Brett yawned, taking his hands off the steering wheel to stretch.   At five-thirty in the morning he had no oncoming traffic to worry about.  In fact, he knew the only thing he had to worry about on this South Jersey back road was the occasional stray deer.  He shuddered involuntarily and gripped the wheel again as he remembered how a deer had taken out the entire rear quarter panel of Tim’s old Buick.  If Bambi could do that to one of those gas guzzling tankers from the seventies, imagine what it could do to his tin and plastic import.
    He straightened up and glanced at his watch.  Working the night shift at the casino really screwed up his life, but the money was too good to complain. “So what if I don’t have a social life?”  he mumbled, stifling another yawn.  “I’ll get on the day shift soon.   Just need to be patient.”
    Brett frowned as a fog seemed to roll in out of nowhere.  One minute it was a clear night with daylight hiding just behind the eastern horizon, and the next he was in cream of mushroom soup.  He tried to concentrate on the road but he was so tired.  He blinked, fighting the urge to close his eyes, to rest them just for a moment.  He slowed, then picked up speed.  Better to get home faster than to be lost in this mess, he thought. After all, he knew that when he felt this exhausted the quicker he was safe in his own bed, the better off he’d be.  
    Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a figure standing on the road in front of him.  Brett practically stood on his brakes, but he knew it was a reaction way too late to do any good.  He covered his eyes, but not before seeing the terror on the kid’s face just before he heard that hideous thump-bump-crack.   He was sure by the sound the teenager had bounced onto the hood and into his windshield.
    Brett sat, his eyes covered, his foot still jammed on the brake and waited.  He waited, hoping to hear a sound; a moan, a groan, a “hey buddy, watch where you’re driving.”  But all he heard was the intolerable silence that made the slow motion time seem even slower.
    After what felt like hours, Brett uncovered his eyes and shifted the car into park.  The fog was lifting, he could see the smoky lake off to the left and the scrubby pines off to the right.  He could hardly see anything straight ahead because the windshield glass was spiderwebbed with cracks and a few streaks of red. 
     “Oh no, no, no, no,” he moaned, watching a red droplet roll down the glass, catch in a crack and fan out.  “Oh, no, what have I done?”
    He waited another minute, then two, hoping that something would happen, hoping that something would move, hoping the guy he just slammed into would get up and yell at him.  Finally, he gave up hope and slowly undid his seatbelt.  He gingerly opened the door, and waited.  He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but nothing happened.  He thought about all those horror movies from his adolescent years and a new fear started to gnaw at him. He wanted to get out, see if he could help the kid, but he sat frozen.  What if he’s not dead, but undead instead, Brett wondered, fighting off an urge to shut the door and drive away.  What if he’s going to grab my ankles as soon as I step out of this car and drag me off to the lake.  Nobody’d miss me till tonight.  Tim wouldn’t even know I’m gone until his next day off or until he didn’t find my rent check on the table at the end of the month.  What if I’ve wandered into a real life slasher flick?  Brett laughed, a little too loud for his liking and perhaps a little to shrill. “I’m getting hysterical!” He shook his head and told himself, “Time to be a man about this!” 
    He stepped out of the car, hesitated a second, waiting to be grabbed and dragged, then slowly inched toward the front of the car.  He saw the feet first, then the twisted legs and he knew that the kid was beyond help.  As the head came into view, bent at a wrong angle, Brett suddenly lost control and threw up.  He held the crumpled fender for support or he was sure he would have collapsed; his knees were so rubbery.  “What do I do?” he asked the kid when he straightened up.  “What do I do?”  
     He wiped at his cheeks and found them wet.  He touched his tears, amazed that he was crying.  “Like a baby,” he mumbled and realized that was exactly how he felt at that moment.  Like a helpless baby waiting for mommy or daddy to come make everything all better.   But Mom and Dad were back in Washington and he was alone on a secondary road buried in the Pine Barrens between two hick towns in Cape May County.  The town he was living in didn’t even have a police department, they probably didn’t even have 9-1-1 yet.  
    He walked backwards, unable to take his eyes off the body until it was blocked by the front end of his car.  He slid back in and sat behind the wheel.  After closing the door, he couldn’t help but quickly glance at the backseat.  Finding it clear of monsters and maniacs, he sighed then tried to figure out what to do.  
     He wished he had his cell phone on him, but he didn’t.  
     What was he supposed to do, leave the scene of the accident and go look for a state trooper or stay here?  He knew it was a crime to leave an accident but was he negligent to remain and wait for a passing car?   He decided to stay, the kid was already dead, and he was guilty of hitting him.  The sky was pink and the stars had retreated so he knew someone would be along eventually.  He locked the door and closed his eyes. He knew sleep was out of the question so he sat there resting his eyes.  And wondered about his life.  
Would he go to jail?  He doubted it, but he could lose his license.  If that happened he’d have to move back to Absecon Island and depend on Jitneys again.  No, he couldn’t do that either.  The rents were just too high in Atlantic City.   
     Meeting Tim had been a really lucky break.  They had started out working the same shift and before he knew it they had become friends.  One evening over drinks and a pizza, Tim said, “You know I’ve got a big house about forty-five minutes from here and since Dad died, I’m living there alone.  Why don’t you rent from me, we are going on different shifts next month so the place will be yours all day and mine all night.  I’ll make the price right!”
    Brett sipped his drink, did some quick figuring and decided that even with the added mileage and wear and tear on his car this was a deal he couldn’t afford to pass up. Of course, he hadn’t figured on this kind of wear and tear, but it had worked out until now.  He and Tim got along and had no problems sharing, and it was nice to have a big old farm house to entertain in the few times he had brought someone back with him.
                                                                                   #
    He hadn’t heard the approaching car, and jumped when he heard the knock on his window.  He thought he was going to die on the spot his heart was racing so fast.  It was full daylight and he saw Tim standing by the side of his car.
    “Hey, Brett?  What’s the matter?  Why you sitting here?  Break down?”
`  Brett blinked for a moment and gathered his jumbled thoughts.  That knock on the window scared him just about as much as the accident.  “Tim!  Boy, am I glad to see you!   Go get some help!”
    “What’s the matter?”
    Brett frowned with exasperation.  What was wrong with Tim?   “Go get the cops, can’t you see he’s dead?”
    Tim frowned back, “Who’s dead?”
    “The kid!  What’s the matter with you?”
    Tim glanced around.  “Nothing’s the matter with me, what kid?  Where?”
    “The kid in the front of my car!” Brett yelled and pointed.  He stopped and took in a quick breath.  His windshield was intact, no cracks, no blood. Perfect.  
    He pushed the door open, knocking Tim to the side and rushed to the front of the car.  The road was empty, no mangled body, no pool of blood.  Only Brett’s vomit on the side, showed that anything had gone on at all.  “I . . . I . . . hit a kid last night, killed him.”

