Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories (3 page)

Paul sorely smiled at her and she felt
smitten all over again.

“Of course,” he said after clearing his
throat.

“Thank you.” She placed her feet on either
side of his legs and squatted in front of him, sitting lightly on
his ankles. She bit her lower lip and let him squirm internally
while she gauged the emotions on his face.

A moment later, she stood and returned to
sitting on her bed.

“Thank you for not being mad at me anymore,”
she said.

“You’re welcome,” Paul said; his voice was
barely audible. Then, after clearing his throat again: “Have you
ever noticed strange things about Ms. Umberto?”

Rachel followed his gaze out her window to
the side of the yellow, square house a hundred yards away. “Other
than dating Mr. Nash?’

“Like strange green lights flashing in her
house at two and three o’clock in the morning.” Paul struggled his
way from the beanbag chair.

“Spying on Ms. Umberto when you should be
asleep? That’s pretty creepy, Paul.”

“I think she’s a witch.” Paul went to
Rachel’s window. “She always seems to know when I’ve forgotten to
do the homework for her class, or when I don’t know the answer to a
question.”

“Pfft. All teachers do that. I think it’s
called teacher’s intuition. They do it to keep us on our toes.”

“Maybe so, but even my mom mentioned
something weird. She said Mr. Hallstead was a patient on her psych
ward for a few days during winter break because he thought Ms.
Umberto was a dragon.”

“Your mom actually told you that?”

“No. I overheard her talking on her
phone.”

Rachel shook her head. “Ms. Umberto’s the
coolest teacher I know. How could you possibly think she’s a
witch?”

Paul stepped away from the window. “Because
she moved into a haunted house.”

Rachel stared at the two-story Victorian
house and its large manicured lawn shining bright in the distance.
No one in the neighborhood had referred to the place as haunted
since its restoration five years ago. Before that, the house had
sat abandoned and rundown amidst a tangled growth of trees and
brush. Some of its windows had been smashed out and its front door
missing long before Rachel had been born. And everyone knew the
rumors of murders, ghosts, and creepy sounds and voices at the
property until old Mr. Deveraux from Ridgewood’s Savings and Loans
bought and fixed up the place. Now the house was like all the
others in the perpetual land development of Ridgewood’s west side.
Even a modern one-story, two-car garage sat behind the house,
painted the same yellow and trimmed in white.

“I don’t mean witch in a Wicked Witch of the
West sense,” Paul continued. “It’s just the way she looks at me …
like she sees into my soul. It’s unnerving. I can never relax in
her classes.”

“So now you’re peeking in her windows, spying
on her?”

Paul sat at the edge of Rachel’s bed and
said, “I’m looking for proof. If she
is
a witch, maybe she
can … you know … reverse your curse.”

“There is no cure for what I am.” Rachel
forced herself not to shout. “Except…” She swallowed to keep from
saying the word. “I would love to be normal.” She smiled at Paul
who looked tense again. She couldn’t blame him for being afraid of
her. “Thanks for thinking about me. But I’m stuck being what I am.
My whole family is. As long as there is plenty of deer and cattle
and other animals in the neighborhood, we’ll be okay.”

“I worry about you,” Paul said.

“Well, I think you’re being overly
imaginative about Ms. Umberto,” Rachel said, directing the
conversation away from her and her family. “Call me tomorrow. We
should do something.”

“You want Pizza Hut again?”

“Surprise me.”

Paul stood, looked out Rachel’s window again
and said nothing.

“You should probably go now,” Rachel said
when he continued to stare out her window. “Unless you’re afraid
Ms. Umberto will turn you into toad when you pass by her
house.”

“Very funny.” Paul stumbled through the
doorway and Rachel listened to him leave down the squeaky stairs.
Britt called out a flirty goodbye moments before the front door
opened and closed.

“Paws off, he’s mine,” Rachel yelled out.
Then she turned and looked out her window again. Moments later, she
saw Paul ride his bicycle along the blacktop road past their
teacher’s house. His house sat unseen on the other side.

She was about to turn away when she saw Paul
vanish. His bike rolled several feet before it crashed into the
ditch alongside the road.

