“But don’t my hands resemble long claws, the spikes on the back of a porcupine?”
For a moment I possessed him with my finger tips, rolling them through the air he couldn’t take his eyes off them.
“They’re fine.” He mumbled through milk.
“I really don’t scare you do I?”
The boy shook his head and shrugged. I had won him over with a simple plate of cookies. In the old days that wasn’t enough. In the old days children had seen me in their nightmares and their parents and preachers warned them away from my porch.
Today, their parents and preachers teach them it is wrong to stare, it is wrong to call names and it is wrong to be afraid. I just happen to look unfortunate.
“This does not gross you out?”
I poked at the dark hairy mole that rested on the crease of my lips. I opened wide enough that my sharp yellow teeth caught the glare coming in from the window.
He stopped eating.
At least I had ruined his appetite, that’s the evidence of honesty.
“It is gross. There are more things about me that you might find gross, does that make me evil like so many say?”
“My Mom has a wonky toe. It’s real nasty.” The boy confessed.
“Well I promise you I won’t make you look at your mother’s toe ever again.”
That sounded good enough to him and already his appetite returned.
Mine was almost there as well.
Like any good meal you make yourself, it’s the anticipation, the build up, the smells that start to entangle your taste buds and the little boy had them all. Perhaps it was the thought of the cookie and milk flavor that would burst from his stomach when I was ready for desert.
No one likes to say they’re afraid of me. And of course no one wants to be afraid of me. So they’ll keep coming by to introduce themselves. And I’ll be happy to talk their ears off.
THE END
THE RAVINE by Shawn P. Madison
Jimmy Chase was shivering, the deep cold of Kentucky winter seeping right through his thick down jacket and straight into his bones. The sun was now down for the night and the shadows of trees and rocks were thickening all around him. He knew he was in shock, knew that he wouldn’t be able to survive the night out here unless he returned back for the pack containing the tent and emergency supplies. Right now, that was something he just couldn’t will himself to do.
What a nightmare this trip had turned into. He and his friends had crossed the Virginia border into the small town of Lynch, Kentucky, just off Route #160, late yesterday afternoon. Visions of the long hike through low hills and deep snow had been dancing through their minds and filling all of them with anticipation the entire week.
Today had started out just fine, too. No problems. The little roadside hotel had been drafty and cramped but the three young men and Pamela, Paulie’s girlfriend, had made do. This morning, they woke at about nine, got dressed, went into the tiny town for a bit of breakfast, wound their way back to the hotel, packed up their gear, piled into Tony’s SUV and started off for the hike.
Paulie had found this place, the town of Lynch, while returning from a previous trek across the state of Kentucky with Pamela last summer. Ever since, he had been planning their trip, coordinating their vacation time, acquiring the gear, telling them over and over again just how beautiful the hike would be with winter settled in and the mountains covered in white.
And he’d been so right, the scenery too spectacular for words. The greater mountains rose in the far distance, the sun glinting golden off their snow capped peaks. The area that they were hiking through, about six miles north of Lynch, consisted of terrain much lower in elevation than the far off mountains yet sporting them terrific views for miles through clear crisp air and blue cloudless skies.
They had gotten going around noon, hiking for three straight hours before breaking for a snack. Although Jimmy had no idea where they were, Paulie seemed confident that he knew where they were going. Tony and Pamela had had their doubts about Paul’s sense of direction, as well, but the hike had been way too much fun for anyone to get worked up about it.
Around four was when things began going badly. They had climbed a good bit higher up a steep incline at Paul’s insistence in order to get a good vantage point of the fast approaching sunset. All of them had been feeling the icy cold by then but they were willing to keep going in order to satisfy Paulie’s infectious enthusiasm.