    Tim nodded, “Don’t worry about it, let’s go get a coffee back in town and we’ll talk.  Can you drive?”
    Brett felt confused by Tim’s lack of reaction but followed him to the coffee shop.  They ordered and as they sipped coffee, Tim asked, “Foggy last night?”
    Brett nodded, the coffee turning bitter as new fear gnawed at his guts.  He was sure he wasn’t going to like anything Tim had to say.
    “You hit a teenage boy about seventeen or so wearing an orange and blue windbreaker and a red Phillies cap?”
Brett nodded again, taking a sip of water to try to get the bad taste of horror out of his mouth.
    Tim smiled, “Well, Brett, you wouldn’t have believed me before, but the kid’s Bobby Watson.  He died about twenty years ago, a hit and run accident on that road.  Happened on a foggy spring night.  It was a terrible thing, the talk of the town for months.  Guy who killed him was never found.”
    Brett sighed, “So, every foggy night the ghost of the poor kid searches the road looking for peace, right?”
    Tim shrugged.  “I know it sounds like a cliché, but he’s been hit repeatedly for years, always dies the same way, broken neck after bouncing off the windshield.”
    Brett sat and played with the coffee cup, spilling brown liquid onto the tabletop.  “I’d laugh, except it happened to me.  I killed a ghost!”
    Tim grinned.  “You know it’s sick, but it’s kind of a sport out here.  They call it Bobby Bumping.  People sometimes go out on a foggy night looking to hit him, it’s the ultimate thrill.”
    Brett shuddered, “Some thrill!  That was the worst feeling in the world.  I thought I had killed another person!”
    Tim grinned, “Yeah I know, but after the first few times, it’s sort of fun.”
    Brett stared at his friend, “You’ve gone in for that sport?”
    Tim reddened, “Well . . . yeah . . . you know, at first you don’t want to, then the next thing you know, you see the kid in front of you and you know he’s only a ghost and that you can’t hurt him, and well . . . it just happens.”
    Brett felt a shiver run up his spine.  It had been an awful feeling, but the adrenaline rush had been exciting and it was certainly safer than the rush you‘d get from drugs or sky diving.  
He shook those thoughts off. “I think I’m calling it a day.  I need sleep.  I’m just happy I didn’t really hurt someone.”  He stood up to leave, shook his head and added, “Who’d ever believe that there really are ghosts?  Really!”
#
    A few nights later, Brett was driving home on the same road when the fog grew dense again.  He knew that this was a common occurrence out here in the springtime when the temperatures change quickly near water but he slowed down to a crawl.  He was on the lookout for poor Bobby Watson.  Then, just as before, the kid was in front of him, terror frozen on his face.  Brett hit the brakes and the car barely nudged the kid, yet Bobby flew onto the hood and smashed his face into the windshield.  
    Brett stared in amazement.  He felt sickened, but not like last time.  Now he understood.  Whenever the kid appeared, he had to be hit.  It was all obvious to him now.  He didn’t even get out this time, he just stopped until the shaking went away.  He drew a deep breath and began to drive toward home.  He waited for the crunch as he ran the kid over, but there was none.  The minute he started forward, the cracked windshield cleared and everything was back to normal.
    Brett grinned, despite the disgust he was feeling with himself.  It was sort of fun in a morbid way.  And he hadn’t hurt anyone, in fact it was kind of his duty to hit the kid and send him back.
    Before he realized it, Brett was the number one Bobby Bumper around.  He never wanted to admit it, but he looked forward to the fog.  It’s not like I go out and wait for the stuff, he thought as the white mist started to rise off the road one morning.  It’s just a fact of nature.  He looked around and saw that it was going to be a thick one, it was usually thickest if it started right before the dawn light.  Brett felt high, He accelerated, looking for the solitary figure waiting to be sent back to purgatory.  
“There he is,” Brett yelled like a cowboy at the rodeo and floored the gas pedal. The little car roared as it rushed toward impact. “Yeehaw!” Brett bellowed as the body flipped onto his car and smashed into his windshield.  “Bullseye!”
    Brett drove the rest of the way home, feeling satisfied, like he’d just won at the table or had the best sex ever.  He glowed with triumph, flavored with a small dash of guilt and a pinch of disgust.  
Once in the house and out of the glow, he felt a full dose of remorse and disgust.  “This really is sick!  I’m going to give it up.”  
    He nodded to himself, and decided that although the other route was a few minutes longer he wasn’t going on the Bobby Road until the foggy season was over.  
“I can be strong!” He said as he prepared for his day-lit night.  “I don’t need the thrills, I’m going to enjoy my life the way it should be lived.  Maybe in a few months I’ll move back to the island.  I bet I can find a roommate to share an apartment.”
    He slept all day, satisfied that he was a strong-willed person.  That night he took the long way to work and basked in his display of willpower.  But as the night dwindled down to the wee hours and he clocked out and got into his car, he realized that he was hopelessly addicted to the sport.  “I’m a weak piece of garbage!” he snarled.  “Well, I’ll do it just one more time.  Yeah, just once more and then I swear I can give it up!”
    Brett drove home on the Bobby Road.  He felt disappointed when the sky remained crystal clear and there was no hint of a fog rising.  Just as he gave up all hope of Bobby Bumping, a light mist began forming.  Brett shouted and sped up.  The mist thickened into a full sheet of sight-obscuring white and he drove even faster.  If this really was the last time, it had to be the best.  
The figure emerged, a dark blur in the fog, and Brett gunned the engine and surged ahead.  His little car had never gone so fast.  He braced for the impact and wasn’t disappointed at all.  The figure smashed into the car and crashed into the windshield so hard the glass actually broke.  Brett hit the brakes, reversed, then accelerated forward so the figure would slide off and under his wheels.   
But this time something was different.  Brett fought off a shudder as the body crunched under his tires and the car bumped up and down.  
“That’s not supposed to happen,” he mumbled, an uncomfortable feeling trickling through his nerves.  
He slowed down to barely a crawl but kept going, and the trickling turned into a full buzz of fear when the windshield didn’t fix itself.  
The spiderwebbed glass remained broken and he started shaking.  What’s wrong, he wondered, fighting the panic that was threatening to close off his windpipe.  
“I couldn’t have possibly hit a real person,” he reassured himself just as the fog suddenly lifted and the sky to the east grew light with the sunrise.  “Who’d be out on the road at this hour anyway?”
  He slowed even more when he saw the orange flashers blinking in distress right up ahead.  He stopped dead after he passed Tim’s Buick sitting on the side of the road with the hood up.  
And he started to cry when he saw in the new day’s sunlight the small, crumpled, lump on the road reflected in his rearview mirror.

                                                                         💀💀💀

Diane Arrelle, the pen name of South Jersey writer Dina Leacock, has sold more than 400 short stories and has three published books, including Just A Drop In The Cup, a collection of short-short stories, and Seasons On The Dark Side, her collection of horror stories. She is the editor of the anthologies Crypt Gnats: Horror You’ve Been Itching to Read, WhoDunit, Trees and A Little Fantasy Everywhere.
Retired from being director of a municipal senior citizen center, she is now co-owner of Jersey Pines Ink LLC. She resides with her sane husband and her insane cat on the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens (home of the Jersey Devil).
​

Jimmy Allen looked up from his stall to see a grizzled male police officer and churlish-looking woman. It was a cold December evening, and bitter darkness had fallen upon Glasgow by the chime of four o’clock. The woman’s face was a smirking mask, and her whole demeanour cried gotcha. But Jimmy had been a trader at the Barras Market over long and weary years, and this was not his first rodeo. He had a few tricks up his sleeve, and winning form for dealing with inexperienced officers of the law. His eyes twinkled, and he felt his shoulders broaden. This was sport.


“Mr Allen?”


“Aye missus. And who might you be?”


“Liz Kirk, council enforcement.”


The smirking woman raised an ID badge like it was the Jules Rimet trophy, holding it flat out at Jimmy’s eyeline, leaving it hanging for longer than necessary to underline to the stragglers bombing about the final minutes of the market, those hardy few turning their collars up and tightening their scarves, just how important she was.


The old police officer, somewhat haggard and scratching at his salt-and-pepper beard, stepped forward. He was carrying a roll of evidence bags, and started examining the jewellery. Ms Kirk had to check her clipboard to remind herself of the trader’s name; she cared not. Her focus was on making his life as miserable as possible, and in doing so draw her mind away from her own emptiness.


“Mr Allen. In this authority you need a second-hand dealer licence to buy these items from the public.”


