Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast

​

It had definitely been – almost still was – a yellow chrysanthemum.  Struggling to hold on to the shape and beauty it had once had, but this was a battle it had already lost.  Propped in a vase by one of the few graves which had been tended in the decades this graveyard had been otherwise abandoned, it still stood as proud as it could in front of a young woman’s gravestone.  She’d died in October 1918,  a month before the end of the first world war.  Tragic time to go.  She’d been twenty.  A nurse.  I suppose they’re all tragedies.  But someone had kept this one cleaner than the surrounding graves.  Maybe parents?  They’d have long-since died.  Maybe a younger sister, or even nephews or nieces.  
This was all a distraction, though, from the important find.  The open pub ahead of me, welcoming seating out front, no obvious other clientele, and probably not food, so not as good as the pub I’d been meaning to go to.  That was shut on Mondays.  I should have noticed on their website.  These little out-of-the-way places often don’t open all week, but I’m used to the big city.  It was only on a whim two weeks back, realising I had so much leave yet to take, that I decided on this walking holiday.  My GPS told me I was two miles from my B&B, even though I’d got hopelessly lost earlier.  Don’t know what you’d do without phones.  I had some snacks back in my room, so a beer here and then a half hour to home, and then – with blessed relief to my feet – bed.
First, beer though.  As I said, important.
I ducked to get through the door and was met by one of those olde worlde pubs – you know the sort of thing, with bits of farm machinery stuck to the walls for no reason and ancient pewter jugs hanging from the ceiling.  Books on bookshelves that screamed out that they’d been bought by the yard by those companies who survive by outfitting olde worlde pubs.  Not one could have been taken down and read in decades.
Nice interior, though, in many ways.  Lots of snugs, nooks and crannies, places which I knew from bitter experience made being bar staff an absolute nightmare when people didn’t bring their glasses back to the bar.  Not an issue tonight, though, as the place was deserted.  Only a solitary barmaid, tapping away on her phone.  They had bar stools, so I went up to the bar, plonked myself on one – to the relief of my feet, although I did tell them not to get used to the comforting rest – and nodded to her.
“What can I get you?” she asked, stepping across to stand in front of me.
Four different beers on tap.  Always a good sign, but surprising with the place being empty.  Still, it was a Monday.  I looked through the options.  “Mmm,” I said.  “Half a Landlord.”  A half meant I could have a second half of one of the others in a bit.
She smiled.  A man could fall for a smile like that, but barmaids must get that all the time, so – I thought – be the gent.  I’m on holiday, probably only coming here once, don’t start getting stupid ideas.  Even if you could equally fall into those dark eyes, now intently focused on the task in hand – that of getting me a half of Landlord.
“There you are,” she said, placing it carefully in front of me.  No spillage – another of my bugbears when it came to serving staff.
“Thank you.  Quiet tonight.”
“Always is early in the week.  Only gets busy for the live music nights.”
“Surprised you’re open at all.”
She turned to get the card machine, her hair beautifully swishing as she did so.  Long dark hair.  Right, I thought – find something to say which isn’t anything to the effect of why an attractive young woman is in a bar in the middle of nowhere on her own with a single man.  Don’t say that.  Obviously having consciously thought that I couldn’t think of anything less creepy to say, so I got my card out and paid, having not listened to how much the beer even was.  
The machine pinged.  She put it away, giving me another swoosh, enough for me to notice a small yellow flower tucked into her hair, contrasting with the dark.  I’m not normally like this, I should say.  Maybe it was tiredness.  But something about her…
She turned back and I looked away, probably too late to avoid it being obvious I’d been staring, but what else was there to look at in this otherwise-empty building?  The farm machinery?  Some of those old sepia pictures that again I suspected they sold by weight or volume?  One of them behind the bar was clearly this building, though, so relevant at least, but why put a picture of a building inside itself?  It had two middle-aged ladies – Victorian dresses – standing in front of what looked like a pub unchanged from how I saw it.
The barmaid followed my gaze.  “Ah,” she began.  “Those two ran this, back in the day.  It’s them that haunt the place.”
“What?”
She smiled, as if what she was saying was the most natural thing in the world, with a disarming lack of concern – the kind of concern I feel I’d have even as a man being alone in a building I so confidently said was haunted.
“What do you mean, they haunt this place?”
She leaned slightly forward, dropping her voice.  “Oh, they rattle the plates in the kitchen.  They were doing that earlier this evening.  And people in the toilets have seen them in the mirror, standing behind them.  And sometimes, when I’m closingup, a gust of cold smokey air wafts along the bar, covering it for a second.”