Pamela had been coughing, a deep wracking sound, pretty steadily since about three but she kept insisting that she was fine and was managing to keep up with the rest of them very well despite the spasms that shook her small five foot, two inch frame. She had deep red hair jutting out from a powder blue knit cap and flowing long down the back of her navy blue jacket. The layers of clothing she wore did nothing to rid Jimmy’s memories of the night before and the girl’s naked body writhing atop Paulie on the floor in front of the fireplace.
The two must have thought that he and Tony were already asleep when they started but Jimmy couldn’t help himself from spying on them as they made love by the firelight. He’d been unable to rip his eyes away from Pamela’s amazing body. He’d won a game of ‘odds and evens,’ earning the right to the fireplace-facing side of the only bed in the room, much to Tony’s dismay, while Pam and Paulie had chosen to snuggle together on the floor in a tangle of blankets. He’d watched them through half-lidded eyes as Paulie gently pulled Pamela’s sweatshirt over her head. Pamela had not been wearing a bra and her full pale breasts looked luscious in the flickering light, her large dark nipples already erect. She’d stood then, to slowly pull down her sweatpants and panties, allowing Jimmy a full view of her gorgeous form, then slipped back down to straddle her already naked boyfriend. The blankets rapped around them at first had quickly fallen away, leaving her totally bare once again as he’d watched. Sweat had poured from the two of them, her long hair sparkling redder than ever in the firelight and covering much of her face, as they made desperate attempts to stifle the sounds of their lovemaking. Jimmy continued to watch as her fantastic breasts were rising and falling, her cute little butt pumping up and down in tune to Paulie’s rhythm. Pamela’s skin seemed to be totally unblemished by birthmarks or moles, he’d noticed as his eyes took in every inch of her frame. Just before the culmination of their interplay, Paulie’s hands reached up to cup Pamela’s breasts, squeezing tightly, forcing a harsh gasp of pleasure to escape from her open mouth.
At that moment, with the firelight flickering frantically over Pamela’s pale white body, their eyes met…he had been sure of it. She looked straight at him while Paulie’s eyes were closed tight with his spasms. For the briefest of moments, a span that seemed to last for at least a minute to Jimmy, Pamela had tenderly licked her lips then flashed a sexy smile in Jimmy’s direction. This was followed by a teasing wink and then she reared back, arching herself on top of Paulie, climaxing right along with the man underneath her.
How Tony had managed to sleep through all of that was downright remarkable, Jimmy remembered thinking earlier in the day. The fact that he’d managed to snore through it all was even more unfathomable. Jimmy had found it very hard to fall asleep after that but, once sleep arrived, his dreams had been full of luscious red-haired beauties running naked through the mountains of Kentucky. He’d woken up this morning refreshed and in the best of moods but found that he couldn’t take his eyes off Pamela.
If Paulie had noticed his ogling, his friend hadn’t let on and, every once in awhile, Jimmy noticed Pamela looking back with her cute little smile as the hike progressed. That had been hours ago…a time when everything had still been right in their world, a time before the unthinkable happened. Now it was almost dark, the temperatures were falling rapidly and Pamela would never make love to anyone ever again…not from where she was right now.
Then again, the same could be said for Paulie…and Tony was back there, too. How could this have happened? He felt like screaming his rage and fr
ustration to the surrounding wilderness. None of this should be happening. This couldn’t be real…Jimmy shut his eyes tightly against the reality of it. He was trying desperately to find himself back in that hotel whose name he couldn’t remember, waking up this morning on that cold bed next to Tony in a town that he’d probably never come to again for the rest of his life…and realizing that it was all just a bad dream. But, of course it was all true. And no more tears would come now, the moisture in his body was being eaten up greedily by the relentless Kentucky cold.
His eyes opened once again to the blanket of white surrounding him, slowly turning to blue as what dim light remained tapered off into night. He sighed deeply with the regret of this damned trip, his breath frosting white against the darkness of the sky, and the notion that this was all so very real sank home for the tenth time in the past hour.