“Well … aye … but the people sellin’ their goods are no’ selling them tae me, Ms Kirk.”


Ms Kirk swallowed, her initial strut and swagger now off-kilter. She had come here to shut Jimmy down, and in doing so relish his annoyance. She had little joy in her own life; so why should others? Flustered, she took her glasses off to clean them. The rain had finally started to fall, first in spits, but soon enough, a torrent. It had been only minutes, but she no longer had an audience of other traders. All else had fled. 


“Mr Allen, are you trying to make fun of me? If these customers have not been selling their wares to you, who have they been selling them to, the Ghost of Christmas past?”


Jimmy dropped his arms to his side in modest recoil. Her flippancy betrayed a clouded judgement. He glanced at the big police officer, who clearly did not want to be here. Jimmy sensed he had his off-ramp.


“Officer, I think we both ken Ms Kirk has nae power tae charge me. That’s up tae you, big man. And I’m tellin’ ye I’m here acting as an agent on behalf of a licensed trader. It’s his money buyin’ these goods, no’ mine. I huv the records.”


The police officer had a sudden memory of a scene from a Pink Panther film. Something about a monkey needing a music licence. He did not fancy being the monkey in this little tete-a-tete, a drenched monkey at that. 


“I think discretion is the better part of valour for today, and I think we can all agree we dinnae want to be out in this bloody rain. Mr Allen, can I suggest you get a lawyer’s letter to back up what you are saying, and we can have this conversation again.”


“You mean you want a ‘To Whom it May Concern’ letter?”


“Aye, Mr Allen, ‘To Whom it May Concern’.”


The officer doffed his cap, and a little stream of rainwater dropped down. Ms Kirk, fumbling with a small red-and-black spotty brolly she had fished from her bag, could barely look at him. The brolly up and with the rain now battering against it, she shook with anger. “To be continued,” she huffed. Jimmy, chuckling, waved them off.


The interlopers now gone, Jimmy packed the last of his wares into his lockbox and he could at last (at last!) snatch a moment to examine his best find of the day. 


A beautiful, most beautiful gold brooch. 


It was a mesmerising piece, an antique he somehow oddly knew would be used to fasten a great-cloak below one’s neck, designed for someone who would travel foreboding nights by horse or carriage. The piece had a weight to it which indicated it was most likely twenty-four carats. But the piece also had some other sort of weight, something much deeper and obscure; an uncanny yet compelling presence. He had bought it for two-hundred quid from some batty old dear, who had no idea what she had. In fact, he reflected, she had seemed utterly relieved to be parted with it.


The brooch had a central, inset jewel which was a deep, blood red. Jimmy could not help but use his loupe to examine the jewel yet again; certainly, a ruby. As he wondered at the vintage of the piece, his mind conjured the curious image of a burly man on horseback with a huge black cloak wrapped around him, the brooch below his chin. 


Jimmy hadn’t noticed that the streets of the marketplace were now not only deserted, but desolate. Jimmy hadn’t noticed the creeping isolation which seemed to gather around him like a fog, clutching at him with wisping tendrils. He hadn’t seen that the grime of the city streets seemed to come alive and infest the pavement and roadside.


He was alone, finally alone, with his brooch.


There it nestled in his lockbox, his brooch, and for a moment he felt as if that ruby was staring right back at him, as if it had a pulse, a desire of its own. Jimmy reached out a slender finger, and caressed it. 


And he saw again an image in his mind, that of a huge, strapping man astride a horse, bedecked in finery and with a strongly-weaved great-cloak of the deepest black, flowing around his broad shoulders. And there, under the man’s ruddy neck, affixing that cloak, sat the ruby brooch. 


The image was so clear to Jimmy, he felt he could almost feel the barbed wind which swirled around the ominous man, that he could hear the jagged clops of the horse’s hooves, and as the image grew stronger in his mind’s eye he saw – he was forced to see – the face of the dark rider.


He screamed. 


It was a face no one should ever countenance, no one should ever have to see. It was the face of death, the face of pure evil, the face of greed and lasciviousness. It was a face hungry for all that the world could offer, and all that he might convince the world to give him in succour. It was the face of one whose hunger for all the fineries of the flesh could never be satiated. It was the face of one who has dwelled in darkness, and was now abroad the land.


Jimmy stumbled backwards, and realised he was crying. His tongue, as dry as arid bark, lolled from his gaping mouth, and his eyes popped from his skull. He scrambled to collect his senses, grab his lockbox, and escape. He careered down a dark lane, a shortcut where every cobble was known to his feet. Now, however, all around him was hostile, the world a gauntlet. There was a hot and acrid breath upon the nape of his neck, and shadows closed like the clutch of a great, black cape.


His breathing rasped in his chest like the claws of a bloodied beast. Panic filled his eyes and ears. Stumbling across the slick wet cobbles he fell, and his lockbox scattered across the ground. On his knees, he crawled, chittering, to reach his valuables. 


And then he knew dread, as the air itself vanished in fright.


Upon the cobbles was a monstrous rippling shadow, a shadow with a deep red glow which curled at the edges like the flowing ends of a winter cloak. His brain fought valiantly to convince his heart and stomach that this evilness simply could not be. The terrible shadow coalesced, and a great brute of man stepped from it (was it), and Jimmy figured then that he must be dead and on a cobbled path to hell. 


At least, he thought, if he was dead then this torment would cease. But then, the giant man spoke, and Jimmy knew that he was not yet dead, and that he had encountered the devil himself.


“You have something I desire,” the giant burred, his voice scraping across Jimmy like daggers on glass.


“Take it, take everything!” he shrieked, turning his head so as not to face the demon. 


The giant man stomped forward, and his black boots clopped upon the cobbles like nails being hammered into a wooden cross. He swept his cloak aside with one of his mighty arms, and held out a gloved hand, the size of a gravedigger’s shovel.


“Ah, now, James,” the creature growled, licking his teeth with a charcoal tongue. “A man such as you must realise that I am no thief. A man such as you must know that there is always a deal to be done.”


“Then name yer offer and I’ll accept, by Christ! I’ll accept ‘fore this madness takes me!”


The cloaked giant held his other hand out, and raised Jimmy to his feet, legs shaking like thin windchimes. The dark rider was easily two feet taller than the witless merchant, his burly chest like a whisky barrel, his garments giving him the outward appearance of a highwayman. 


Jimmy knew everlasting fear as he raised his shuddering, clammy neck to look the demon in the face. And there, within the eyes of the one who clutched him, he saw the black, unending void of eternal nothingness, the echoing screams of all fallen souls. There, he saw himself falling into that pitiful darkness, scratching and screaming, biting and wailing. 


But then, at the last, he also saw a glint; a flickering shadow, a lick of light, of golden light. It was the greed of the demon, the greed of the devil himself, and it was shaped like a brooch with a blood-red ruby within its terrible heart.


Jimmy clung to that glittering hope, realising that if there was a deal to be done perhaps there was a way out or through this terrible nightmare. “The brooch!” he cried out. “You want the brooch!”


The demon dropped Jimmy to the rain-lashed cobbles.


“And what, pray, what price would you ask of me? For I will not steal it. We must strike a bargain, James. And the bargain must be worthy.”


Jimmy’s mind flitted between despair and the opportunity which might appease this devil, appeal to his sense of contract.

And so, Jimmy spoke, and asked of the devil a most special item in exchange for the brooch. 


The giant man, wrapped in his cloaks and shadows, rolled back those blood red lips to reveal the smile of one whose hunger will always persist, the smile of anarchy, the rapture of chaos. 


