Tag: halloween

Haunted October (2020)

I dreamed I was having a beer with the devil. The bar was empty, it was just us, and the bartenders…

So how are you feeling

I sat there, saying nothing. Listening, feeling the room. Knowing there was something else there as well.

It’s so easy, you know, to dismiss, all of …this…(he waved his hand gesturing) this God thing. Don’t you think? But with a year like …this…you really outdid yourselves.

-what do you mean?

Oh, this? I had nothing to do with this. You should ask that guy, he’s been here the whole time.

He pointed across the room. A shadow sighs, and steps into the light. His eyes are tired. He looks about my age. I didn’t understand.

I told you last time, you think you’re so righteous and self important. When you’re just vain. People serve themselves. You can’t win. Not when they can get immediate satisfaction. And the best part? I didn’t even have to do anything. You, you did this yourselves. With your toys. Your free will and creativity. The worlds you built yourselves with social media…

You’re all little gods…

With your own personal Genesis…but you’re destroying your worlds…and there’s only hell here. They forgot that…didn’t they…every paradise has a hell. Where else do you put the misfits? The rebels…

Your Guard knows…

(He motions to the figure.)

I don’t know him, I’ve never seen him.

I shook my head

Oh but you do, he’s been with you the whole time, and all these dreams you’ve had? “Past lives” that’s just his previous assignments. stories if you will. Isn’t it cute how you prayed for him to win battles when you were growing up?

I drank my beer and looked at him again. He looked tired.

Oh he’s not almighty no. He has a branch of banks. They’ve been here the whole time. And he makes withdrawals so he can blend in and live. But he is a warrior. Vietnam, WWll he’s even seen the future.

I thought he wasn’t almighty?

Listen, we can move through time but we can’t make the Mona Lisa appear out of pizza.

My point is, I’m not to blame here and if you think it’s going to get better. You should really see the future. It’s a real kicker. An X-File if you will. Everyone wants to blame me. But the truth is. The things you’re afraid of? The darkness you pray to keep out at night? It’s inside you. It always has been. And that’s what scares you. You and me? We’re not even the same. I wanted to be God. But you guys, you guys wanted to kill God.

The room grew cold.

My glass chilled.

I looked around

The room was filled with people again. Everyone was on their phones. Reading their own profiles, their own newsfeeds.

I closed my eyes and thought about the past. Tried to grab hold of something that was textured and pure. No, sure. Something sure. . .

Believing in god was easy. Or at least in something more. When you had seen a storm or a fire.

The chaos. I watched all of the college students…Anne sat down. She was saying something to me, something about breaking up with someone. “There’s just too many options, too many people in the world…I’m keeping my options open. Who tells anyone that they’re the best thing that’s happened to them this year? That’s lame and now standards.”

I smiled…we were shot through. Our parents fought and died and we were bankrupt. I thought about sitting outside watching the city getting bombed …or maybe it was another dream. There was another girl there …she was a dancer…we were drinking and watching the fires…

I wondered how soon we all would realise that we’re lucky to meet anyone that really looks past their own nose and sees us. Really …really sees us. And I thought about how poor we were. And how happy we were. And I thought about how empty we all are…constantly reinventing ourselves chasing change until we die.

The moon Queen

They say, she left her heart open, in the rain…

Every Tuesday

She would pick her flowers

And write her songs

No one knows much about her

What she really thought

How she felt about things

They only remember her sadness and her tragedy

I like to think

I know what she felt,

Some nights

At 3am

I can hear her playing the piano

Its music fills the halls upstairs

Some nights

When the moon is full

And melancholy

You can see her window open

Her wide, deep, dark eyes

And her blue dress

Sometimes it’s white

But she’s only there for a minute

And then she’s gone

You might see her at the top of the stairs

Or entering someone’s room

Trying to find something she’s left behind

I’ve seen some of her paintings

Some of her sketches

And heard her songs

I think I know what it must have felt like

To be filled so full

And not know

How to express it

To feel so alone

Like an outsider

Maybe she’s still trying to work it out….

They say

You feel the fear

And the terror

If you see her face though

The pain of dying

The air turns cold

I don’t believe it

I think you see the emptiness inside of yourself

No one knows what really happened to her

Her letters

Still show up under my door

That’s when I find her paintings

Inside empty rooms

Sometimes they’re in the park

I’ve seen her walking

When the moon is full

And the fog is down,

I don’t know why she talks to me

Maybe it’s because we are both alone

Filled with things to say

And unsure of how to say them

Maybe it never goes away

Maybe it doesn’t ever let go,

Maybe we just keep on trying

Even after we’re gone….

I don’t know her name

I only call her the moon queen….

Haunted October #8

He remembered the streets 

The businesses coming and going 

The lights 

The finances 

The music 

The cars.

He had been a part of all of that 

Helped build that 

But now everything was a phone 

Or an app 

And everyone was glued to their hands.

He had a wet bar 

Every night 

He would pour a drink 

As much as he wanted, he could never smoke and drink together. 