Jimmy Chase felt the cold of the snow underneath him seeping through his jacket and pants. He felt the sting of old tears on his cheek frozen by the brisk wind. He felt his fingers getting colder within the thick gloves now that there was no more sunlight to offer any heat at all. His ears had finally stopped hurting, turning instead to numb lumps on his head, and he unsuccessfully tried to control the pounding of his heart.
He had to go back there and do it now, he knew, but his legs wouldn’t listen. His mind roiled in panic as his eyes darted along the tall earthen walls of the ravine. How far did it go like this, with thirty foot walls lining both sides and no clear way to climb out? He couldn’t tell, he’d run away crying in a fit of terror once the accident happened. He’d run for some unknown distance, through tall twisted trees, over rough terrain and for an unknown amount of time but when he was thinking clearly again, he’d found himself with his back against one snow-covered wall of the ravine and his legs splayed out in front of him.
His pack had been filled with a sleeping bag and some mess tools to cook with. Tony had been carrying the tent and his own sleeping bag. Paulie had been carrying both his and Pamela’s sleeping bag and some food. Pamela had been the only one of the four to have no load to carry on the hike…most likely the reason she had fallen the farthest, ended up closest to…
Jimmy shook his head to try and clear it and felt new tears trying to well up behind his aching eyes. His two best friends, a very beautiful girl…all dead. Now, here he was, in this ravine, with no clear way out and the sun below the horizon and no supplies. If he didn’t act now, he would die out here in the frosty mountains of Kentucky and his bones would probably be found stripped bare of flesh come spring.
Slowly, he rolled over on to his left side, brought his right leg back and bent his right foot underneath. His cold and stiff joints didn’t want to respond at first but he soon found himself standing. A few quick steps and he was on his way, mentally steeling himself for what he knew he would find back there…three bodies, all torn apart by the fall…
Paulie had been in the lead when they reached the top of the incline. He’d stepped right on up to the edge of a rocky outcropping with one steel-toed boot and waited for the others to join him. Once all four of them had been huddled close in the small space at the top of the precipice, Jimmy couldn’t help but notice that he was pressed tight against Pamela’s back, his right hand settled loosely on her shoulder. He could smell the perfume in her hair as the wind blew a few stray strands of it into his face. She turned back to look at him once with that winning smile and he’d smiled in return, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. He’d felt her butt come backward about an inch then, just enough to snuggle up against the lower part of his thick jacket.
At that moment, just before the unthinkable happened, his mind flashed him a vivid memory of the hotel room earlier in the day. He’d been coming out of the shower, trying to wrap a towel around his waist, when Pamela opened the bathroom door. She’d been next in line for the shower and brushed past him quickly, smacking him playfully on his naked rump as he was fumbling with the towel. As he left the small bathroom, he glanced back and caught a glimpse of her just as the towel came away. She looked marvelous as the shower curtain was swept across the tub. She pulled the curtain away for an instant up near her head, throwing him a smile, and he could see the darkness of her nipples through the cloudy-clear plastic. With a giggle, she pressed herself up against the still wet and semi-clear curtain, giving him a wonderful glimpse of what her body offered…
That was when he’d heard that loud crack, a terrifying sound that had snapped his mind back to the present. All at once, the precipice that they’d been standing on fell. All four people had stiffened and grabbed on to each other at the moment that the large piece of ice broke away from the top of the ridge. Torn between the sweet exhilaration of garnering Pamela’s attention and a deep sense of guilt at flirting with his best friend’s girlfriend, Jimmy Chase felt his body begin to fall. It was at least thirty or forty feet to the bottom, of that there was no doubt, but as he tumbled Jimmy could see the mass of sharp twisted branches waiting down there.
Pamela had been the first to hit and she hit hard. They had all been screaming, Jimmy was sure of it, although he’d heard absolutely nothing in those long falling seconds before impact. When Pamela hit, though…he’d heard it. A loud tearing sound, followed immediately by a horrible groan that reverberated off the ravine’s walls, and then the thick gurgling of liquid dripping to the snow below.
