This is the only edited and polished story I have right now. It's going to be published in a horror fiction anthology. The same woman asked me to write something for a H.P. Lovecraft tribute she is putting together. This story is only a couple of thousand words. I actually cut it in half because I started to ramble.
Still Life
Outside the autumn rain falls. The heavy downpour of water against the windows create a raucous so intense it echoes throughout the household, bouncing off walls and disturbing the serenity of mourners. Clouds hide the sun reflecting bleak gray shadows on the landscape. The grass no longer green; the flowers no longer spattered with colors of the rainbow. There are low hums coming from the cemetery down the street. Each corpse singing its melodic dirge. Their dreams lost forever inside a somber wall of immortal despair. There is no returning from this ultimate endeavor.
Across the street from the cemetery, a park filled with children betrays the scene. Their voices sing in a cheery tone as they splash their feet through the cool puddles. These songs of elation counterpoint the morbidity of this moment for inside the house a grievous loss is being remembered. Inside there are solemn whispers throughout the rooms. Tears are choked back and loss bears down on the shoulders of all.
She paces back and forth uneasily, unsettled by the somber events of the last twenty-four hours. Black roses adorn her hair while the scent of cloves follow her footsteps. She reads the sorrow on the faces around her and looks upon them with great despair. Everyone of them is dealing with their suffering in their own special way. Some hide behind a tear-soaked tissue, while others smile and tell light-hearted jokes to help the mood. There are some whose faces are still stricken with shock as if the weight of this tragedy still hasn’t hit their nerves. They can’t understand what happened and why this ever-changing world continues to devour its youth. She walks up to each one of them and puts her hand on their shoulders knowingly, but they barely seem to notice. She wants to help them, her family and friends, through this dark time, but for the moment it seems futile. A feeling of uselessness overwhelms her.
She decides to escape for a while and heads up to her bedroom. In there she always finds the solace she needs. Everything is familiar, and no matter where she looks it reflects her. She walks over to her record collection, which is meticulously alphabetized. They are all still there – from AC/DC to Frank Zappa – or in her case, Zappa, Frank. Who listens to albums anymore, let alone continues to buy them? “They’re making a comeback,” she would tell people. She takes one out to listen to, walks over to the turntable, and lowers the record gently into place. There is no sound as she flips the switch. All she hears is the light sound of uneven scratches from a thirty year old album. It’s that immortal silence that creates a deafening in her mind. It’s nothing but a grave reminder of all that has come to pass. She will get through this and everything will return to normal – or whatever normal is for a girl like her.
She walks over to the bed and falls onto it as lightly and gracefully as a feather making its journey from the heavens. The sheets have the scent of fresh cotton just like she always remembered. She closes her eyes to take in more of the moment, but her life flashes before her. Each scene is surrounded by grays and blacks. The shadows intensify and the sliver of light eventually disappears as she fades into a dream.
As she makes her way through the golden trees in the Forest of Souls, their shimmering leaves more beautiful than anything she has ever seen, the souls cry out to her. Their decaying hands try grabbing onto her, trying to pull her into their grasp, but she resists. Some of them are too strong for her but she fights her way free. She’s not ready to go down there with them again. Their cries become cacophonous and loud and it’s too much for her. She starts clawing at her ears hoping to get rid of the sounds but it gets louder. Blood from her ears drip down her cheek. She wipes it away as she tries to look for a way out.
The trodden path is within her sight, the one leading her through the Forest of Whispers. It’s marked on either side by marshmallow flowers and blue dandelion freckles. She remembers this place from her previous dreams - this recurring visit to her own Wonderland. The trees whisper in cantillating verses, a song she remembers from her youth. The birds harmonize and seem to smile at her as she passes. She looks down and sees her gown is a flowing ocean of burgundy silk, the wind blowing the layers of material like waves on a harsh sea. The dress was a new twist, but one she pleasantly welcomed. The East and West Sun illuminate her path. Their radiance glistens against the chartreuse sky. Translucent clouds with silver water bubbles seem to bounce along their way. The curious calladilly again teases her to try and pop the bubble clouds. She finds a rock on the side of the path and takes aim. The rock bounces off the bottom of the cloud and heads back towards her. She ducks just in time but loses her balance much to the delight of the hidden gnomes. Their rhythmic snickers are far too humorous for her to become angered.
As she makes her way to the edge of Forest of Whispers, the wolf bars the exit. He stands on his hind legs as she approaches, waving her down to stop. He pulls a top hat out of the invisible pocket of his fur and positions it perfectly atop his snow white fur. Every time she attempts to leave, he stands before her, always asking the same question. When she simply responds, “I don’t know,” he nods and stands aside. She turns around to give her customary wave, but he isn’t there anymore. All she sees is the flowing golden leaves losing their luster, turning to black, and crumbling like ash to the once brilliant floor. She sheds a tear and wonders if this has some significance back in her world.
