Frightful Tales #1: Rose's Thorn

by Wesley Thomas

  “Love you too sweetheart, now get some rest,” she smiled, leaving his bedroom. Nibbling her lip was all she could do to hold back a heavy stream of tears.

  Declan slept easy for the first time in days. His dreams were actual dreams, of random comical fictitious situations, not petrifying nightmares of dolls. He awoke actually feeling refreshed, to the obnoxious buzz of his alarm clock and yawned himself awake. He jumped in the shower to clean off the night's sweat, and the residual dirt left from Rose's burial. After a few rubs with his sponge and sprays of hot water he felt good as new, as if he was not only ridding himself of grime, but removing all disturbing memories of Rose. When he had changed and was ready for school he made his way downstairs.

  Before he was even half way down the steps the smell of bacon and eggs swept inside his nostrils and made his stomach rumble. This made him speed his pace. He opened the door to see his mother frying food in their modest kitchen, and smoke wafting from the pan as she stood cooking up a storm. A tiny, yellow themed, basic kitchen consumed with the pleasant aroma of greasy breakfast food.

  She turned to notice him, “Morning sunshine, bacon and eggs?”

  “Yes please,” Declan smiled, happy at his mum’s good mood.

  “Where is dad?” he quizzed, not that he was overly concerned, obviously, but felt it was courteous.

  “Actually at work for a change,” she chuckled and then turned off the flame that was heating the pan and scraped the contents out onto two plates.

  The clunk of the metal spatula hitting the pan made a ding sound that made Declan think of a monkey slapping two clangs together. His mother then brought over the two plates heaped with plenty of bacon and eggs, and placed them on the table. The little condiments they had were already on the small kitchen table, along with cutlery. So as soon as the plate was in front of Declan he wasted no time and began inhaling the food with an admirable speed. His mother grinned.

  “Steady or you will get indigestion,” Deirdra smiled.

  Declan heeded this advice and slowed down.

  “Now then, you want to talk about what has been going on with that little doll?” she questioned, poking a strip of bacon.

  It was far from easy, but Declan managed to divulge all the experiences he'd had with Rose. Deirdra was beginning to believe it, due to the consistency in his stories. But now she was also slightly disconcerted about having the doll in their house. She had hidden it under many rags and objects in the cleaning cupboard beneath the stairs, as that was the only place her husband wouldn't go exploring. Declan told her names of some blogs and web-pages he had looked on. She jotted them down and planned to take a look after work. Most parents would take much more convincing, and although David was not a believer and was convinced his son was a raving lunatic, his mother knew he was telling the truth, even if there were other explanations for the events he depicted. After they had both enjoyed a nice talk and protein heavy breakfast Declan had made his way to school, and Deirdra had begun changing into her work uniform.

  As she stepped into her purple dress and fastened the navy blue apron, her consciousness drifted to her son, and his vivid details of this doll. Her son wasn't crazy, delusional, or an idiot; she knew she had to do something about this toy. Should she give it back to Emily? Ask her parents where they bought it to determine its origin and why all these strange things had happened? Deirdra clipped blonde hair from her face and applied a small amount of makeup. As she painted her lips a light shade of red she began plotting. As she curved her eyelashes outwards she had made a decision, to go to Emily's house and speak to her parents to see what they felt should be done. Then as she gently powdered her face she scheduled this task to be done today after work. But until then, the townspeople needed cakes and pastries, and they weren't going to bake and sell themselves, so she scurried to her heap of junk, also known as a car and drove to work.

  ***

  Declan was enjoying art class, facing his canvas and splashing paint onto the pale backdrop. His teacher had instructed them to paint what they saw in their mind's eye. So far he had composed a much nicer version of his house with bright colours and a combination of shapes and patterns all merging together like fruit, being blended into a smoothie. His art teacher Miss Stergman walked behind him and praised his work, as she always did. She had a slim figure, but curvy where it counted, with luscious red hair, and a dainty appearance. She looked more like a model-come-scientist than an art teacher.