Then the devil reached one of those great, powerful fists to his neck and found there, upon his chest, a beautiful golden brooch which affixed his great-cloak around his body. Feeling it there, for the first time in three hundred years, he found his desperation pricked, at least, for now. And so, he retreated back into his shadow, back to some other infernal place. 


And the rain fell on the cobbles, and the rain rattled on Jimmy’s lockbox, drumming like a funerial march.


Jimmy dragged himself along the lane, hand after hand, and foot after foot. He was sodden, exhausted. He opened the lockbox, and there, in place of the brooch, was a letter. A letter, if read by anyone, would somehow convince the reader of whatever Jimmy Allen should wish. He allowed himself a smirk, a greedy, dastardly smirk, and read the first line aloud.


“To whom it may concern …”

​                                                            💀💀💀

JS Apsley is the pen name of an horror and noir author from Glasgow, Scotland. He won the Ringwood short story prize 2024 and has gone on to publish over fifty short stories around the world. You can find his work at www.jsapsley.com and on IG: @jsaspley_author.”

Listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast

When my family moved to Thornwick, I thought the sea would cleanse us from the noise of our old life, a vast expanse to soothe our city-worn souls. Greymist Manor crouched at the cliff’s edge like a sentinel, gray stone and ivy reaching toward a gray horizon. Its windows stared like hollow eyes watching us. The locals lowered their voices when they spoke of it and called it cursed, though never to our faces. My mother said such rumors came with every old house and my father laughed. Still, no one walked too close to our gates after dark.
   One night I stood by my window and stared at the moonlit tide. Something glittered on the shore below, catching the moonlight as if the sea itself were offering me a secret. I ran down barefoot, heart hammering, the air sharp with salt. The sand was cold and wet and the tide drew its breath back and forth like something alive. I waded through the water, cold and rough against my ankles, and found it: a silver chain threaded with black sea glass, smooth and pulsing faintly as if it kept a heartbeat inside. Without thinking I fastened it around my throat. The sea seemed to lean in closer and the waves whispered around me.
  That night sleep came heavy and strange.
I stood on the cliffs again as fog curled like smoke around jagged rock.That's when I saw it– a ship rising from the mist, lanterns glowing an eerie green, sails shredded but proud. A man stepped down from the prow, tall and broad, his coat dripping as though he had risen from the sea itself. His eyes were coals beneath a shadowed brow. He looked at me as if the world had narrowed to the shape of my face.
  “Alexa,” he said, low and rough, a sound like waves crashing against rocks.
  “That is not my name,” I whispered.
    He moved closer.  The fog wrapped us together. His boots made no sound. “You wear her heart,” he said.
  My throat tightened with something heavier than fear, as if his words reached into my blood. “I am Aveline,” I tried to insist.
  “Names are shells,” he murmured, voice low and almost tender. “Souls endure.” 
  He lifted a gloved hand toward me, and for a moment I felt as if he might touch the place where his fingers hovered.I woke up gasping with the pendant cold against my skin.
  After that the visions returned night after night. Sometimes he spoke, sometimes he watched, and always at the end his voice settled like a promise I could not keep. “When the tide swallows the moon, come to the cliffs,” he would whisper. “You will find me there.” I told myself I would not go. I told myself it was only a dream, but each morning salt crusted my lips and the pull in my chest tightened.
  One dawn I woke and found sand crunched in my sheets, gritty and cold against my skin. Strands of seaweed tangled in my hair as if the tide itself had visited my room. The smell of salt and damp earth lingered in the curtains. My mother scolded me for wandering the beach at night, but I had not left my bed. At least, I thought I had not. The house itself seemed to pulse with the rhythm of the waves and the floorboards creaked with phantom steps I could not trace. Every fiber of me whispered that something or someone had entered my room and brought the sea and him with it.
  As days passed his words grew sharper.
“They said I was damned. But you,” his eyes burned into me, “you swore to wait for me, Alexa. You promised by the sea.” 
  I tried to deny it. “I never—” he cut me off with a smile both cruel and aching. “Never loved me? Never longed for my return? Lies. Your blood knows mine.” Then his voice softened into something close to tenderness. “Meet me when the tide swallows the moon, come to the cliffs. You will find me there.”
  I did not go
  Not long after, while I walked the lanes of Thornwick, an old fisherman stopped me. He would not meet my eyes. He kept glancing at the pendant at my throat. “Best leave Thornwick, miss,” he muttered. “The sea remembers what it should not. Be careful.” He seemed to almost say more, then he shut his mouth and turned away. The way he looked at the pendant made my skin prickle. I asked him to explain, but he only repeated his warning and shuffled off.
  That night, for the first time since I had taken it, I slipped the necklace from my throat and tucked it into the bottom of my drawer beneath folded dresses. I whispered a shaky prayer that this would be the end of it. For two nights I slept dreamless, my head heavy with relief.
  On the third morning, my mother came into my room as I dressed. She was holding the necklace between her fingers, the black glass swaying on its chain.
  “You really should be more careful with this,” she said. “I found it on the floor in the parlor, near the hearth.”
  My blood turned cold, Impossible. I had locked it away, buried beneath fabric, the drawer pressed shut. Yet here it was, gleaming faintly in the gray morning light, as though it had crept back into the house on its own.
  That night, when the manor had fallen silent, I snatched the chain from my vanity, ran to the window, and flung it as far as I could. I watched it vanish into the waves far below, swallowed whole by the black sea. My breath came sharp with relief. Finally, it was gone.
  But the sea does not give up what it has claimed.
  At dawn, cries rose from the shore. A body had been found on the rocks, broken and pale as salt. Conrad, the fisherman who had warned me to leave, his eyes still wide with whatever he had seen last. He was lying at the exact place I had thrown the necklace. My father said accidents happen. My mother whispered a prayer. But I remembered Conrad’s face and the way he had stared at the pendant. I remembered how his words had stopped at the edge of something he would not name. When I saw the place where he lay, his fingers were clenched over a splinter of driftwood driven into the rocks. It was like a sentence hammered into him. I knew then, without a doubt, that whatever haunted my nights had reached into the day and taken him as a warning.
  When I returned to my room that day, my heart nearly stopped. The necklace lay waiting on my vanity, dry and gleaming, as though the sea itself had delivered it back.That was when I knew the death wasn’t random. It was a message.
  I could not breathe around that knowledge. So I put the pendant back on. The moment the cool glass touched my skin the fog came and his voice with it.
  “You tried to cast me away.” His eyes glinted, half-pain, half-possession.
  “You killed him.” was the first thing I said.
  He didn't even bother to hide it 

  “He would have taken you from me.” His smile was thin, desperate. “And I will not lose you again.”