Rachel ran downstairs and out the front door,
calling Paul’s name as she hurried to where she had seen him
vanish. A brown toad sat in the road.

“Paul?”

She knelt to get a closer look at the toad
when Ms. Umberto’s front door opened. Rachel looked up as the
teacher stepped onto the porch and called her name.

“Come,” Ms. Umberto said. “I have something
for you … something special. And bring Paul with you.”

#

A
Fantasy Trip

THE LONG TRIP home to Myers Ridge was longer than
Danny Sutton remembered. He sat feeling a bit motion sick in the
backseat of his father’s Taurus, surrounded by brand-new fantasy
novels and superhero comics while his parents, George and Michelle,
stared straightaway at the interstate. Country music—his mother’s
favorite—played low from the radio. Their three-day stay in Chicago
for the Fantasy Writers and Artists Fair was over and he had plenty
of new reading material. However, reading in a moving vehicle
hadn’t set well with his stomach. Now, neither did watching the
countryside pass by at 70 miles an hour.

The day had turned to evening and his stomach
had gone from feeling lousy to feeling downright rotten. He fished
some chewable antacids from his backpack, and then took out his
spiral bound sketch pad and an HB drawing pencil. Drawing was
different than reading. Drawing relaxed his mind and took him deep
into imaginary worlds, which would take his mind off being ill.

He found a blank page and lightly drew some
scribbled circles. He saw a clearer image emerge as the circles
connected and the drawing slowly transformed into … a … giant …
lizard
.
No
.
Keep drawing
.
A Tyrannosaurus
rex
.
No
.
A fire-breathing dragon with long, batlike
wings
.

Yes
.

Chills crept up Danny’s arms.

A black night sky surrounded the dragon. He
imagined it flying in and out of moonlit clouds above Myers Ridge,
swooping down where the woods met the cliffs near the portion that
broke off thousands of years ago during an ice age, making the
cliffs steep and dangerous … or so said Mr. Bailey, his ninth grade
science teacher.

He drew his parents’ house on the other side
of the woods while imagining that he flew with the dragon—a girl
dragon.

He drew another dragon just above the first.
He was the second dragon and he and the girl dragon were boyfriend
and girlfriend. He liked that.

He imagined that he, the boy dragon, followed
the girl dragon through the night sky, racing with her and
frolicking amidst the air currents and clouds. As they flew over
his parents’ house, he saw a pickup truck parked along the road.
The driver stood outside the truck, looking up. He lifted a long
object to his shoulder and face.

The shot from a high-powered rifle broke the
low sound of wind and the lazy flapping of their wings. The girl
dragon twisted, then fell to the earth on her back, landing with a
thud in Danny’s front yard, dead from a well-placed shot between
the protective plating over her heart.

Danny stopped drawing. He tapped the backend
of the pencil against his forehead, contemplating what he had
imagined. Who was the man and why had he killed the girl
dragon?

He looked at the two dragons he had drawn,
still flying together in the night sky. Then his attention focused
on something he hadn’t drawn: the man standing outside the pickup
truck. In his arms, he carried a high-powered rifle with a
scope.

Danny shuddered and slammed shut the pad.

“Well, I’m done,” he announced.

His mother half turned in her seat. “Done
with what, dear?”

“Fantasy, magic, dungeons and dragons … the
whole nine yards.”

“I thought you had a good time?” his mother
asked. A frown scrunched up her nose.

Danny looked at the drawing pad he had
purchased at last year’s fair. Magic Brand Art Supplies lettered
the front. His pencil said the same.

“You’ll feel better when we get something to
eat,” his mother said.

Danny looked up and saw his father exit the
interstate. Soon, they were ordering food at a Wendy’s drive
thru.

Back on the interstate, Danny ate and thought
about his drawing. Surely he had drawn the man with the rifle and
pickup truck. He must have been so wrapped up in his imagination
that he wasn’t aware of what he was drawing.

The triple cheeseburger, large fries, and
huge soft drink actually settled his stomach as well as his nerves.
He thought about drawing more but the evening sun had slipped below
the horizon behind them and home was less than fifty miles
away.