  In fact, once upon a time modelling scouts begged her to model, told her she could have made a fortune. Not to mention she was accepted into every university she applied for, with teachers and family advising her to pick a more common degree, and go into a less volatile industry than that of the creative world. But art was her passion, always had been, regardless of her looks and intelligence, she followed her heart, and now taught children the skill of self-expression through a variety of materials and equipment. Declan had a real talent for art in all forms: sketching, painting, charcoal images, clay sculptures; she always told him he had a gift, and he should develop this gift in college and university.

  “Well done Declan, very impressive,” she smiled and rubbed his shoulder delicately, as to not hinder his hand's muse-inspired flow.

  “Thank you Miss,” he nodded, as if answering an army sergeant.

  But this time, Miss Stergman chose to motivate Declan by attempting to bring out inner passion, lay his fears, memories, and nightmares into his work, helping to create this level of artistic ability at such a young age, could result in the next Picasso or Van Gogh.

  “But try really delving deep in your mind, draw out anything that you think would interest and intrigue people, make them captivated by it. Maybe nightmares, fears, something dramatic, adding a lease of life to the suburban piece, understand?”

  “Yes Miss.”

  Such a polite young man. Miss Stergman thought.

  With the brush, he continued to loop and touch up the house, he followed his teacher's instruction and identified something that would interest and intrigue.

  His hand whipped up and down, lining colour and texture to the canvas, but his mind was in another world. A dark world. A world of unnatural horrors that often consumed his conscious and unconscious thoughts. He finished the pleasant and visually pleasing rendering of the house, and began to paint a doll onto the front garden subconsciously. His body moved as if on autopilot, with his mind oblivious to what he was actually painting. He first sketched in pencil once the paint was reasonably dry and made his preparations to sculpture a 2d image of Rose. He began by using a pale pink colour to fill in the pencilled outline to capture a likeness of her porcelain paleness, this led him to dress her in the floral patterned dress, which she was clothed in. But he left the hardest part until last, the face. He wanted to capture the ambiguous nature of her expression, how she appeared nice and friendly, but at the same time her face expressed a malignancy. Looking at the finished piece made him almost as nervous as he would be if Rose was stood in front of him.

  Once again his hovering teacher floating like a bird in the sky swooped down and commented on Declan's work.

  “Now this..... it's just..... it is marvellous,” she gleamed with pride, as a small percentage of the reason his work had progressed so fast, was due to her prompts and guidance. Planting seeds and with the help of nourishment, watching them blossom. It was times like these she felt such joy at choosing a career as a teacher.

  “This is incredible, it shows a suburban fantasy with the house, but this doll gives a creepy, unnerving effect to the connotations a viewer will have, excellent work,” she enthusiastically complimented.

  Hearing the teacher's passionate compliments, one by one children began piling into a crowd by his canvas. Some were green with envy, others in awe of his work, and a few slightly scared and unsettled by the eerie doll. One kid swore the eyes followed his every move.

  Chapter 5

  Deirdra had a pleasant day serving up delectable
pastries for hundreds of customers, she felt this was unusual for January, this time of year more often than not meant dieting and desperately trying to rid the excess fat from their bodies. Fat that had been birthed from too many mince pies, puddings, chocolate, and Christmas dinners. People would try their hardest to ignore the gluttonous cravings for more delicacies and scrumptious desserts, and focus on retrieving their former bodies by gorging on salads and low fat treats. But this year an oddness had occurred and most people clearly had no time or patience for dieting anymore. People continued to pile in by the dozen ordering colossal amounts of buns and cupcakes, as if the apocalypse was nearing. Sampling an endless magnitude of cupcake flavours: from pumpkin, strawberry, mint, cookies and cream as well as butterfly cream and chocolate. Deirdra often wondered how she maintained her figure given that most days she was faced with bountiful choices of delicious stomach-fillers and thigh-spreaders, as she called them. She would drown in aromas of icing and cream, with a sprinkling of dough. Her vision would glitter with all colours that had been squeezed onto various scones and bakery sculptures. But her will power retained the ability to withstand the peer pressure that was being inflicted onto her by the bullying buns.