I looked up and down the bar, and then back into those so-delightful eyes.  “What?”  Not a great conversationalist, me, at least not when distracted by someone this pretty and an insane story of haunted bartops.  “Have you seen them?”
She laughed.  Well, a half-laugh.  As if what I was asking wasn’t stupid exactly, but was too obvious to answer.  She stood back up.  “You get used to them.”
“And you’re not scared?  Here, on your own…”  Oh, damnation, I said it.  Basically asking if she was scared of being alone, now with a strange man in her pub, heading into the latter part of the evening.
She didn’t appear to notice.  Instead she looked round the room.  “I sometimes FaceTime one of the other staff when I’m closing up.  Chat to them.  Someone to keep me company.”
It was still alone.  I was oddly feeling protective of her now.
“How late do you stay open?”
“I’d have been thinking of shutting up if you hadn’t arrived.”  She put up a hand as if to say stop.  “Oh, but don’t worry.  It’s fine.  Nothing else to do tonight, so if you want another or anything don’t feel you have to stop.”
I’d finished my half already, so I asked for a half of a local brewery – Hunter’s something – weird lettering which made it very hard to read in the dim light.  Had it been that dim when I got in?  Maybe just the sun going down.
We went through the dance of pouring and paying again, and this time she opened the conversation.  “I didn’t notice a car.  Did you walk?”
“Yeah.  Walking holiday.”
“Far to go?”
“Only a couple of miles.  GPS says right out of here, then left along past some kids farm place, and I’m staying just beyond that.  AirBnB place.”  It wasn’t AirBnB.  Why did I say AirBnB?  To impress her?  To say, look, I’m up to date with things?  To distract from the fact I was probably ten years her senior?  To fill a space in which I’d otherwise blurt out how amazingly her dark eyes shone in the pale light, and how if she smiled at me I’d stay here forever…?
“That’s good.  It’ll be dark soon, and some of the drivers down that road.  God, even though it’s 30 out front they speed past us like they’ve got a deathwish.  There have been several crashes out front.  And for years there was a primary school just down the way.  The building’s still there, just back behind the Tudor-style empty house.”
“I’d noticed that place, coming up here.  Looks like a lovely old building.”
More smile.  “Bit of a fixer-upper.”  She picked up her phone and was either checking for messages or checking the time.
I took another gulp of beer.  I could stay here all night.  I could drift away into fantasies about a dark-eyed maiden suitable for a romantic poem about highwaymen.  I wondered if offering to stay while she shut the place would make her feel more worried.  She was used to it.  Although I could have another half.  Just a snifter for the road, and all that.
I pushed my empty glass over the bar.
“Maybe one last half,” I said.
She glanced behind me, then back at me.  “Are you sure?”
I looked down at my watch.  “Unless you want to close up.  Sorry – I don’t want to keep you.”
“No, it’s fine.  Just checking…”
I didn’t know what to make of it.  I wanted to stay.  God, I wanted to stay.  I’d been walking for hours – an extra half wouldn’t hurt, would it?  One last half.
I pointed at one of the other taps, a green one I hadn’t tried before.  I should photograph them and fill them in on my beer tasting app later.  Something to do to distract myself before bed.  To avoid thinking about her.  Why was she getting into my head quite so much?
“There you go,” she said, her hand staying long enough round the glass that I felt her cool fingers briefly when I picked it up.  “Enjoy.”
I took a sip, and noticed she was staring at me now.  The smile had gone, replaced by a sadness.  “Why?” she asked, but not of me.  Yet there was no one else there.  “Oh, damn it, why did you have to ask for another?”
“What?  Sorry.  If you’d wanted to close up…”
“No, I didn’t, but now they had a chance to see you staring.”
“What?  I’m sorry, but you are…  I mean…  I didn’t mean to…”
She looked past my left shoulder and shouted.  “He was going.  You don’t have to keep trying to set me up like this.  You don’t have to do these stupid stupid things.  Why are you such arseholes?”
I heard another voice, somehow.  Yet there was no one there.  A whining whisper “Is that any way to talk to your mother?”
“I’m fine alone!” she suddenly shouted, almost making me spill my drink.  “I’m fine!  And if I’m not fine, I can deal with it!  Look!”
She leant over the bar, grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me forward into a kiss, which I’d only just got over the shock of when she pushed me away again.  “See!”
I didn’t know what to say.  She was staring behind me, so I turned round, I was still holding my drink when I realised she was now standing next to me, rather than behind the bar.  I hadn’t heard her move.
“They don’t let me, you see.  They don’t let me choose.  I’d have chosen…  Well, not to.  Not to do this, exactly, but I like you.  I do.  You seem… nice, I guess.”
She put out her hands and placed them gently on my upper arms, holding me.  I felt shivers running through me, racing through me.  I looked at those lips again, now talking, that I had been kissed by seconds before.  She leaned closer, and I felt her grip tighten.  I felt I was falling, but not sideways.  Directly down.
“They want you to stay with me for a while,” she said, as I realised I was dropping throug the floor.  “They think I need company.  And I can’t say no to my mother.”
It went dark.  There was only a smell I recognised.  A chrysanthemum.

