and thus the tale ended

That's the last of that story.  Got a few more in the trunk, which I will haul out if anyone is interested.  Going to try a new look in the next month.  Let me know what you think.

To continue the tale:

She got out of the car, resettling her Raybans firmly on the bridge of her nose. Sunlight filtered through an intermittent green screen of ancient elders. The field behind the trees looked crowded and brushy, as if the road were a slender line yet to be breached in some ageless skirmish. Marilyn felt a slight chill. Those midsummer breezes didn't do her any favors.

She crossed the road, grimacing at the dust shifting into her leather sneakers. The cheap cotton pullover of her dumb local-yokel costume, twisted under her left arm, binding across her back like a leash. She hated to think what this little excursion was doing to her freshly done hair.

She clambered up the rocky mound. Probably no more than fifteen or twenty feet higher than the road, Marilyn didn't expect this much of a view. There sat her car, pointed away to the left with the road going on around a corner. The trees across the road were pretty thick, almost jungle like. Still, she could almost make out some sort of clearing, not to far from the road.

In fact, a little path or track of some sort lead to what looked like some sort of cottage. Yes, just through branches and leaves, white boarding showed through here and there. The more she looked the clearer the house became, showing a nice porch front with what could only be wagon wheel trim on top. Marilyn felt a real smile then, a dollar sign smile. One window, no two, one on each side of the door. The glass or something winked in the afternoon shadows. A metal weather vane crowned the peak of the roof, slowly turning in a breeze Marilyn could not feel. She strained to see more, squinting and leaning forward until she nearly lost her balance on the rock. Her sudden stumble forced her to look back toward the road.

A dust plume crawled to the distant corner, veering toward her car. Someone was out here all right, and suddenly Marilyn did not want to be found. Not after sighting what might be an abandoned treasure. Marilyn scurried down, breaking a nail and nearly hanging her shoelaces on a wild thorny something growing at the bottom of the rock.

Racing to the car, she scanned the far side of the road, trying to see any kind of gap in the trees where she could park the car, hidden by the brush. A gap suddenly appeared, where the bar ditch was almost filled in by a combination of gravel and sand. She must have just missed seeing it, because of the line of sight from the rocks. Keys sticking to her sweating palms, Marilyn jerked the ignition and felt the car come to life. She pursed her lips into a kiss, engaged the gear and rolled to the gap. Marilyn neatly turned in, spotting a sort of hollow in the trees, just past the gap, almost a garage made of trees. No one would ever see it there. She was safe. A grin bit her cheeks.

The road was just as dusty, the grit was just as bad but now Marilyn had a plan. Thoughts of quiet money, quick returns and getting something other people wanted gave her that old familiar rush. Marilyn hopped out and locked the car. Can't be too careful. The trees seemed to lean over at her, peering at her. Marilyn jumped at a sudden snap of branches, like teeth gnashing together. Her skin twitched. Pressing thin lips together, she shook herself.

"Silly," she said out loud. The wind in the trees made weird noises all the time. Just because she couldn't feel it on the ground was no reason to be jumpy.

The trees weren't quite as thick here. In fact, a narrow little path opened through them. Funny, she didn't see that before. No wind stirred the leaves at her level but Marilyn could hear bark rubbing rasping bark in the trees, like skin on skin.

Marilyn felt her chest getting tight, her face grinning. All these big trees, elders she thought. The trail seemed longer than it looked from the road. Okay, so she would have to walk just a little further. No big deal. The path dipped and swayed in the wrong direction when suddenly it came right.

The weather vane squeaked as it turned, a crying, grating noise. She stopped for a moment, unsure. Peering down the path, she could just make out the edge of the house, shining white in sunlight. A shadow kept winking across one side, making the window glint oddly.

Marilyn thought about going back. The air felt close like the pant of a dog on her neck. Just then she caught a glimpse of the wagon wheel trim, clean, pristine, edging the porch.

"I have to have that."

She went on down the path.

Almost at the house, Marilyn thought she heard a distant shout coming from the road. It was probably a crow or some other bird making noises. The house beckoned. She could see perfect wagon wheel trim, all around the porch. Clear, white walls and complete antique glass panes in the windows. The glass even had the distinctive thickness at the bottom. Oh, it was wonderful! A real killing, for sure! Marilyn danced up onto the porch, the door standing wide,inviting her in, offering secrets and treasures beyond. She peered into the dark within. Was that an old dresser and mirror in the corner? Marilyn couldn't see quite clearly but the shape in the gloom looked right.