  The time had raced by in a hustle of hungry and sweet-toothed people urging for a sugar rush. The clocks' handles had worked overtime, in Deirdra's imagination. But she knew that time itself ran as normal, it was her own perception of time that was the reason she felt it had gone so quick. Hours had been compressed into a cylinder that felt like five minutes. Just as they were beginning the day's preparations, it had jumped to helping customers decide on their poison, and catapulted to locking up. Now, smelling of cakes, and exhausted, she made her way to the home of Elizabeth and Paul to discuss the enigma that was Rose.

  Thinking ahead this morning she had placed Rose securely in the boot of the car, and with that same organised intellect, she opened it up to check on her. Her fingers began to tremble when Rose was nowhere to be seen. Had she forgotten? Had she never put Rose in the car to begin with? Deirdra was so adamant she had placed Rose in the back of the car ready to take back to Elizabeth and Paul's house after work. Normally she would label this a 'blonde' moment and dismiss it as nothing more than a mistake. But given her son's recent troubles with the doll she began to suspect there was more at work here than a lazy brain. She closed her eyes and opened the file of her memory that exposed the truth of the morning and if in fact she could remember placing the porcelain perpetrator in the boot. The memory flashed bright and blinding, like a beacon of sanity, proving to herself that she was not going insane, and her bag of marbles had not been split by a psychopath and were littering the floor of her brain; she had been right all along. After Declan had left for school, and she had applied makeup to her face, Rose had been released from the dankness of the stair's storage and moved to the dark but cooler and more ventilated car rear. Now not only was her son trapped in an explosion of fear that had broken the foundations of his beliefs, but his mother had now joined this excursion to abhorrence. There was only one chance of rescue and that was to visit the home of Emily and her parents to find out all and any information about this possessed doll that she could. She slammed down the car's boot and raced to the driver's seat intent on putting an end to this nightmare before it escalates into utter chaos.

  ***

  Declan walked home from school still in a trance. Even though he felt at ease since his mother had ridden him of the God of his scares: Rose, he still felt strange, and most of it, he felt, was due to art class. He hadn't even wanted to create Rose, she not only haunted his day to day waking life, but his sub-conscious was stained with the remnant memories of her as well. The day was so lovely, he hated to waste it with such frightening thoughts, so he attempted to think of more pleasant things.

  The sky was a pale blue, and the wind was so delicate it was as if a silk blanket was rubbing his exposed flesh. He tried to focus on this. The sun was perfect enough to be entered into a beauty pageant and compete with all the various forms of weather. It shone with a brightness, not too harsh, just light enough to rid the world of depression when enough of its vitamin D had been absorbed into their skin. His body temperature was also flawless. It was the right balance of warmth, mixed with a cooling sensation to prevent overheating and the production of sweat, which would lead to the sickly sweet stench of perspiration. Yes, this was a sublime day. Even at such a young age he was aware that he would endure very few of them in the grand scheme of things. He was but an ant in a world that was tiny in comparison to the space and continuous outer space that never stopped expanding. This thought often made him experience an existential crisis, that he was so small and insignificant that his day to day actions were ultimately meaningless. He tried not to concentrate on this particular pondering for too long and quickly moved to thoughts of his homework.