                                                                   💀💀💀

Robert lives west of London with a wife and two cats, and a cornucopia of half-finished writing projects.  A few have been published over the years, which – it has to be admitted – is very pleasing.  If only a less creative day job wouldn’t keep getting in the way, he’s sure it would be more.  You can find him at www.philosophicalleopard.com where you’ll find more short stories, links to his novels, and musings on why zeppelins don’t ply the skies.

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.



“Aw, I dunno, Penny. I think you’re fibbin’. I ain’t never heard of a mango tree dropping plum fruit tasting like a fizzy.”
“Oh, Michael — you’re from Sydney,” Penny answered with a roll of her sparkling green eyes. “An’ no one from the city knows what kinda good secrets we Bogans keep past the black stump.”
“Where’s that? The ‘black stump?’”
With hands upturned and thrust to the heavens, Penny shook her head, sending her braided, blonde pigtails flailing, “It’s not a real ‘black stump’; it means it’s far off — like a long way out of the way.”
Michael stood there looking at this girl. Since his family moved to Bowral last week, he’d hardly seen any kids his age. School was still more than a month off, and even though this rural town was only a couple hours from Sydney, it felt far away — past the ‘black stump’ far. And it was odd. This girl was weird, too, but she was also cute — in a silly sort of way.
Penelope Hathaway shrugged, turned and began walking away in a slow, knee-dip, toe drag in the dusty trail. “Suit yourself, Michael. C’mon, if ya want. Go on if you don’t, but don’t expect me to invite you to the mango tree again.”
He followed along but kept his distance. “How come you call me ‘Michael’ and not Mike or Mikey?”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well — Michael, you’re from the city. Means your so-fist-a-cated. Plus, we already have a Mike and a Mikey round here. Mike Wallins, he’s okay, but he doesn’t talk, and Mikey Plunkett, but he’s a real bludger and would never make it to the mango tree.”
“Hmm — how come Mike Wallins doesn’t talk?”
“Don’t know. Just never has.”
Michael watched as Penny stopped, snapped her heels together and twirled. Her pigtails swung out horizontally and held, spinning like a helicopter rotor with her arms out as if she were trying to rise from the ground. Her eyes were closed, and she was smiling. When she stopped and opened them, looking right at him — she winked. Michael jumped like he’d been stung by a bee.
“You said these mangos taste like fizzy pops? What flavours?”
Penny’s mouth curled into a smile, “Mmm — well, you’ll have to come see! But I’ve had ones that tasted like cherry, root beer, and Pepsi, but I really want to find one that tastes like cream soda — my favourite.”
After a long, hot slog through open fields with low, dry grass and dust that puffed up with each step like talcum powder, Penny pointed to a slope. At the bottom, a lone tree, bursting with greenery and resplendent with great globes of fruit, stood at the edge of a flat plot. “That’s Mother,” Penny said with a sigh.
“Mother?” asked Michael.
“Yes,” Penny answered, now skipping toward the tree. “Because she gives me whatever I want and loves me.”
A funny feeling crawled up Michael’s neck. He stopped walking and turned around. The sun was getting low, and everything around him looked like nothing — a plain field, not much of a road, no signs, houses or landmarks. He realized he had no idea where he was, and his parents would never know where to find him. He heard Mom’s voice — don’t go off with strangers — was Penny, a stranger?
“Whaddaya doing standing there?” Penny shouted, already halfway to the tree.
His feet didn’t seem to want to take another step forward. Why’d I follow this stupid girl anyway? It’ll be almost dark by the time I get back. It felt like a pile of rocks was tumbling in his tummy. He looked at Penny, walking backward, slowly descending the slope toward the tree. He watched as her legs disappeared, then her shoulders, until all he could see was a hand waving for him to follow. Damnit, Mike! Now you’re sunk. You’re lost; it’ll be dark soon, and you’ve got no way home, just that dang country girl you followed into the middle of nowhere!
He kicked the dirt path. A mushroom cloud of pale dust rose to his knees. Concluding that it was better to be with a strange girl than alone and that at least the mango tree would provide food, he decided the best plan was to follow Penny, find out about this magic mango tree and then get himself home. After I get home — after they nearly kill me, I bet Mom and Dad will finally get me a phone.
He began walking again and turned to see the sun almost touching the hilltops in the distance. The rocks in his stomach tumbled again. If, I get home.
Even with nighttime approaching, it was still plenty hot, and it felt good to sit under the cool umbrella of the mango tree. He watched Penny as she slung herself around the trunk, hugging and kissing the bark, saying sweet things and telling “Mother” that she’d brought a new friend and she had to show him her magic.
He looked at the many plump, oblong fruits hanging from the branches, and his mouth began to water. His stomach still churned, but now it was from hunger. “How do I know which one will be a fizzy?”
Penny came and scooched down in front of him, with her knees touching his, “You have to close your eyes and ask Mother for it.”
Michael peered at this girl with the small nose and pretty eyes. He didn’t know enough about girls to know anything about them, but he was pretty sure Penny was pulling a prank. “I bet this a gag,” he said rather petulantly. “I bet you’ll have me making silly wishes and asking ‘Mother’ like she was real, and when I bite into a mango, it’ll be just that — a plain ol’ mango, and you’ll have a big laugh at me.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Michael! You’re carrying on like a pork chop! You think I’d drag you all this way for a joke? That I haven’t anything better to do with my time than tease some stupid boy?”
Her nose got all squished up, and her eyes pinched, so she looked mean, but somehow, Penny looked even cuter — it made him think of a rabbit about to sneeze. He got another funny feeling floating in his stomach. “Alright! Sheesh — it was just a question! Fair dinkum! You don’t need to get so mad.”
“So, you’ll try?” Penny asked, softening her eyes and brandishing a smile that could make the moon blush.
“Sure. I’ll try. What kinds of flavours can I ask Mother for?”
