulder. “Well Peer,” he said offering me his hand. “We are both rich men now, just as you predicted. The villagers will assume the dragon ate us and took the gold. They will be grateful for the peace it has brought them. Enjoy your wealth and may we meet again someday though I doubt it.”

He went to the left toward Urchin and Samarkand, I went right toward Persia and Damascus. The mayor was right. We would never meet again.

BIO:
Harris Tobias was raised by robots disguised as New Yorkers. Despite an awkward childhood he learned to read and write. To date Mr. Tobias has published two detective novels, The Greer Agency and A Felony of Birds, to critical acclaim. In addition he has published short stories in Down in the Dirt Magazine, Literal Translations, Electric Flash and Ray Gun Revival. He currently lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.