  I could barely breathe. My stomach turned as hatred and devotion braided in his tone. “Do you see now, my bride?” he asked. “You are mine. No one will tear you from me. Not in this life, not in the next.”
  “I am not your bride,” I seethed.
  “Tell that to the sea, my love,” he said. “The pirate always gets what he wants and I have waited long enough.”
  It became more intimate and more terrible with each night. His obsession felt like a physical thing tightening around my throat. The memory of Conrad on the rocks thrummed in my ears. Someone who loved me from beneath the waves was cutting the world down until nothing remained between us until I couldn't endure it any longer. Desperate, I sought the witch who lived at the edge of the woods, the only person the town still avoided more than Greymist Manor. Her cottage smelled of salt and smoke. Dried herbs hung from every beam. She was smaller than I had expected and her hair was white as gull wings. Her eyes were the color of storm clouds.
  “You should not have taken what the sea gave back,” she said the instant she saw the pendant.
  I did not know,” I began.
  “Of course you did not,” she said with a slow bitterness. Her bony finger touched the glass and it pulsed like a vein under her touch. “This belonged to Alexa Grey, the last mistress of the Greymist Manor. She drowned a century ago, or so the story goes. Her pirate never stopped searching. His soul is chained to hers by this charm. You have woken him.”
  “But why me?” My voice shook.
  She pulled a sepia photograph from a chest and handed it to me. My heart nearly stopped. The woman in the picture was my mirror in another age. The same eyes, the same fall of hair. “You carry her likeness,” the witch said. “He believes you are returned.”
  “How do I stop him?” I asked.  
  “Break it,” she said, plain and terrible. “Shatter the glass and cast it into the sea. The stone is his anchor. Shatter it and he will be gone. He will not go without a fight. He will beg. He will promise anything. He will bleed his soul across your feet if you allow him, and you must not allow him.”
  I carried her words back to the manor like a weight in my bones, I tried to stay awake and put off the thing I feared most. It did not help. Exhaustion sank its teeth into me and in sleep he stood before me, wet and ravenous with longing.
  “You never came,” he said, sorrow raw as tidewater. “Tide after tide I waited as the moon waned and the sea swallowed light. You denied me.”
  “I cannot be yours,” I told him. “I am not Alexa!.”
  He smiled, a terrible thing and a beautiful one all at once. “You are hers. Her face, her soul, her promise. I would burn the heavens ,drown the earth, tear the stars down to have her back.”
  I woke up shaking. I knew then that I could not run. I had to end it. I had to stop him from twisting the world with his hunger.
  That night, for the first time, I answered him. For the first time I came where he said he would wait.
  when the tide swallows the moon. Come to the cliffs

  The fog thickened and the waves thudded against the rocks like a second heartbeat. He stood where the cliff jutted into the dark, coat soaked, face pale as carved stone, his eyes two coals in the gloom. When he saw me something raw tore across his features. Relief, hunger, devotion, all at once.
  “You came,” he whispered as he reached for me, fingers hovering near my face. “I’ve waited centuries to speak to you my love. To say all the things I never could. All the promises I carried to the depth–”
  “I came to end this,” I said, interrupting him.
  His smile broke and became wild. “No. No. You came to stay. You are mine, Alexa. Mine until the sea itself ends.”
  “I am not Alexa,” I told him, like I always do. “I am Aveline and I can't be yours.”
  His gaze darkened and for a long horrible silence he only looked at me. Then he stepped closer, breath cold as the grave.
  I took a step back.
  “Do you know what it is to drown a thousand times and rise only to emptiness? I’ve killed for you. I would kill the world for you. And you would cast me back into nothing?”
  With trembling hands I reached for the pendant. The chain slid cool against my fingers and the pendant felt like a heart beating in my palm. His eyes locked on it with a frantic hunger.
  “Don’t.” His voice cracked like a storm splitting the sky. “Don’t leave me again.”
  “I was never yours to leave.”
  
  His face twisted in agony as I raised the pendant. For the first time, he looked less like a monster and more like a man–broken, desperate, human in his torment. The pity that rose in me tasted like blood. But then I remembered the witch's words : 

  If you pity him, you will doom yourself.
He will beg and he will rage. You must still         
break it. 
  Break it.
  I carried her words as an anchor as the fog pressed in and the wind dragged my hair across my eyes. Finding the courage I raised the pendant and struck it hard against a stone until the black glass splintered into pieces . He tried to stop me but couldn't, like the sea had kept him from the land, columns of spray licking at his boots. I flung the pendant into the mouth of the sea. The waves rose as if they had been waiting. Light splintered up from the sea glass and then the ocean closed over it. He screamed, a sound of more loss than anger. Mist unpicked his coat and his outline blurred into steam that the wind could not quite scatter. His lips trembled as if he wanted to confess a hundred withheld things. The lines of his face tightened into sorrow and fury. Even as the salt wind took him, his eyes never left mine. They were pale fires, wet and molten, pleading and accusing and with a voice that held a last, terrible certainty, he said.

  “The sea takes me now, but it will bring you to me in the end.”


  And before I know it he dissolved into the night like smoke hauled by the wind. The waves closed and the storm eased until the sea went still. I fell to my knees on the cliff and the cold cut through my clothes and skin. My hands were slick with salt and the black glass. The manor behind me stood quiet for the first time since we had arrived. I wept until my cheeks were raw, for a thing that had been half terror and half devotion, for the lives that had been broken and for the man who had loved so fiercely he could not spare me.
  Sometimes, when the fog is thick and the waves pound the cliffs, I still feel the touch of that night. A shadow slides across my skin and the wind carries one word like a fossil in its mouth.
  Mine.
  I am Aveline. I am not Alexa. Yet I know some ties, once forged, do not fully die. They live like blind knots under the tide, waiting.

​                                                            💀💀💀

Lara Shamas is a writer, Poet,  and literature enthusiast based in Lebanon. My work often explores the intersections of love, loss, and the supernatural.

summary

Listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast

The long afternoon sunlight catches my eye. Blinking and turning away from the strong glare, I draw the dining room shades of my ersatz studio and return my focus to my work. The 11x17 inch Bristol Boards in various stages of progress clutter the room. I’d propped up several around me so I could easily move from one to another at will, like working in an assembly line fashion.

As a freelance penciller for comic books, web comics, and graphic novels, I’m the first guy in the illustration process. The one who draws the characters and backgrounds of the panels of the storyline. All I have to work with are several words and a general idea where the text will go on a page. The rest is up to me to fill in the blanks with my caricatures, scenery, and whatever else comes to mind. I’m starting off with a blank page. My artistic skills and imagination do the rest.

Not to boast, but I’m damn proud of what I’ve accomplished in my short career. It has been going on for three years, since graduating with a BFA degree from Columbia College in the Loop. I guess the proper title for my craft is illustrator. Certainly NOT a graphic designer who makes a living from computer-generated images using the right algorithms. I always thought that kind of work was more akin to that of a computer jock and little more. Okay, maybe I was being an effete snob, but I really believed that of the two disciplines, I was the one with true artistic talent.

I still live in the small, one-bedroom apartment, a short bus ride from the college. It was all I could afford with student loans that financed my education and lifestyle. But I’d done well in advancing my career over the past couple of years. I now have prestigious clients like DC and Marvel comics, plus excellent relationships with other similarly minded magazines. I've slowly made a name for myself. Mostly, I marketed myself by word of mouth and by attending the various COM CON exhibitions held throughout the year. I would go to the events with a portfolio of my work and network with those who could help advance me in the biz. I’d been successful so far but was always on the make for more clients. 

And I just landed a big contract with Dark Horse Publishing out of Portland, Oregon, a large publisher of graphic novels. The job would keep me busy for several weeks, and it involved my favorite caricatures, horror creatures of several types and stripes. I’d be the one who would create them from scratch and bring them to life with my sketches. The macabre, ghoulishly, delicious villains was the best material to draw. Since they could take any number of scary, creepy shapes, I would have a free hand to explore and draw what I saw fit. 

My first assignment from Dark Horse had me create a horrific creature called a Wendigo for its annual horror anthology. I was vaguely familiar with the creature, having read about it while researching monsters for some of my earlier artwork. As I recalled, it was part of the Native American lore of the tribes living in Wisconsin, Eastern Minnesota, and the lower part of Ontario. I had to go to Wikipedia to refresh my memory.  

In Indian folklore and mythology, a Wendigo or Windigo is a cannibal monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada. The Wendigo may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human, or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. It is historically associated with cannibalism, murder, insatiable greed, and the cultural taboos against such behaviors. The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo psychosis, which is considered by psychiatrists to be a form of culture-bound syndrome with symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal.
  