“Welllll,” Penny drew the word out as she quietly clapped her fingers together, “I asked for chocolate cake once and a bickie a few times, but getting those right seem to be about as scarce as hen’s teeth — so I stick to more basic flavours. I once asked for a strawberry float and didn’t Mother give me the most luscious mango!” Penny leaned in and laid her hand on his arm. “I swear I thought I was at ol’ Pip n’ Sip’s soda shop having their best cream float!”
“Mother,” Michael said, looking up at the tree, “I’d like — “
“ — No, Michael, not like that. You have to close your eyes and imagine the flavour. Then you ask.”
“Sorry.” Michael closed his eyes and steepled his hands. He was thirsty and hungry, but most of all, he just wanted to be done with this and go home. He played along as genuinely as he could muster. “Mother, my favourite fizzy in the whole world is Dr. Pepper. We don’t get it much and haven’t had any since we left Sydney. I’d be very grateful if I could have a taste right now.”
He felt Penny sidle beside him, her hair touching his, and he smelled the lilac-scented shampoo.
“Good,” she whispered. “Now keep very still and your eyes shut. Mother will show me which mango is for you.”
Her hair fell away, and he heard her feet scrape the dirt and the shake of a leafy branch. A snap. A rustle. Then, a hand on his head. “Bite, Michael. Sink your teeth in and taste what Mother has given you.”
He bit. The mealy pulp threw him off for a moment, but then the sugary, peppery bubbles leaped along his tongue. It was real! A Dr. Pepper mango! He bit again, drinking and gorging on the fizzy soda sensation bursting from the fruit. Overwhelmed and overjoyed, he opened his eyes and looked at Penny who leaned over him with the fruit in her hand, smiling, looking proud and contented.
“Ahh canth beweeb thith mathgo taththo emerthhhin — “ Puzzled, he felt his tongue fat and heavy, pushing on his lips and filling his mouth. He looked up, but Penny didn’t look like Penny anymore. She seemed to stretch up from the ground, her body pulled like an elastic band, her face ballooned and distorted. His head lulled, and in the silty dirt between his feet lay the mango, the fruit black and porous.
Penny reached a long, bony arm at him, and he felt her hand clamp around his wrist. “Thank you for coming with me today, Michael. It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve been able to bring someone to see Mother.”
“Whathhh thlong wlitht mee? Whathhh err yewww dooingth shoo mee?” His thick and soupy words spilled from his lips like the sugary syrup dripping from his chin.
She was dragging him now, pulling him around the back of the tree. His legs felt heavy and wet, like he’d been dunked in a pool. His chest wheezed, and he felt his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Everything was failing him, but his eyes remained clear, and what he saw set terror into his soul.
The base of the mango tree turned the blackest black he’d ever seen, like a hole into endless nothingness, an emptiness filled with need, hunger, and pain.
Thick, pulsating roots broke from the earth and moved like spider legs, with bends, knots and knuckles everywhere. The greyish-blue tendrils folded over one another, looking like the twisted blue veins in his grandfather’s calves.
They grabbed at him, rolling around his legs, tightening over his feet, wrapping around his ankles — pulling him toward the dark. Mangos and leaves fell from Mother’s branches. The heavy, soft, rotten fruit fell apart in globs of grey flesh, and an army of hard-shell beetles with luminescent oil-skinned backs crawled out and stormed his body like an army.
Though he felt no pain, he watched as the swarm of bugs tore away at him, sending bits of flesh into the air like shavings spit from a chainsaw.
Penny loomed over him. Her pretty eyes looked almost grateful, her smile nearly loving. He saw her reach down and felt the cool touch of her fingers slip between his exposed rib bones. There was a tightening, then a tug.
He felt his body go cold. He looked up at her, and the last thing Michael Moorehouse would ever see was Penny — eating his heart. Then he fell into darkness, falling and falling and falling into the black.
The good citizens of Bowral showed their sympathies and grief to the Moorehouse family over the weeks after Michael’s disappearance. Police and volunteers scoured the town, the fields, woods, ravines and creeks, searching for the lost boy, but they found no trace.
Following tips and reports from passersby who saw Michael playing alone at the park and later walking on the dirt track toward the old orchard, searchers used every available asset to find him, including drones with heat-detecting cameras. It seemed like the earth had just opened up and swallowed him whole.
The corner plot was staked out, and Casey Barlow stood with his wife, looking over the expanse of open land around them. Like countless others, the Barlows decided to leave the pace and stress of city life behind, leaving Sydney for a life of leisurely country living between the outback and the city.
“Can you believe it, Beth-Ann?” Casey asked his wife, who held their nine-year-old daughter, Adelaide, by the hand. “First ones in! Another year, babe, and these prices will double! We’re gonna love it here!”
“Look, Mama,” Addy said, pointing to the lone tree in the entire subdivision, “Do we even get our own tree?”
Casey tussled his daughter’s hair and took a knee beside her. “This used to be a mango orchard, Addy — looks like we inherited the last tree. I can see she’s sproutin’ buds too. Reckon we’ll have fresh mangos all summer!”
At the corner of the new subdivision, Barney Chambers and Luke Dawson stood in front of the bulldozer and grader, having lunch while watching the new arrivals and soon-to-be residents of Tharawal Gate. “Shoulda tore out that damned ol’ tree,” grumbled Barney.
“Yeah,” agreed Luke, “Damn hoon business that was. You reckon the developers told those folks about mad Missus Darby hangin’ herself from that ol’ timber?”
“If you was sellin’ a slab of good-for-nothin, used up old plot for barrels of dosh — would you go an tell a story of a ma who lost her young’un, then hanged herself dead because her heart was tore out? No, you wouldn’t.”
“They ought to have at least left the gravestones there,” Luke said, finishing off his fizzy. “Ain’t right not knowing she’s buried there with her girl.” He climbed back into his dozer and took a last look at the nice, young family. “Funny about the tree,” he said, “I never seen one ever grow such fruit.”