 
Stepping over the door sill, she noticed a faintly musty smell, kind of clingy. The inside walls looked strangely soft and dark. She could see drip lines and the floor gave a little under her feet. Marilyn put a hand on the wall, feeling if the wall covering were paper or cloth. It felt moist and warm. A sharp acrid smell curled into her nose. She turned to look out the marvelous windows, but the windows began shutting by themselves, showing inside veins like the inside of eye lids. Lifting a foot to step to the door, she felt a clinging pull on her shoe.
 
"Hey! What the hell? My Gucchis'!"
 
The door swung shut as Marilyn jerked her hand from the wall, leaving patches of skin behind. She tried to move her feet. The walls and floor, now seeping a clear sticky ooze, formed little fleshy protrusions reaching for her, holding her feet. Marilyn fell to her knees, hearing herself screaming. Pulsing red tentacles from the floor and walls caught at her skin, burning where it licked, her hands, her arms, finally reaching her twitching shoulders.  Her last thought was of how this place was a real killer..

But wait there is more.

I'll post the rest of the story in a week.  I'm still working on learning how to make it look the way I want.

next week then to see what Marilyn finds. 

just a short I wrote some time ago

Killer Find

Where was that excuse for a main road?  All those impossible twists and turns for the last half hour and she still hadn't come across anything that looked like a killer find.

This back country lane looked like all the others she had been down, single car width, broken dirt edges.  What gravel might once served as paving was long scattered or pounded in.  The bar ditches, a good two or three feet deep, snaked along side, exposing sandstone and an occasional tree root.  Powder fine dust gritted on every surface, inside and out, of her ice blue Mercedes.

Had the old bat who told her about this place gotten the directions wrong?  Marilyn hated having to hunt up farm houses in the middle of god-forsaken-middle-nowhere.  The only saving grace was that if the place was so hard to find, she could probably score some real money out the forgotten junk left to rot.

Delicated tinted lips wrinkled into a smile as Marilyn remembered that find she made a week ago.  The oak dresser cost one hundred dollars but she made that back on the antique buttons she ripped off the yellowed lace dress. 

But the real prize, a pair of silver picture frames, wedding pictures still mounted, she found in the bottom drawer, wrapped in the dress.  The pictures were useless so she trashed them.  If she'd said anything to the old lady selling the dresser, the dress, frames and all would have been claimed by the crinkly faced hag.   She'd already wasted enough of Marilyn's time anyway, blathering on about family dreams and nonsense like that.

So what if grandma used that glass bowl to serve grandpa his favorite jelly?  If it sold for a good price, good.  Memories have no value.  Dead is dead.

But a good hunter knew the value of letting old biddies gas on. Still Marilyn was surprised when this one told her about an abandoned house, still full of furniture, just going to ruin. By the glint in those vacant eyes, Marilyn would have guessed the woman didn't like her.  Not that it mattered.

Marilyn turned up the air conditioner, hoping to blow some of the dust out. Grit rasped between her teeth, making her grimace.

No one ever so much as asked about her life, or understood the trouble she went to, finding, pricing and carting out junk, just so people who wanted antiques could have the stuff.   A heartfelt sigh oozed out.  This house had better be worth all the trouble she was going to, that's all she could say.

Spotting a rock outcropping along side the road up ahead near a flat space, Marilyn slowed to a cautious stop. The road widened at the crest of the rise like an altar top.

She shook herself. The old lady's comment about those places being meant for sacrifice crept across her mind with cold toes. A pile of rocks stood just off the road. Climbing to the top might give her some idea of a way out of this rural hell.

New thing, warning, warning, Danger, Will Robinson

Yes, this a new thing.  I just posted a short story I wrote a while back, and sorry, but the primative editing thing did not allow for proper spacing.  My next post (if anyone responds) will have better spacing and I will not put the whole thing out there.

Plan to do more of installments, because some of my stuff is l-o-n-g.  Let me know what you think.