His mind knew nothing but terror as the sharp ends of the tree branches slashed into the pack on his back, tearing into it and ripping the straps from his arms as the weight of his body propelled him downward. He landed in a heap in the already reddish snow lying at the bottom of the ravine and tried to scramble away before any of the others landed on him.
More screams followed, more red dripped on to the snow and Jimmy turned his face upward to see where the others could be. If horror could be described as a feeling, at that very instant Jimmy had known horror as an utter sensation of all engulfing tightness. His heart had seized in his chest as his eyes searched for a way to tell his mind that what he’d been seeing wasn’t real.
Something big had landed wetly in the snow beside him, followed by several smaller bits, and Jimmy had screamed as he recognized them as inner organs. Parts of his friends had been falling around him, dripping on to him, and he’d just stood there, gaping in horror. Pamela was already dead, her arms swaying in the wind, pointing toward the ground as if in an effort to get down from her place amidst the branches.
Tony had still been alive at the beginning, his mouth working but with no sound issuing forth, his thick red blood falling in a steady stream to the floor of the ravine. Paulie’s head had been swaying back and forth, one eye open, with blood pouring from his mouth as his body hung at a slightly downward angle. Their eyes met and Paulie had tried to speak…his mouth moving in what Jimmy had understood at the time to be an effort to say one word—Jimmy.
“Paulie!” he had screamed then, the roar of his voice banging off the walls of the ravine and echoing off into the night. In fact, Jimmy remembered screaming for quite awhile after that. Once his senses finally returned, he’d had no idea of how much time had passed since the accident. His raw throat, the intense cold and his friends hanging some ten feet or so above him had been mixing together to play some awful games with his mind. He could just reach one of Pamela’s outstretched fingers from his tippy toes. Looking up at the dead girl, he had felt the deep despair in his heart increase and he’d found himself trembling. The look of sheer terror painted across Pamela’s stiffened face would haunt him for as long as he lived, of that there was no doubt.
He’d allowed his eyes to drift toward Tony, saw him hanging precariously, his abdomen ripped open and the rib cage exposed. What little life there had been left in Tony right after the fall had no longer been there but one final spasm shook the entire structure of the small tree squatting at the bottom of the ravine.
Sharp points of red glistening wood had emerged from the other side of his friends, had ripped through jac
kets, pants and backpacks. Jimmy had been the only lucky one in the group. He’d flipped over on to his back in mid-air as he’d fallen, the pack taking most of the impact when he’d first struck the sharp branches of the tree. The tearing force of the impact must have created a bounce in the branches he’d landed on, forcing his body to fly another foot or so outward away from the tree when his pack had been ripped from his shoulders. Subsequently, he’d landed in the snow but his friends hadn’t been so lucky.
Thinking back on that ghastly scene, Jimmy thought that he could probably climb up and reach his friends in order to get to the tent and a sleeping bag for the night…if he really tried. In the morning, he’d have to trace back their footprints in the snow and make his way back to town in order to get to the police. The keys to the SUV were in Tony’s pants pocket and remembering the ripped open abdomen and the sound of Tony’s intestines landing in the snow beside him gave Jimmy many doubts about his ability to retrieve them. He’d most likely have to hike all the way back to Lynch…but that alternative suited him just fine.
With these gruesome memories looping endlessly through his mind, Jimmy managed to walk a good long way back toward the scene of the fall. Total darkness was creeping closer and closer to blotting out the sky as the last purplish rays that had been peeking up over the lip of the ravine slowly disappeared. Lucky for him, the partial moon was rising up, nowhere near full but it should give him more than enough light to see by. The footprints he was following were erratic and close together, easily revealing the frantic state of mind he’d been in immediately after the accident. The memory of that haunted look in Pamela’s eyes, that look of terror, made him shake against a chill not induced by the all encompassing cold of the ravine.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 5 Page 9