                                                                      💀💀💀​

​Arpad Nagy is a 51yr old, Hungarian Canadian, working husband and father, with a storyteller’s soul and a romantic’s heart, who, began his writing journey in 2021 after sustaining serious work injuries. After surviving a year as soulless content writer, he quickly refocused to fiction and nonfiction writing, finding success as a fiction ghostwriter, creative consultant, and developmental editor. His fiction writing, nonfiction essays, and memoirs have achieved a measure of success, most recently shortlisted for the Northwind Writing Award in fiction and nonfiction, as well as being accepted as a feature author for Dragon Soul Press Winter Anthology.  His work is published regularly at Medium.com.

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.



​Jack followed his new landlady up the stairs.

“The only way to the top floor apartment is by the outside stairs and I’m way too old to shovel the snow off them in the winter. That’s going to have to be your responsibility.” Mrs. Ackley wasn’t exaggerating about her age. She was deathly thin and frail-looking. Her skin hung loosely from every exposed part of her body, except for her face. There it scrunched together forming wrinkles and lines that ran in every possible direction like a roadmap for a major city designed by a deranged civil engineer. Jack had already decided that he was going to use Mrs. Ackley as the model for a zombie in his next horror story.

“Rent’s due the first of every month and you can just slide the check under my door,” continued the old woman. “I don’t put up with any loud music or parties. I’ve had kids kicked out or arrested before, and I’ll do it again.”

“That won’t be a problem, Ma’am,” replied Jack. Ackley’s attitude and tough rules did not deter his desire to take the apartment. He wasn’t looking to get out of the dorms in order to be a party animal; he looked forward to the peace and quiet of having his own place.

“Well, you seem like a nice enough boy,” said Mrs. Ackley. “You said you’re a sophomore at the college.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’m an English major with an emphasis on creative writing so I like things quiet.”

“That’s nice. We had an English major rent that place about twenty years ago. My husband was still alive back then. I can’t remember her name though.”

