“And it began occurring in broad daylight as well. I spent an awful lot of time in that upstairs room after Jimmy’s death. Your grandfather and I left it just as it was, filled with the souvenirs of Jimmy’s great adventures. We turned it into a shrine of sorts, and after the congress awarded Jimmy his medal of honor, that went up there too, in a frame where it hung on the wall with the rest of his mementos. I’m not really sure of all the reasons we did those things, but the best one I can come up with is it was a way for us to heal our hearts.
I would hear that motorcycle approaching and I would run upstairs to Jimmy’s room and look out the back window. Sure enough there Jimmy would be, dressed exactly as he had been on that sunny spring day in 1918. And as he would ride by he’d look up and see me standing behind that glass and he would smile that handsome smile of his and lift his gloved hand and wave. I would wave back and feel this awful sadness in my heart.
“Then, one rainy spring day more than five years after Jimmy’s death the strangest thing happened. I heard the motorcycle approaching and I was standing there waiting for him to drive around the path when I felt the gentle touch of a hand on my shoulder. I whirled around in that silent room and there stood Jimmy, big as life.
“‘Let it go, Lulu,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t you think you’ve grieved long enough? Go and be a good wife to your husband and a good mother to your children, and when you think of me, I want you to smile, and if you can manage it, a little laughter would be nice, for the times we had were worth it, don’t you think? If there are tears in that laughter then so be it. Just don’t be sorry anymore, Lulu, for it is joy, not sorrow that sets the dead free.’ He came forward then, and wrapped his big strong arms around me, and I hugged him back, and I swear he was as solid as any mortal man. Tears coursed down my cheeks and Jimmy softly kissed them away. I blinked and the tears were gone and so was Jimmy.
“You know, I didn’t realize until that very moment that in all the time since Jimmy’s death I hadn’t laughed once. And in not doing so Jimmy had become a prisoner of my grief. It wasn’t fair to him, but mostly it wasn’t fair to those who loved me and who depended on me every day. Jimmy was gone from this world and now I had to let him go from my heart. Jimmy Coombs, in his short time on this earth, lived a noble and wonderfully rich life, and he would never be forgotten. What more could one ask for? And the lesson in all of this is, you can’t ever go back, you can’t ever recapture those old times. You’ve just got to take the good memories and hold them dearly in your heart forever and hope you never lose them. If you could go back you might do things differently, and I suppose that’s why you can’t. Some things aren’t meant to be done over.
“After that day I never again saw the ghost of Jimmy Coombs. I guess you could say it was because I didn’t need him in my life anymore, and I suppose you could even say that it was all in my head or maybe in my heart. Although I swear that everything I’ve said is true, there are those who would tell you that memory gets a little fuzzy as the years wear on. Time is like a gentle companion we take with us on our journey through life. And sometimes it plays funny tricks on us. I don’t know. I can only guess about these things. What I do know is this: keeping Jimmy in my heart all those years was a way for me to hang onto the unspoken dream that we shared, a way for me and Jimmy to stay bonded even beyond this wonderful life we’ve all been blessed with.
“And as you children grow up I hope you take this little lesson along with you. There may, indeed, be ghosts in this world. There are so many things about this life that we don’t understand. But the most important things are the relationships and the love we make while everybody is still here, alive, healthy and happy. Cherish those moments, for they are fleeting.”
Later, after the children had been tucked away in their warm beds, Frannie turned to the older woman and said, “Thanks, Ma.”
“Heaven’s sake, what for, dear?”
“For ending that story the way you did. I’m sorry I get so upset with you about your stories. The children are always going to remember you fondly for them. Maybe some day one of them will even write some of them down. I guess maybe I’m just a little bit scared of what lies ahead.”
The older woman hugged Frannie warmly. “We’re all afraid of what lies ahead, Frannie. But not knowing is better, trust me. If we could read the future we’d miss the most wonderful things this life has to offer. That’s why we can’t.”
“Ma, you remember earlier when I had that scare? I said I saw a face in the fire.”
“I was going to ask you about that.”
“Well, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the kids but the face I saw was Dan’s.”
“I think you were right about one thing, Frannie,” the older woman said with a nervous little quaver in her voice. “I believe the storm’s got you spooked.”
“Yeah,” Frannie said. “That’s got to be it.”
The storm began to subside as the night wore on, and neither Luella nor Frannie slept much. Around four in the morning the older woman was startled from a light doze by the sound of a vehicle coming down the drive. Danny, she thought to herself, then she stirred restlessly, turned over and went back to sleep.
In her dream a terrible fear went into her heart. She heard the car go up the ramp and into the barn and then she heard the sound of the barn door being drawn shut on its metal pulleys. It was the sound of a tomb door being slammed shut. She searched frantically in and around the barn for the car and some sign of Danny, but he was lost, like so many other good things in her life had been lost. She awoke with tears coursing down her cheeks, and they were tears of sorrow not joy, but hadn’t they always been? Hadn’t her tears of laughter always been a shameless smokescreen? She remembered telling the children why she didn’t cry, that all the things worth grieving over were gone. How wrong she had been. Her life was filled with good things. Things worth grieving for when they were lost. The trick was to know when to stop grieving and when to get on with the business of living. Life was a constant renewal of goodness if you just opened your heart and let the goodness in.
Luella got dressed and went downstairs to a bright new day. Danny was there, of course, and everything was okay. The storm had passed, and along with it another dark night and another story that might never again be told.
Luella Coombs died quietly in her sleep in the spring of 1972 at the age of eighty-four, and she was laid to rest on a hillside overlooking the river, in amongst the graves of her husband, two of her children and a host of friends, relatives and acquaintances. Jimmy Coombs would have been there too, but his body was never recovered from the Somme. If you could have asked Gram she would have said that he was there in spirit, and that would have been good enough for her.
Although she never made any huge contributions to society, Luella Coombs enriched the lives of the people she touched. And for her and those people this was contribution enough. It would have been enough for any mortal soul. She had been a good wife, a patient and understanding mother, a loyal friend and confidant, and later on in life, an unforgettable grandmother. She was a magic woman, brimming over with stories and wonders. If she had written those countless tales down she would have been famous, but the idea of that, for her, would have been the ultimate in tear-spilling belly-laughs. Fortunately some of those stories haven’t been lost, for as Frannie had so offhandedly suggested on that stormy night in 1956 while Hurricane Camille roared thunderously up the east coast, one of the grandchildren did think to write some of them down, along with some stories of his own, inspired no doubt by the legacy of his grandmother. And some stormy night while the lights are turned down low, and shadows dance in spooky little patterns on the walls and ceilings, if you’re very, very good, he just might tell you another one.
THE END
“Mark Edward Hall writes like a master. Stephen King, yes, but also like Stoker, Poe, and Bradbury, yeah, even Shakespeare. His prose is hypnotic and seductive, visceral, and edgy. He’s the real thing.” —Kia
na Davenport, New York Times Bestselling Author of Cannibal Nights and House of Skin
“Hall has an uncanny knack for blending vivid, almost poetic prose with visceral images of jaw-dropping horror to great effect.” —Bram Stoker Award Winning Editor, Vince Liaguno
“Poetic and eerily seductive, Hall pushes you to the edge, until you get lost in the beautiful madness of his creations.” —Midwest Book Review
“Hall is rapidly climbing the ladder to stake a claim as one of the dark fiction elite.” —Morpheus Tales
Mark Edward Hall is the author of six novels, several novellas and more than fifty short stories. His new novel, Apocalypse Island is available worldwide. He can be contacted through his website at http://www.markedwardhall.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 24