  Most children would feel upset at the very concept of having to do work at home, but Declan didn't mind. He felt it would further his education and result in him having a greater life. Whereby he could support his mother. His worst nightmare was to end up like his father, a drunken low life that amounted to nothing. He wasn't just concerned about money though, albeit that was important. He just craved a good quality of life, a family, a partner, a warm and loving home, and a relaxing retirement in the tropics. He was not naïve and knew that if he was to make this a reality he would have to work, and work very hard to say the least. So he began thinking of the pages of homework waiting for him. Math equations that needed to be completed for tomorrow, they were written on the chalkboard of his mind, and the literary exercises were playing out in the playground of his imagination. He felt maths gave him structure and a sense of control, that everything had an answer, and only one. But English literature allowed creativity to flow through him, he had been asked to write a very short story inspired by the word 'journey'. He had already begun planning out the tale, a tale of children in an enchanting land. A magical place that could be entered through an ordinary object, where hope was alive, but evil repeatedly thwarted its attempts. His fictitious instincts were outlining characters as he had outlined the painting in art class.

  He had focused so intensely on these thoughts that his driveway was now only several steps away. He reached the tatty fence, and stared at his basic, but yet inviting home. The fragile gate swung open with an obnoxious creek erupting from its metal springs that were well overdue for a replacement. Each spring bronzed in rust, and the paint crusting and peeling. His pleasant, happy feeling was beginning to dissipate before his very eyes. He began to think of his father, he'd gone to work, which was no doubt an odd building job which took the brains of a baby to complete, but he would be back by now. The longest Declan had ever known him to work was four hours, and the most days in a week worked was two.

  He often had worked up frustration during his days of accomplishing nothing or very little. Which befuddled Declan more than he could even begin to express. How could you pile up such anger during a day that was spent watching TV and drinking beer? Resentment to other people's success Declan could understand, or even a sorrow at his lack of skills or scruples, but the only emotion that surfaced was a fury. He knew he would have to sneak upstairs, briskly, but with the weight and movement of a cat or secret agent spy. No doubt David would weigh Declan with all the blame from his day of disappointments. Some days his father reminded him of Miss Trunchbull from 'Matilda', oafish, an ignoramus, loathsome and without any kindness.

  His entering the house after a hard but enjoyable day at school when bullies did not surface, was faced with the nerve-racking task of entering his own house and managing to make it up to his bedroom unseen and unheard.

  As he clutched the door handle, self-control clutched his body's motor functions and kept them at bay. This was to silence any trembling fingers, or hectic breathing, and remain cool and collected.

  The door gently swayed open with a slow rhythm and easy momentum. The atmosphere changed drastically
from outside to inside, the easy breezy feeling that had swept around Declan outside had stopped its cyclone. Instead, a cold, dread gripped the pit of his stomach and squeezed, bringing the taste of bile to the back of Declan's throat. He nudged the door shut behind him and had learnt a special trick of putting his hand in-between the door and the frame, and as he slowly wiggled out his fingers he would push the door to a close. This worked magnificently in shutting the front door with minimal sound to avoid the resurrection of an angry drunk, in order to retain the current sleepy, docile alcoholic that was sprawled across the old living room sofa.

  Each step up the stairs was done in a fairy-like fashion. He used this agile manner of moving and eventually reached his bedroom door where a feeling of phenomenal urgency threaded through his veins like a caffeine addicted old woman, who bestowed an utmost anticipation to reach safety. Soon enough his door had been opened and the private sanctuary had been entered, with the door locked behind him.

  His father hadn't wanted to put a lock on the door, it had been due to his mother's instructions he had disdainfully screwed in the lock's frame. His mother had said he would need privacy growing up, what she was really thinking was 'he doesn't need you bursting in drunk when he is trying to study or read a book'. Declan tossed his bag on the bed, and as he did so knocked off a pile of clothing his mother had placed on the bed, no doubt freshly washed and ironed attire to wear throughout his school week. He knelt on the floor beside his bed and delicately placed each item back on the bed. He didn't mind ironing, but he would hate for recently straightened clothing to be creased and have to be ironed again. His father had had a lifelong disagreement with the iron, it had to be switched on, filled with water and moved, therefore, David refused to use it. Anything that he had to move or switch on would never feel the grasp of his pathetic, work-allergic hands. During his transferring of clothing from the floor to bed his eyes noticed something under his bed, lurking in the shadows. Rose.