“If it was twenty years ago, I’m pretty sure I don’t know her,” said Jack with a shrug.
“I suppose not.” The old woman handed Jack a key. “Just make sure you don’t make too much noise when you move your stuff in.”

                                                                       ***

Jack sat at the makeshift desk in the middle of his study/living room/bedroom. His laptop was on an old card table. The legs of the table sat at odd angles, none of them truly perpendicular to the floor, partly due to the poor condition of the table and partly because the floor was nowhere close to being level.  The weight of Jack’s computer and notebooks would have been too much for the rickety table if it wasn’t for the four cement blocks stacked beneath it for support.

Leaning back in his second-hand desk chair, Jack took a deep breath and glanced at his phone. It was already twenty minutes past midnight. It seemed like he had just sat down to work on his story but it was four hours since he started.

He scrolled back to the beginning and read his handiwork. By the time he was halfway through the story, a large smile was forcing its way onto his lips. This was good. If this story didn’t impress Dr. Haroldson, his Creative Writing 2 professor, nothing would. He couldn’t wait to show it to his critique group at tomorrow’s meeting. They were going to love it.

                                                                          ***
Jen Nelson was the last of the other three members of the critique group to finish reading Jack’s story. When she looked up from her laptop, Jack immediately blurted out, “So, what do you think?”

Arvi Patel was the first to reply. “I really liked it. I mean it’s really good. Definitely better than anything you wrote last semester.”

Jen nodded. “I agree. You don’t usually go into as much detail in your descriptions. It worked very well.”

Jack grinned. “Thank you. This one just came together nicely.”

Mark Ducklow, the final member of the group and Jack’s only true friend, chimed in. “I like how you tied everything together at the end. How did you ever think to have the little boy be the one who found the key?”

“To be honest,” said Jack, humbly, “the story just, sort of, wrote itself. Once I got on a roll, everything just came to me. Do you think Doc Haroldson will like it?”

“He should,” replied Arvi. After a brief pause, she added, “But that doesn’t mean he will. We all know how tough he is.”

“Yeah,” added Mark. “I don’t think he’s liked anything in the twenty-five years he’s been a professor.”

“I know he hasn’t liked anything I’ve written. I was lucky to get a C last term. Sometimes I’d like to take his prized pen and stick it up his ass.”

Arvi grinned. “Now, there’s the usual eloquence we’ve come to expect from you.”

Jack broke into a wide, toothy grin. People always said he had an infectious smile though he hadn’t had much opportunity to show it lately.

Jen looked around as if expecting Professor Haroldson to jump out from behind the bookshelf. Once her unnecessary concern was abated, she spoke in a loud whisper. “I heard he got into some kind of trouble when he was a younger and that he’s been extra hard on students ever since.

“That might explain why he’s the way he is,” said Arvi.

Mark laughed. “No, I think he’s just a dick.”

                                                                          ***
A week later, Jack sat in Dr. Arnold Haroldson’s office, secretly agreeing with Mark’s assessment. The professor may have, at one time, been a handsome man, but now, in his mid-fifties, his appearance was going through some sort of reverse metamorphosis. With his receding hairline and expanding waistline, Dr. Haroldson was beginning to look more like a larva than a butterfly.

“While this is your best work yet, Mr. Tomlin, it is still not great. It has some potential and I think with a lot of editing you could get to worthy of an A, but as it is right now, the best I can give you is a B-.” While he spoke, Haroldson, picked up a golden pen that was sitting on a mahogany display stand and began twirling it between his fingers, much like a drummer playing with his drumsticks.

“So, can I do a rewrite? If you give me a little direction as to what you are looking for, I think I can make improvements.”

The professor spun his pen around a couple more times and then returned it to its usual resting place. “No, I think you should concentrate your efforts on the next assignment. I’ve seen your work for two classes now and I am quite certain you are going to struggle with writing a romance. Your time will be better spent trying to come up with something that is, at the very least, not garbage.”

Jack wanted to ask why the professor hated him. Instead, he simply stood up and thanked Dr. Haroldson for his time.

                                                                          ***
It only took Jack a day to compose his story for the romance assignment. The words came so easily that he wondered if he might inadvertently be plagiarizing a story he had read previously. However, the grammar software he used did not find any previously published stories that came close to matching his tale.

Unable to wait for the next critique group get-together, he e-mailed the story to Jen and Arvi. The girls would be able to tell him if his writing was as good as he thought it was.

Within twenty minutes he got a call from Arvi.

“Did you actually write this?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Jack, a little hurt by his classmate’s lack of faith. “I sat down and just started typing out my idea and this is what I ended up with.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Arvi, “I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s very good. I was just a little surprised at how well you were able to portray the heroine’s feelings. Most guys couldn’t pull that off. You must have found your muse.”

“Thanks . . . I think,” said Jack.