Danny put his head back and dozed. He dreamed
about flying again with the girl dragon. Her name was Tavreth and
she was nine hundred years old, barely a teenager in dragon
years.

In his dream, he made a friend, which left
him feeling good when he awoke.

He recognized Ridge Road and knew that he and
his parents were less than a half-mile from home.

As his father cleared the bend, Danny saw the
rear lights of a pickup truck parked on the road in front of their
home. Mr. Langford stood at the driver’s door, bathed in George
Sutton’s headlights.

Mr. Langford turned and hurried toward their
car as George stopped.

“What’s going on?” Michelle asked as George
rolled down his window.

A sickening feeling of dread came over Danny
as he listened to Mr. Langford tell them a fantastic tale. And as
he looked at the black lump of dead dragon in the front yard, his
aching heart went out to her.

He had to undo this. But how?

He picked up his drawing pad, and then
rummaged in his backpack for his eraser. In the dim light, he read
Magic Brand Art Supplies lettered along one side. He had never used
it before, so he hoped his idea would work. It was, after all, his
plan all along, and he should have checked to see if it worked
before leaving the house.

He opened his pad to the drawing of him as a
dragon flying with Tavreth, and Mr. Langford ready to shoot. Then
he busily erased the old man, his rifle, and the pickup truck.

Outside, each one vanished. He erased Tavreth
and she vanished from the front yard.

His mother was quick to turn on him.

He pulled from her grasp.

“It’s better this way,” George said, pulling
her away from the boy.

“We’ll start over afresh,” Danny promised as
he found the first drawing he had drawn the day after his real
parents bought him the pad and pencil.

But as he erased his pretend parents, the
ones who liked taking him places, and their pretend car, he knew
that this was the end. Then, alone on the road, he erased the
locked cell in the basement where his real parents were.

Picking up his backpack, he headed up the
driveway and toward the front door. He paused only once, trying to
figure a way to turn himself into a dragon. But he cast away the
idea. His fantasy life had gone too far. It was time to face
reality.

He took a deep breath, opened the front door,
and entered.

#

Night of the Hell Hounds

Here is the Ridgewood short story “Night of the
Hell Hounds” published January 2013 at Amazon and Barnes &
Noble and no longer available to purchase at those websites. This
story became the basis for my upcoming novel,
Margga’s
Curse.

*

IT WAS THE weekend after Halloween, dark and cold on
the night Lenny Stevens parked his Schwinn bicycle next to the
garage at Dave Evans’s place on Myers Ridge. Dave had told him he
would be behind his dad’s barn. Lenny found him there, roasting hot
dogs on a stick at a fire that failed to advance any warmth. His
tent was set up behind him, and his twin sister Amy had her own
tent behind her. She sat cross-legged across the fire from Dave,
whispering and giggling with Vree Erickson. Lenny’s heart pattered
while his gaze caressed Vree’s long hair looking golden in the
firelight. Amy saw him, patted her sleeping bag and told him to sit
next to her. He did, sandwiching himself between the two girls and
snuggling under Amy’s blue blanket, which she draped over their
shoulders. He quickly warmed, all the while smelling hot dogs and
wood smoke and perfume that smelled like oranges.

They wore sweatshirts and blue jeans and
jackets to ward off the night’s chill, and Vree had on white furry
mittens that seemed to make her all the more beautiful to Lenny. He
said hello to her and she nodded, smiled, and remained silent while
Amy controlled the conversation about Mr. Baretti—a tenth grade
teacher she didn’t like. When she finished, Lenny opened his mouth
to make small talk with Vree. He never got a word out.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Dave said, seeming to
awaken from the trance the fire had put him in. “Take a look at the
old Myers place and tell me what you see.”

The old, burnt shell of Myers Mansion was to
Lenny’s right and at the bottom of a hill. It languished inside a
thicket of property almost a hundred yards away and barely visible
in the darkness. No moonlight broke the cloud cover then, so he
squinted to see the spooky remnants of the mansion destroyed in
June by an unknown arsonist. The police were still investigating
the fire and Lenny and his friends had their suspicions of the
culprit—he figured it was Craig Coleman and his gang of toadies who
liked to smoke and drink there, even though the place was supposed
to be haunted.