He saw the City change.
And somehow he disappeared. Like all of those businesses. Those start ups. 

He looked in the mirror. His skin and his gray hair. He was invisible even to himself. 

The years fly by like rain in the wind.

And there is something painful about growing old. No one ever tells you. Or maybe they did tell you, they were just part of that elderly chasm and you never heard them. 

After you reach a certain age. You become invisible. No one really hears you and no one really sees you. Not like they used to. 

They just group you all together, like a pile of dead leaves raked together and forgotten. 

Sometimes he wondered what happened and how it changed so fast.  One minute he was young and finishing college. The next morning  he was so old he could barely get out of bed. 

Haunted October #6

There it was the camera flashing 

Illuminating the barn 

The smell hanging thick in the air 

Like the humidity 

Everyone wanted their picture taken 

Everyone wanted to look the same 

Dead eyes 

Pale perfect  skin 

There was no blemish 

No stretch marks 

Life sized dolls 

The photographer 

Made his living this way 

He simply gave them what they wanted 

He had his own bills to pay 

But there they were 

He felt like a dressmaker 

Or an old con man selling sugar packets 

Dead eyes staring back at him…

Everything is copy.  

Haunted October#1

Taste the ash inside the mouth 

Feel the flesh as cold as clay 

You never seem to come around 

All the colours fade to grey

I listen to the words 

I used to say 

Now the voice inside 

The void 

The space 

We all come apart here 

We all can’t escape here

Did she rename her dreams that got away 

Does this still make you happy?

She’s here 

But I’m missing 

The void 

Just a word 

Just 

Just 

I am missing 

in little parts 

We all die here 

In the end 

The Nightwalker #3

You know why I keep letting Jack Frost hang around? Because he doesn’t talk.  In the 250 years I’ve known him. He’s never said a word to me. Don’t get me wrong. He digs those cheesy 80 anthems. 

I just want to reach out and touch you 

You make my fire come alive 

All I need is to be near you 

You get the picture, right? 

These things always start blaring through the air just as he comes strutting down the street 

Or popping up beside me 

Or my cigarettes freeze. 

Tonight was no different.

He was sitting in the window. His white hair covering his eyes. 

He handed me a cigarette this time. Without freezing it. And a drink. 

“I’ve been here before Jack.”

He looked out at the street. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. He’s shaken. I’m a scientist. I’ll just fix him.”

Jack laughed and hopped down flashing over a bench.

“I’m an immortal scientist. I’m still part human. At least in  form. I have tendencies. I’ll talk to him.”

Who was I kidding, I went back inside. Opened my books and settled down in the darkness. All I could do was wait. 

3am Full Dark

Midnight is considered the beginning of night. But everyone knows 3am is full dark. It’s when all of your night terrors hit. Your demons come out to play. 

My subject was asleep. All you could hear was the clocks in the room. The light in the bathroom flickered before dying. The room was quiet. I closed my book. Looking over the room slowly.  I could hear Clayton’s heart beat…thump thump thump the air  went cold like a freezer. This was different than when Jack comes around. For one, everything was layered in darkness. This was different, like a living darkness. For another, Clayton’s heart beat started hyping. Faster and faster. He was in terror. 

I looked over at Clayton. I could hear him trying to talk. His hands shaking. He was staring into the ceiling. 

“Nooo! Go away! Stop it!” 

He sat up in the bed rubbing his face. 

I walked towards him. 

“Clayton. Do you know what just happened? Can you tell me what you saw?”

“I thought you were supposed to see those things for yourself?” He said while fixing the covers around him. 

“I tried, I couldn’t read anything in the room. It’s just a regular night. Which suggests this is just your insomnia again. ”

Clayton looked at me. “No. this is r  r real. Something was here. In the room. I saw it and felt it. It was dark, and absolute fear. I could smell it. Like sulfur. It was standing beside my bed. Just tall and dark. It kept saying ‘Harvest’.” 

I looked around. “Harvest?”

“Harvest. Why?” 

“I don’t know. This feels familiar.” 

I walked out into the hall. The words ‘Harvest.’ Were  carved into the mirror on the wall.

This was getting weird.

Beagle in the City#84

Simon: It was a dark October night. The house was closing in upon me. I could hear from my cage as the murder was happening. I closed in on my suspect, using only my keen, canine senses.

He was a wiry man. Eyes filled with evil. Not very attractive. But he couldn’t help it. He was crazy after all. He’s spotted me. Locked in my cage. He was closing in on me. 

My time had come. On this October night. Blood soaked everything. I could practically hear the sizzle as the flesh cooked from his latest victim. Would I be saved?

Ethan: Simon? Simon? What are you doing? Are you ok?

Simon: Hey dad. Can I help make hamburgers? I’m hungry. 

Ethan: I don’t think I should let you watch Hannibal anymore…

The Party Guest

Someone had told him about witches once when he was a boy. But he had laughed. Those were just fairy tales. Not anything real.