So, that was a Wendigo, a Native American, mythical monster whose supposed existence was handed down generation to generation in the tribal oral tradition. I got some clues from the entry that I would apply to my caricature.  
                                                                           ***
It was date night or that’s what Brit called our once-a-week wine and sex get-together. She’d been my sometimes girlfriend for the past four years, having first met and dated in Columbia. Brit had just graduated, and she was now constantly auditioning for parts in the Chicago theaters. That was only when she could take time off from waitressing. She had, in fact, landed a couple of small, non-speaking roles, but not enough money to pay her share of her apartment’s rent. So, she relied heavily on the bank of mommy & daddy to get by.

I kept telling her that it was highly improbable she would ever become a serious, earning actor. The odds were against her, in my very self-righteous opinion. She’d respond by saying it was time for me to grow up and get a real job instead of just doodling on paper all day long. She told me she despised the drawings of the creepy creatures and my unhealthy obsession with them. Yes, she used the word obsession to describe my intense, almost manic, interest in these subject matters. She then twisted the knife, adding that I needed to get a real life, not one drawn from my own imagination. That’s how most of our conversations went for hours on end. Back and forth went the never-ending, accusatory slings and arrows. We both were so exhausted by the end of the night and usually too drunk that we often skipped sex. That pretty well summed up our relationship.
                                                                           ***
The Dark Horse commission called for three full-page sketches of a Wendigo. For this project, I decided that I would do a larger rendering of the creature and ordered a large Gator Foam board of 96 x 48 inches for the job. I affixed a clamp light to the top of the easel for better illumination. I also decided on something else, something I’d never done before. I would complete the drawings myself, acting as inker and colorist as well. There was something about this project which piqued my interest, my curiosity, for reasons I could not understand. This was to be no run-of-the-mill project, but my masterpiece, something that I alone could take credit for. I would be solely responsible for the creature coming to life before my eyes. I was enthralled about the prospect of my creations. And yes, I’m a bit obsessed too.   

So, how to start? That was the question before me, and it was one I always grappled with before starting a new project. I had to first conceptualize what and how I was going to draw the creature. In this case, the “what” was difficult to determine. What does a Wendigo look like? I had a few clues drawn from Wikipedia, but little more to go on. First, it had to be scary, grotesque in appearance. That was a given. It next had to appear as menacing, threatening. Okay, that was a small beginning. I’d have to let my mind wander and fill in the rest as I went along. The “how” part of the question was less problematic. I would pose the creature in three different perspectives: standing on its hind legs, running on all fours, and then in a crouching position ready to pounce on its prey. I could easily fill in the background settings with a copse of trees or whatever. I still had time to fill in the blank spaces.   

I picked up a soft #4 pencil and began to draw, starting with a rough outline. As the creature began to take on form and substance, I switched to a mechanical pencil to firm up the lines to better define the sketch. Later, I had a genuinely nice facsimile of a Wendigo. Or at least what I thought the creature should look like.

That was when my stomach started rumbling in earnest since I’d forgotten to eat. Many hours had passed since I started working, and I was damn hungry. No problem for me as a bachelor. I simply called for a double order of my favorite Chinese dishes. I then returned to my artwork. Nothing was going to slow me down from creating the quintessential Wendigo.

The first rough drawing was the creature standing upright on two legs. It was standing in a somewhat bent-at-the-knees position as though lurching at something or someone. Its upper body musculature was sinewy yet emaciated in appearance. The same was true of its legs, which also appeared twisted in shape. The chest cavity had a caved-in look to it. I drew cloven hoofs instead of feet. I depicted its hands as more like claws, grasping and gnarling. Oh, and the face was drawn tight on its shriveled head. Some teeth were missing from its massive jaw, and their irregularity added to the grotesquerie. A snout like that of a dog rounded out the shape of the mouth. It had a rapacious, almost sneering look to it. On the forehead, I placed two nubs of horns protruding from the skull. I had to be careful to allow space for the blurbs. 

More work needed to be done to bring the creature fully to life. Yes, it was a good start, and I was pleased with my work, yet my stomach continued reminding me I was still hungry. No not just hungry, but ravenous even after finishing my large Chinese dinner. You know what they say about Chinese food, but it had been only a half hour since I’d eaten. I rummaged through the kitchen looking for more to eat to satisfy my ever-growing hunger.

Next on the agenda was to move on to the inking process. I had taken several classes at college in this art form. While I never considered myself an expert at the craft, I was still proficient enough to execute the task at hand. I used India ink to retrace my penciling to make sure the lines were firm and dark on the paper. It was all about definition with a steady, firm hand. Once that was done, I turned to the most important part of inking: creating the shadow lines and fillers. I used a quill pen for this step. By carefully feathering the caricature, I could shade in spots to various degrees for the desired effect. I had to be especially cautious by not leaving any drops of ink on the paper. And I was pleased with the results.

I worked all day and much of the night, nonstop. I was physically exhausted, but my mind was still racing. The heat from the radiator in the room felt stifling, and I began sweating profusely, maybe because of my feverous thoughts and burning desire to perfect my project. I opened all the apartment’s windows to let in the winter’s chilly air. I finally fell into a restless sleep and awoke in the early morning to start again, again with a hunger that couldn’t be sated. It was a hunger to finish my artwork and more. I was a bit worried that my appetite was out of control but saw no reason to be outright concerned.
                                                                           ***
I groggily walked to the neighborhood grocers to stock up on food for what looked like to be a long and dreary Chicago winter season. Among my haul was a selection of assorted meats such as a couple of Porterhouse steaks, ten pounds of ground chuck, and more. The more consisted of things that I couldn’t stand before, but now seemed to crave, namely calves’ brains, livers and tripe. It was offal that I wouldn’t have considered eating in a million years.

Returning to my project, it was time for the last step in the process, the coloration. I chose the colors very carefully, wanting to remain true to the viciousness, the ultimate nature of the caricature. I used ochre to shade in the protruding eyes and a blend of greenish blue pigment for its hairless body with mottled skin. And best of all, its countenance was now truly repulsive.

All I needed to finish and preserve the Wendigo portrait was to fill in the background scenery. For that, I used a North Woods motif with the monster standing upright by a small stream in a copse of evergreen trees. I debated whether to up the horror a notch or two by having a Native American child caught in the talons of the creature but thought better and didn’t do it. Too much gore.
                                                                           ***
I was ceaselessly hungry. It was a new sensation to me and one I considered puzzling. Pulling the brains and livers out of the fridge, I loaded them onto a large platter. I nibbled on them raw while at the same time finishing the miscellaneous items of my sketch. The blood from these delicacies ran down my fingers, and I had to be careful not to leave any of it on the poster board. My manners had deteriorated just as my appetite had increased. Brit would not be pleased.

Speaking of Brit, this was our date night. I didn’t especially look forward to it because it would involve more verbal brawls. I wasn’t sure if we would stay together much longer since we no longer had much in common except drinking, dissing each other, and sex. The sex part, when it happened, was surprisingly good, but the other aspects of our relationship had deteriorated to the point it wasn’t worth seeing each other. Tonight, I’d tell her it was over, but only after we had sex. No reason to spoil a good thing. I was running late from doing a few errands, but Brit had a spare key to my apartment and knew how to use it. No worries there.

I unlocked the door. If Brit were home, she must have locked the door behind her. I set down the packages I’d brought home and uncorked a bottle of cheap wine. I called out Brit’s name with no answer. Oh well, I’d have to wait another week or so to tell her about splitting up. She’d be hurt, but there was nothing I could do to ease her pain. We’d stay friends, then again, maybe not. Who knew?

Sipping my wine, I took another long look at my artistry, my creation, my Wendigo. I thought my work was superb, well executed piece of illustration in all respects. Pride aside, I had created a magnificent artwork. Perhaps a low-brow type of art, but spectacular just the same. I checked the phone for messages from Brit that she was running late or not coming over at all. There were none.