Off in the distance she sees a glowing door. Her feet lead her in that direction, but it seems like she isn’t getting any closer. She tries to run, but her shoes weigh her down, almost like she’s wading into quicksand. The door calls out to her. The pounding from the other side entices her. Is someone there waiting to come through to her side or are they trying to gain her attention? The knocking gets louder and louder as she fights her way out of the sinking floor. The heavy shoes fall off and barefoot makes her way to the door. She hears it vibrating as she approaches it. The humming seems to be coming from the other side. It reminds her of the low hum of the cemetery. As she grasps the doorknob it sends a jolt of electricity throughout her body, but she doesn’t let go. Her body shivers as if she has just felt an intense release. She manages to pull it open. Before her there is nothing. Across a great empty plain of white she sees nothing at all. Off the distance, she hears a voice whisper, “no”. The door slams and she wakes up in her bed.
She thinks back to when everything changed. At first, when she moved here, she was the typical new girl, but quickly became the most popular girl in school. She became lead cheerleader of the Pom Pom Squad. Her grades were always the best in the class and everyone was voting for her to be prom queen. Even the most popular girls in the school took a strong liking to her. There was some aura about her that endeared everyone to her. This kindred feeling amongst her peers couldn’t last forever though. Daddy’s perfect little girl was about to become the town’s worst nightmare.
After she met Emily, everything changed. Emily was know as the town goth girl. It seems that every small town has that one person who sticks out. She was always in detention at school. She indulged in drinking and getting high. They ran into each other one night after a particularly long day at school. To add to the desolation that surrounded the events of the day, she was stuck waiting for the bus in the middle of a torrential rain. Emily offered her a ride much to her surprise. Even though she felt like Emily had some alterior motive, which would eventually come to fruition, she still accepted this unusual display of altruism. It seemed Emily possessed this same magnetic aura that she seemed to have with others. This one supposedly chance meeting started her on a downward spiral.
She felt like she never had before, though. She realized her life had been a bore up until now. Doing things by the book was no way to experience life. Her grades started to slip. She would steal her father’s liquor and raid his weed stash. She and Emily would hide out in the cemetery down the street. It was peaceful, and everyone was too scared to look for them there. As she spent more and more of her time hanging out with Emily, she started coming home past curfew. It became so severe that her parents resorted to locking her out, so she would head down the street and sleep in one of the mausoleums in the cemetery. It was the perfect shield against the rain, and if the night was cool, she would grab some nearby twigs and leaves and burn them until she fell asleep.
It was with Emily that she learned how to cut. She used the blades Emily stole from her father. At first they would make little nicks on their skin just to see themselves bleed. It wasn’t enough though. The sight of blood became such an intensity for her, so she cut a little deeper hoping to heighten the experience. She would watch the blood stream down her arm and then drip to the floor. Sometimes they would taste their own blood and other times they would taste each other’s. There was something enlightening and endearing about it that it seemed to seal their friendship. This new hobby of theirs is what caused Emily’s accident.
It brought tears to her eyes as she lay there alone, wrapped in her memories, enveloped by her fears of her empty future without her best friend. She went into her closet and grabbed her Cradle of Filth long-sleeve. It didn’t matter how warm it was outside. It was her look and people just had to accept it. She didn’t want to return to her family downstairs. They acted like she wasn’t even there, so she ran downstairs and headed out the front door to the only place that gave her some sort of sanity. Down the street she followed the hums of the dead. She knew she could hide out there for a while and then head home to face her parents again. As she walked through the cemetery, reading the beautiful poetry on the headstones, she knew exactly which words should go on Emily’s. As she whispered them to herself, the tears returned. It was the poem that Emily read to her the first night they kissed. She ran to the headstone to see if there enough space for the epitaph. A bolt of lightning found it’s way to the earth, burning the leaves surrounding her grave, and sending her body flying back. As she fell to the ground, her head landed on a stone. Memories came crashing back. She remembered seeing the blood pouring down her arm. The taste at first filled her with lust and sensuality, but she remembered feeling nauseous after drinking too much. She looked back at the headstone and let out a scream so loud the ground seemed to shake under her.
Emily Morris
b. March 24, 1996
d. March 24, 2013
As she sat there in a state of shock, she heard people approaching the cemetery. She saw the crowd all dressed in black making their way inside. In front were her parents, holding a picture of her with tears in their eyes as they came to say their last goodbye to their daughter.
Topic: Tolkien's other books (Read 18406 times)