This Halloween party was boring him to death. The boredom was palpable.

That’s when he saw her in the corner. Black heels, a tight fishnet  dress with sleeves fanning  out over her wrists. She had a drink in her hand. He liked the way she looked at him-the way she smiled just as she slipped out of the room  into the library. 

He followed her. 

Someone told him once about ghosts. But he didn’t believe in things like that. They weren’t real. They were just stories we tell.

There was a conversation once about sex, but he couldn’t remember it. A science experiment, rats being electrocuted on a treadmill but followed by an orgasm. They kept going until they died. He couldn’t remember the details. 

The library was empty. Her glass was on the floor. The door was open. He walked out into the darkness. Her shoes were cast off on the path. The cold darkness was something he couldn’t feel. She was just ahead of him. Slowly undressing leaving a new article of clothing on the path. 

His head was pounding…he was burning up. 

It seemed as though shadows ran past him. Screams in the trees. Pitched echoes and whispers beside him, followed by laughing. 

She was standing there in the middle of the path. Waiting.

She turned her back to him, giving him her neck, he smelled her hair. Just the slip of her dress left cast on the ground. She took his hands and pulled them around her. She was completely naked. And warm.

His hands were shaking as he touched her.

Everything was so heavy and blurred. 

All of the voices.

He touched her. 

All of the voices came together. Right there before him. From her.

The dead girl in his arms. Blood warm. Her dress torn from her, left hanging by fragments. Her feet bleeding from running barefoot. 

There was only darkness. Only cold. Only silence. 

Turning back to the house. A white shirt in plastic was hanging from a tree. He took it. Changing quickly as he walked. Followed by a suit jacket. 

Someone told him once about vampires. But he knew, they were just the dead. The real demons were the living. Hunting for sex, for power, seeing everything as an invitation. 

Last- a pair of shoes on the well. He slipped them on and dropped his dirty pair into the dark water. He stepped  back into the library. Picking up the drink from the floor, he closed the door. 

“Great party!” Someone said. 

He turned around, smiling and raised his glass. He nodded to his guests.

Moonlight 

  
Grandmother always closed the curtains when the moon was full. “The moon is awake.” She’d say with nervous hands. “It will talk to you all night.”  I would laugh as a child and ask her if it were true. And she would get serious with a stern face, “yes.it will even sing if you listen real careful. The moon has power over the waters of the earth and the minds of man. When it’s full…men change …and if you let its light enter your home? It will have the power to manipulate you.” 

She believed this…so much so that while I was staying there one night Carol, our sister, got her period more heavily than usual. So of course it was the moon. 

“Don’t look at it through the mirror,Francis.” She’d say. “It can possess you. The mirror is the gateway to your soul.” 

Of course it was all nonsense. But it all became much worse with her after granddad died. And later shortly after. She died in her sleep. 

Which brought us here. 

Back home. To grandmas.For her funeral. 

I woke up in the middle of the night. To a faint sound coming from the mirror… 

The moonlight shining in through the window…

I walked over looking into it…

There was me..leaning in touching the mirror and the bed off to the side. The rocking chair behind me…the window…and the moon.

A black crow landed in the tree outside. 

And that’s when I saw it. 

The rocker started rocking in the mirror. But not in the room. And it remained empty. 

In the morning. I told Carol. She just shook her head… 

“Francis, you’re an idiot.”

This happened three nights in a row. Finally I stayed in bed. And listened for the rocker…

But I couldn’t hear it…only a tap tap tapping from the inside of the mirror. 

And someone walking upstairs… 

I grabbed the flashlight and ran to the attic…

It was cold 

But not like winter…

A different cold.

That’s when I saw it…

a human Skeleton chained 

To the bed by the window

Teeth bare 

With vampire fangs 
We were always told grandfather died by drowning…

Grandmother said he was shaving and the moon passed over the mirror.

The tapping grew louder on the mirror…

I walked downstairs 

The rocker started banging on the wall.. I leaned forward looking into the mirror And saw grandmother. 

Dressed in white…sitting in the rocker – grandfather beside her…and that’s when I saw it….I had no reflection. 

Beagle in The City #4

Color Fest

Hello Person! 

This week my pack set out for the mountains. 

To Color Fest !! 
  
  
There were lots of other dogs!

  
It’s all outdoors so you can walk through with your snoopy dog. 

We saw dogs in strollers,purses,big dogs small dogs. But not many dogs on the bluff….

  
Dad bought some Southern Girl Coffee  And a hand made Cutting Board because he’s the ‘Chopper’  

 
Mom bought some vintage Jewlery some candles ….and some books…

dad took pictures again…

  
   
   
And Firemen gave me some treats. 

Which was pretty cool. 

There was so much food And so much to smell.

And funnel cake! 

I don’t know what that is…

But it smells delicious. 

We lost those bags everyone’s always putting my crap in.

But then we found them so everything was OK. 

So bring your dog to festivals!.