I went to the bedroom to change clothes and that is when I saw her. My God what had happened to her? Her lifeless body was lying on its back and most of her clothing had been shredded. She was lying in a large pool of blood, and she was obviously dead. My mind reeled at the horrific sight and damage to her once attractive body. She’d been mutilated beyond description and recognition. Oh God, who or what could have done this to her? My senses were frozen to the point that went beyond any reasoning or rationality. I was barely able to hold back the bile forming in my throat. I was stunned by this horrible event. Brit was no more. 

It took me a while to regain my composure and to finally stifle the urge to vomit. I sat next to her body for a few minutes, waiting and thinking about what had transpired. I couldn’t imagine such a bloody, horrible scene in my dreams or worst nightmares. It was too much to comprehend. As my senses returned, I thought about the deadbolt lock on the front door. It was a solid one, a high-quality Schlage model no less. There was no other access to my third-floor apartment, so how did the intruder get inside with the door securely locked? There had been some instances of violent crime in the area, but everything paled in comparison to Brit’s murder. 

As I once again winced looking at Brit’s body, I noticed something unusual, strange on her right-hand fingers and the butt of her palm: greenish blue pigment, the same color I used on my sketch. Could it be? Was it possible? Could my art piece have caused her death? I’d have to suspend my incredulity to believe that’s what happened. But maybe that’s exactly what occurred; a mythical Wendigo was responsible. 

I was loath to believe in this theory of the crime, but the facts clearly pointed in that direction. I then screwed up my courage to confront the abominable, damnable creature. I could destroy what I created. I marched into the living room and stood close, directly in front of the easel holding what I thought was a masterpiece of fiction. But now I know better. 

The grip light hanging over my drawing was still on and showed brighter than before. I stared into the Wendigo’s devious eyes, and it stared back at mine, neither of us flinching. I had never been afraid of my creation before, but now I was. It had an almost sensate awareness of itself and me as well. We continued to hold the stare for many seconds, and then it spoke, not aloud, but in a mesmerizing, almost telepathic manner. I cringed and recoiled when I heard its words.

“Do not be afraid my friend since we are one and the same spirit. Destiny has brought us together.”

 I was dumbfounded that my sketch was speaking in my mind. I was afraid, afraid that I’d lost my mind. Before I could gather my thoughts, it spoke again.

“I have lived from time immemorial as what you people call a Wendigo. I am a seeker of human flesh. First American tribes such as the Ojibwa, Menominee and Hochuck have revered me as a powerful spirit. I dwell in their lands and minds for all eternity. I care for nothing except feeding off humans, murder, and mayhem I bring into their world.” 

I thought I was suffering from some form of Wendigo Psychosis that I’d read about in Wikipedia. God, what else could it be? I’d even developed a certain fondness for raw red meat. That was certainly some proof that I was acting abnormally. However, I still believed that none of this was real and I’d soon wake up from just a bad dream. 

I had the temerity to ask it a question. “Why did you so brutally murder and savage Brit?” 

It responded by saying she came into my home, touched and mocked the Wendigo drawing, all the while making disparaging remarks about me and my artwork. It said I had put my heart and soul into the project, and she simply demeaned my creation efforts in front of it. So, she had to die a brutal, gory death at its hands. It had no choice but to avenge my honor as its creator. 

It wasn’t too late to dial 911 and tell the cops about this most bizarre circumstance. They wouldn’t believe a word about what I’d tell them and send me to the loony bin, after which I would be tried, convicted, and imprisoned for Brit’s murder. It was a just punishment for my hubris. 

“We are becoming one, one being from two souls. Did you not understand what we are becoming? You had a fanatical rush to complete me and your unrelenting desire for meat. Soon you will turn into a real Wendigo who will savor the meat of human flesh. It has been preordained. There is nothing you can do to stop you from becoming me and from me from becoming you.”

I must be crazy standing here and listening to a two-dimensional Brixton Board with an illustration of a Wendigo. Now I was certain I would destroy the thing and send it back to Hell or wherever. But how would I do it? 

I’d smash the damn thing and then it could no longer murder and cannibalize the population at will. At least that was my plan for the murderous Wendigo! As I reached out to grab the plasterboard, I felt my arms being held by powerful hands. Pulling my arms, the Wendigo dragged me into the sketch, and I was no more. 

And the penciller was now one with his own self.

​                                                            💀💀💀

George Larson is a retired special agent with the Diplomatic Security service, US Department of State. He's written eight novels (DICK AVERY ADVENTURE STORIES) and twenty-four horror stories. Many of his stories have appeared in print or been podcasted. He holds a BA degree in English.

Summary

Listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast

With the coming of dusk, Sunshine appeared. Dressed in a striped red and yellow suit, his skin the color of shadows invading Taipei, he checked his golden watch. His powers were strong, but Order still bound him, and the contract stated the deadline for collection loomed seven hours from now. Midnight.
Sunshine strode forward to the apartment where the borrower of a ray of light lived.

Taiwanese students from a nearby high school gaped at him as he passed them in twisting alleys wounding through the neighborhood. He nodded a greeting, his wide smile revealing pale white teeth. Of humankind, he loved youth most, their fire for rebellion against the rules of civilization an intoxicating stimulant. During the short moments he risked wandering the world under the cover of darkness, he sought out ways to inspire the young to reckless abandon and havoc. His persuasion of choice: art.

Five years had passed since the borrower had signed his soul away in blood. A great work of literary achievement would have been produced under the promise that Sunshine would take both the original copy and the artist’s life as trophies. This was in exchange for all earthly rewards the borrower would gain through use of a ray of light, Sunshine’s divine inspiration.

He entered Lane 3 and followed the numbers down until he reached a green plaque labeled 58. Looking at the squat mortar building with surprise, he wondered why the borrower still lived in such squalor. Five years was more than enough time to write the novel, acquire an agent, sell the manuscript to one of the top five publishers, and gain the large advance for a work that would be considered brilliant. Transformative. An international success.

What was the point of selling one’s eternal soul for notoriety and financial gain if one were only going to continue living where they started before the execution date? Once the signature block was signed, there was no backing out of the deal.

The stricken appearance of the building made Sunshine wary, but he calmed that temper of his which consumed when he succumbed to the temptation. With a flourish of his wrist, he pressed his forefinger to the tarnished button of 5A.

“Yes?” a distorted voice asked from the intercom.

“Jon A Than!” Sunshine rubbed his hands in glee. “The maturity day is nigh. Let me up, I have come to collect my due!”

A sharp intake of breath told Sunshine that he had not been forgotten. Such reactions from borrowers were common. When the time came to pay the debt in full, second thoughts and hesitations were bound to manifest.

“Was it today? I was so sure it was tomorrow.” Even through the interference, the tremble in the voice could be heard.

Sunshine clapped twice and laughed. “Jon A Than! Do I seem like a man who would mistake such things? Come now, buzz me up! The night grows late, and the time to settle our account has arrived.”

Moments passed in which only static filled the silence. Just when Sunshine thought he would have to bend the laws of physics and risk being detected by an agent of Order, the intercom buzzed and the door unlocked. A warm flush of pleasure flooded him as he swept into the building and climbed the five flights in the dim staircase. Dull walls, flaking paint, and the occasional cockroach buzzing past his ears did not dampen his mood as he came out onto the rooftop to stand before apartment 5A.

Sunshine delivered a sharp rap on the door, and the borrower opened.

“Jon A Than!” Sunshine reached into his pocket and removed the red envelope containing the contract. “May I come in?”