When Jen e-mailed him back a couple of hours later, her sentiments were almost the same as Arvi’s though she also commented on Jack’s style of jumping from one character’s thoughts to another’s in rapid succession. She said she hadn’t read anything like that before but liked the effect.

                                                                          ***
“C,” said Professor Haroldson, a scowl on his face.

Jack stared at this teacher, indignant. “May I ask why? This is a very good story.”

“Too good,” replied Haroldson, returning Jack’s stare. He grabbed his golden pen and pointed it at Jack, accusingly. “I don’t think you wrote this. I can’t prove it . . . yet. But I’m going to do a little research. There’s something familiar about this piece. I think I’ve read something very much like it before. I can’t give you an F without proof, but until I am convinced that you didn’t steal this, you’re getting a C.”

“That’s unfair. I wrote this by myself. I would never copy someone else’s work.” He did not attempt to hide his anger.

Haroldson let out a long sigh. “Prove to me that you can come up with something as unique and well-written on the humor assignment and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

                                                                          ***
Jack stood in his bathroom, looking at the open linen cabinet. What had he come in here for? He was so furious at Haroldson that he wasn’t even thinking straight.  It was only after another thirty seconds that he realized he was holding all three of his bath towels. Why had he taken them off the shelf? When he reached up to return the towels to their normal storage place, he noticed something off about the back wall of the cabinet. One of the boards was crooked; like a slightly ajar door.

The cabinet, like most everything in the apartment, was old and decrepit but Jack had never noticed this board before. He set the towels aside and removed the piece of wood. To his surprise, there was a small alcove behind the cabinet. He reached inside and pulled out a small wooden box.

Inside, he found about a dozen pieces of paper. A quick inspection showed them to be mostly letters addressed to someone named Maggie Lennox.

Returning to his desk, Jack began reading the letters. The first couple were from Maggie’s parents talking about the family news or asking her how school was going. The third, however, was much more interesting.

“Maggie,

I greatly enjoyed helping you with your assignment last night. You are incredibly talented. I think with some extra help you can be an amazing writer. You could be the next great storyteller. See me after class tomorrow and we can set up a time to get together and work on your next story.
Professor Haroldson”

Jack set the paper aside, his heart beating against the wall of his chest. Who is Maggie Lennox?

He found another correspondence from Professor Haroldson.

“Maggie,
I hope I am not being too forward but I have to come out and say what I think we both know. We have something more than a teacher/student relationship. We are soul mates. What started as a genuine appreciation for your writing talent has blossomed into something much more personal and undeniable. Please, if you feel the same way, meet me in my office tomorrow night at ten. I will have something special waiting for you.
Arnie”

The next couple of letters were unrelated, but the one after that was, once again, from Professor Haroldson.

“Maggie,
We have to talk about last night. Do not say anything to anyone about what happened until we have had a chance to talk.
Professor Haroldson”

Jack dug through the rest of the pile until he found one last letter.

“Miss Lennox,
After your refusal, you leave me no choice. I will be going to the Dean and telling him about how you tried to seduce me to get a better grade. Don’t even think about attempting to come forward with any other version of what happened. No one will believe your word against mine. I am a respected university faculty member. You are nothing more than a desperate student.
I will give you one last chance to prove that you are not going to say anything. Please, come visit me. Maybe we can put this ugly situation behind us.
Professor Haroldson”

Search as he may, Jack found nothing more.

                                                                          ***
It took nearly ten minutes for Mrs. Ackley to open the door.

“I said you can just slide your checks under the door,” she said before Jack could speak.

“It’s not that,” said Jack. “I have a question for you.”

“No, I’m not going to replace the carpet.”

Jack shook his head. “No. Listen. Who is Maggie Lennox? Did she live in the third-floor apartment?”

The elderly woman paused, looking straight through Jack. Eventually, she tilted her head to one side and said, “I think she was the girl that hung herself.”

“Someone killed themselves in my apartment?”

“It was twenty years ago.”

“What happened? Why’d she do it?”

Again, the old woman paused, deep in thought. “I don’t think they ever figured out why. If I remember correctly, there wasn’t a note or anything.”

                                                                          ***
Mark paged through the letters. He set them down and let out a long whistle.

“Is this all real?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Jack. “I even went to the library and found the report of the death from the local paper.” He set a photocopied picture in front of Mark.

The photo that had run in the paper appeared to be Maggie’s senior picture from her high school yearbook. She was pretty but far from stunning. She had dark hair, probably brunette, but it was hard to tell from the black and white picture. Most of her face was obscured by the oversized, wide rimmed glasses she wore. One thing that was not covered by her glasses was her mouth. The edges of her lips were turned up slightly in a smile.