What comes around

"We are an old people." The ancient voice cracked and wheezed.
"But it was not always so." The old man squinted his rheumy eyes at the anthropologist, seeing past the form, into the heart. He coughed and sighed, then continued. "Once, we were young, defiant, proud in our ignorance of any strength beyond our own. We moved into the land and took it, as a conqueror. Like you."
The anthropologist formed an absent smile. It was going to be a long session. If she let the old guy go on like this, it might be hours before she got anything of value, but if she stopped him now, she might never get another word out of him. She shifted the recorder to a more secure spot on the rickety table.
"Your people are still strong and proud." She had a little trouble with the vowels in his archaic language but she was better at it than any one else on the research team. And the old geezer refused to respond to anything else but his own tongue.
The weather ruined face wrinkled into an amused smile. "Not as we were. We have learned, as you will. The earth is not to be used and discarded. It has it's own destiny."
The scientist dipped her head, the way she'd been taught these people acknowledged an elder's words. She could go along with the customs, to get what she needed. In fact, some of them were almost elegant. She could appreciate the non-verbal communication for what it was, a form of societal shaping to maintain order.
"Please, tell me."
The old man settled back, leaning on the wooden back of the chair. "You want to hear of our stories, of when we came. We were not the first. There were others before us. We swept some of them away like chaff before the wind. Others were stronger, more resistant. We fought them and they too were gone, or absorbed into our world, with remnants of memories. We thought they were the first, but they were not.
"Others, more ancient, stronger, and probably more far sighted, had been and gone. The land remained. When it wanted them gone, they left without a struggle. The ones who came after learned from the Ancients and they respected the land. They were allowed to stay much longer and when we came, they thought we would do the same."
The old man sighed. His worn body could not sustain the energy to talk for long periods but the scientist was determined to get as much out of him as she could.
She offered him a steaming cup of his favorite drink. "Here. Rest a little, then go on. You're helping all of us so much."
The old man cradled the cup in his bony hands, sipping and pausing, then sipping again. He shot a glance at the scientist, his blue eyes glinting with cold humor.
The anthropologist shook herself. Some of these old types acted like this project was an insult but this character was the worst. She couldn't escape the impression that he was laughing at her, her work and the rest of the team. Why he thought he was superior was beyond her.
A tattered shirt, coarse blue pants stuffed into decrepit boots, and an old leather jacket that desperately needed cleaning were probably his best clothes. She didn't want to imagine the hovel he lived in. Most of these people made do with simple electricity, primative plumbing and little else.
The scientist forced herself to concentrate on the project rather than this particular subject.
"Can you go on?"
The old man shrugged an agreement. "You want to hear how we can to be as we are?"
The scientist nodded absently, her eyes more on the dials of the simple recorder than the old man.
"When we were young and fearless, and had no respect for that which came before, some of my people began to search out the old places. They started with the idea of understanding those who were gone, but some wanted treasures to hold and covet, treasures that would give them power, riches and fame." A soft sigh escaped from the time thinned lips.
"Somewhere, no one knows where or how, a strange door was discovered. This door was small and narrow, hidden deep in a rock-strewn canyon. The way there was not inviting, or particularly safe but one man chanced it. The door, carved of stone, faced with wood and sealed with pitch boasted an iron lock rusted shut. The man worked for years to open the lock, unseal the door and see what lay hidden. All this time, his true treasures, a wife and children, a home and reputation, were forgotten, like some much dross. The wife raised the children and left him, the home fell to ruin and the reputation was forgotten.
"Finally, the day came when he could open the door. He was not aware of wars, rumors of plague, waves of anger and misery that swept the earth. He only saw the narrow door open.
"Inside was a hole. An empty, bottomless slit of nothing that led to nothing. A hollow into space. He beamed a light into it, and the light fell away. He breathed into it and his breath fell away. He put his head into it and he fell away. Then you came."
The old man sat back in his chair, spent. The scientist frowned, waved her hand for him to go on, and leaned forward. Silence. The old man sank with a final breath, his head dipped to his chest, eyes closed. No breath stirred his lips.
The scientist blinked. "Mr. Smith?" She used the old formal title these primitive people used for their men.
Mr. Smith did not move. She grimaced and reached out a tentative upper limb. No breath, no pulse. The old man had just died.
She tapped an irregular spot on her upper torso. "Dosquant, the subject is of no further use."
These earth being. She wanted so to understand them and every time she got one that made some sort of sense, something happened. They lapsed into senility, illness or in some cases, death. If this kept up, she would run out of subjects before she found anything of value.
Dosquant, short squatty body and wide lower limbs perfect for manual labor, stumped into the room. As he gathered the frail remains, he looked at the scientist.
"What? One of the survey teams has found a door, in a canyon?" The scientist stared at Dosquant. His mandibular structure would not allow him to verbalize but he had been fitted with a mental enhancer so he could communicate if he concentrated.
"Sealed, with a iron lock?"
She did not wait for an answer. After all this was her project, and if there was a find to be had, by the Moons of Qunida, it was hers.
In the space of one Solar day, strange creatures she had never seen, with terrifying new technologies swept through the outpost. The project was forgotten in the invasion.

Once again, into the fray, really

Seriously, I am doing this again. Sort of, but I mean it this time. The real deal, you know the whole bit, on a regular basis. Yes, I am. No, not next week. Today. Now. Ah, blow out, inhale, blow out, inhale.

Deep breath.

But this time, more of what is there with stories and stuff. Oh, and it is a bit, hmm. Different.

So, here we go.