Fatigue lines had aged the borrower’s face, making him look much older than his 29 years. With a resigned sigh, he stepped aside, and Sunshine entered an apartment that looked worse than it had five years prior when he’d visited the struggling writer. A damp chill hung in the air, and a line of ants crawled along a crack stretching up from a corner of the wall to the window.

This, indeed, was unusual.

He turned to the borrower, forcing down a growing sense of unease. Attempting a jaunty tone, he said, “As stated in the contract, your death will appear a suicide. The genius haunted by demons that drove him to madness.” Sunshine laughed. “As for your eternal soul, well, that’s a bridge you will cross soon enough. Now,” and he held out his hand, “the original manuscript, if you will.”

The writer removed the contract from the red envelope and flipped through the pages. “After I signed the contract, I went over this document many times.”

“I did not lie to you,” Sunshine quickly pointed out. “For divine inspiration, your name will live on past your lifetime. Those are the stated conditions.”

“Yes.” He looked at Sunshine, a hint of a smile touching his lips.

The patience Sunshine struggled to maintain eroded further. Pleas on knees to void the contract would rouse no suspicion, but that smug look disturbed him.

“The novel came to me, one line at a time,” the borrower said. “And it was wonderful! Soon I envisioned pages, which morphed into chapters. Characters marched down the halls of my mind. Subplots sprung up like buttresses to support the grand cathedral I was constructing. And then, a resolution that only God, or,” and here he looked pointedly at Sunshine, “the Fallen, could conceive.”

“So where is it?” Sunshine’s mouth salivated, his hands tightly clasped, as he looked about the squalid apartment.
​
“Here.” The writer touched his temple. “A novel composed as an Epic. All in verse, which I will share with one person at a time, so that they can see the light and remember my name forever more. I am the original draft,” with this, he tore the contract in half, “and my soul, and my life, are mine to keep.”

​                                                            💀💀💀
​
Todd Sullivan taught English as a Second Language in South Korea and Taiwan for sixteen years. His fiction, poetry, and non-fiction have been published internationally. He was listed on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker’s Awards in 2018, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry and fiction in 2023. He currently has two book series through indie publishers in America. He wrote for a Taipei play and web series that focused upon African narratives. He founded the online publication, Samjoko Magazine, in 2021, and hosts a YouTube Channel that interviews writers across the publishing spectrum. 
Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/todd.sullivan.75/
Instagram: @denevius
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ToddSullivanacrowsflying

summary

Listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast

TEXAS, 1867


“What the heck that is?”


The lonely cowpoke narrowed his eyes to watch a man, standing on top of a distant hill, on a horse back. As the day was dark and rainy at the prairies, the cowboy could only see the stranger’s silhouette and his horse, both in profile amongst the penumbra of the ridge, stretching beyond the foggy horizon. A noise robbed his attention. He scanned the vicinities.


“Looks like a horseman to me,” another cowpoke on a horse came. 
“I know that, ye fool. I want to know what he's doin’ there. He don’t look like one of ours.”


Those two cowboys were watching over three thousand heads of cattle. Together with a group of about twenty drovers, they had to drive all those many animals through that well known trail from San Antonio, Texas, to Sedalia, Missouri. 


“Yer right about something,” said the other, “Surely it’s not one of ours.”
“And that worries me. Three thousand beeves surely attract a lotta no-goods.”
“And we’re still far aways from good ole Kansas.”
“Didn’t even leave Texas yet!”
“We’re long ways from Abilene.”
“Who the hell can that be?”
“There’s twenty of us in this godforsaken trail. Maybe it’s just one of us.”
“Nah. They’re almost done lunching and getting ready to push these stupid cows back to the trail.”
“Nolan?”
“Can’t be Nolan. He must be a mile far now, scouting the country up yonder fer some water.”
“Then, he’s not one of ours fer sure.”


They looked back at the top of the hill. The mysterious visitor had disappeared.


“For crying out loud, where he’s at? Nothing but a darn cliff on the other side!”
“Could that be Buck Hendershot?”
“Who?”
“Um, nothing. Guess he was just a saddle tramp, one of those jaspers who go from city to city, betting money he don’t have in the saloons. You know these kinds always got broke one way or the other. Tomorrow, he's liable to get down here to beg fer one or two beeves. The boss's gonna skin him alive.”
“Yes, yes, but... What’s that first name you said, Buckle or something?”
“Nothing. Just a story that went from mouth to mouth among the drovers since we came to this valley. Ye know the new man we picked in Edgewood, the one folks call Toothless?”
“Yep, I know.”
“So, he grew up in these valleys. Yesterday night, I was working nighthawk with him, and he told me a story that, according to him, became a legend ‘round the locals here.”
“And what's the story?”
“Ah, just some senseless horseshit. It's gonna make you laugh.”
“Well, everybody needs a good laugh. Besides, we still gotta long time here to kill. Come on! Don't let me die curious!”
“Alright. There was once this outlaw, Buck Hendershot was his name. So suspicious that he wore a bandana all the time, nobody ever saw his face. He was said to be a real fast draw. Him and his bunch robbed a stagecoach ‘bout a year ago, one that travelled this country, heading north, to Rivercrest Creek.
“And what happened?”
“Toothless told me that this gang was a mighty vicious one, famous for being cruel. After they killed all the passengers and the driver, Hendershot and his bunch fled to the east with the stagecoach loot. And they were never caught.”
“How's that possible? There gotta be a reward for them, right?”
“Five thousand dollars fer each one of them, dead or alive, plus a bonus for whoever brought Hendershot's dry carcass.”
“All that money, and nobody ever caught them?”
“Well, the group wanted to split the cash and disband. One is less likely to be captured if each man goes his separate ways. But Hendershot disagreed. He still wanted the bunch together fer one, maybe two more hold ups. The bastard wouldn’t change his mind.”
“And then what?”
“The rest of the bunch was afraid to be caught or killed. Like you said, the reward was too big. And stolen money is only good if yer alive enough to spend it. They conspired against Hendershot and killed him with a shot in the back. They split the bounty, and each man went his ways. And they left their boss’ carcass to rot in the desert, to become buzzard food. But it's said that Buck Hendershot, fer he died in hatred, will never rest in peace.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“That the ghost of the bastard still rides these hills and prairies, planning a cruel revenge against them folks that murdered him.”
“This is a pack of bullshit!”
“That's what I said, just good for a laugh. Well, at least we spent this boring hour someways. Now, we'd better go back to the herd before the boss comes here and tans our hides.”
“Amen to that, partner."


After saying that, the cowboy turned his horse around, back to the herd, but he did not go far. He fell heavily on the floor, his body colliding harshly against the hard rocks, while his spirit continued all the way down to hell. The reek of burnt powder rising from the hole on his back could still be smelled, around his scorched vest.


“Now ye know how that feels, Jim,” the other cowboy grunted in triumph, while blowing away the smoke from his gun barrel, to then put it back into the holster that hanged from his brown belt, which edges ended in a golden buckle with the letters B. H. shining in the middle. “Saved ya fer last, Jim, ‘cause yer the one that pulled the trigger.”


Then he rode to the opposite direction, his shiny and black horse snorting a frightful breath, until they stopped on top of that hill, their silhouettes contrasting with the ridge, which rose doleful in the gloomy, melancholic horizon.

​                                                            💀💀💀


Marcos Fizzotti holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering and spent many years working in telecommunications, technology, and support services before pursuing a career in writing. Since 2002, he has published twelve books spanning drama, adventure, horror, psychological horror, and thriller genres.
A passionate screenwriter, Fizzotti has also written twelve screenplays, including eight feature-length films and four short films, while continuing to work in the translation of technical, legal, literary, and digital content.
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