“Wow. What are you going to do? You probably should go to the Dean or the police.”
“I know I should,” replied Jack. “But will that do anything besides make Haroldson hate me even more? I mean, I’m sure there’s a statute of limitations or something. Plus, nothing in the letters ever says that Haroldson did anything.”

“Not in so many words. But, it’s pretty obvious.”

“I don’t know. Going public with this could make things tough on me. I think I’m going to wait until my next review with him. He said he would reconsider my grade if I did well on the humor story.

“I don’t know,” said Mark, shaking his head.

“Maybe, everything will work out and I won’t have to do anything with the letters.”
“You’re forgetting one very important thing. Haroldson’s a dick.” Mark opened Jack’s small refrigerator and pulled out a can of beer. He paused for a second, looking at the bottom shelf. “Why do you have a hammer in your refrigerator?” he finally asked.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m so worked up about this Haroldson thing that I’ve been absentmindedly leaving stuff all over the place.”

                                                                          ***
“I think you misunderstood the assignment,” announced Dr. Haroldson as he set Jack’s most recent story aside. “You were asked to write humorous prose. There’s nothing funny in this piece.”

“It’s dark humor,” pleaded Jack. “You have to look past the deaths and focus on the underlying irony.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Tomlin. I don’t think you have what it takes to be a writer. Maybe you should reconsider your emphasis or, maybe even, your major. The world needs teachers or greeting card composers just as badly as it needs authors.”

Jack started to reply to his professor’s assault but the words didn’t come to him. The only sound he made was a quick snort as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stack of papers and threw them on Haroldson’s desk.

The professor grabbed the top note and looked at it. He froze, his face flashing from one emotion to another. Confusion was quickly replaced with shock. Sadness followed, only to be usurped by anger. Finally, the kaleidoscope of expressions stopped on stoic emptiness. When he spoke, his words were measured and passionless. “Where’d you get these?”

“Does it matter?” replied Jack. “Those are just copies. I have the originals. If I take those to the dean, you could be in a lot of trouble.”

“You’re not going to do that,” said Haroldson, the color returning to his face. “There’s nothing in these letters that incriminates me in any way. Everything that happened back then is just the way I said in the letters. That girl tried to seduce me, nothing more.”

“I’m not so sure that everyone would believe that,” said Jack, surprised at his own bravado. “You might have gotten away with that kind of defense twenty years ago but not in this day and age.”

Professor Haroldson didn’t move for nearly a minute. Eventually, he grabbed the gold pen from his desk and pointed it at Jack.

When he spoke, his air of authority returned. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to finish the semester. You have one more story to write, the horror assignment. After that, you will get a B+ for the class. You will never take another of my offerings. You will give me the original letters and never speak to anyone about them. Do we have a deal?”

Jack wanted to tell Haroldson to go to hell. It was too late. The professor had to pay for what he had done to Maggie. It would be the right thing to do even though it would be difficult.

“We have a deal,” is all he said.

                                                                          ***
Jack sat down to write the story for his final assignment. Once he was finished, he would turn it in and never have to worry about Haroldson ever again.

He opened his laptop and was about to begin typing when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. When and why had he put a butcher knife on his desk? He had to finish this whole ugly affair before he went completely mad.

                                                                          ***
Jack looked at his computer screen, confused and disoriented. He remembered sitting down to begin the rough draft sometime around midafternoon. Now, it was completely dark. The ghostly glow coming from his computer monitor was the only light in the room.

He began reading the story in front of him. It was a tale of hate and revenge. Despair dripped from every sentence and anger from every word. When he got to the final section, he found himself nearly gagging at the graphic description of the murder. How could he have ever written something this pornographically violent? This couldn’t be his work.

He grabbed the mouse and scrolled upward to capture the entire text. As he reached for the delete button he froze. Why were there deep crimson spots on his keyboard?

Jack stood up, pushing himself away from the table. As he did so, something fell to the ground, shimmering in the glow of his laptop’s screen. He looked down and staggered back slightly. Lying at his feet was the knife he had found on his desk when he began writing the story. Even in the dim light, Jack could tell the blade was stained with blood.

Jack stood and walked, slowly, as if in a trance, to his bathroom. He opened the linen cabinet door and removed three towels from the middle shelf. Pushing aside the board that covered the hidden alcove, Jack grabbed the wooden box hidden within.

He opened the box and gaped at the contents. Sitting on top of a small pile of papers was a gold pen, broken and covered with blood. After a moment, he quietly closed the box and returned it to its hiding place, a sly, toothless smile on his face.
​
                                                                 💀💀💀

James Rumpel is a retired high school math teacher who has greatly enjoyed spending some of his free time turning a few of the odd ideas circling his brain into stories. He lives in Wisconsin with his wonderful wife, Mary.