by Rob Shepherd
Dark Light
Anthology
Book Two
Edited by SJ Davis
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing
Dark Light Anthology Book 2
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Text Copyright © 2013 remains with individual authors for their respective story.
All rights reserved
Published by
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, LLC.
Algonquin, IL 60102
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Edited by:
S.J. Davis
For Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing
Cover Design by:
Rue Volley for Vivid Book Designs
Formatting by:
Jason G. Anderson for Polgarus Studio
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dedicated to Bill and Wendy Davis for unconditional support, kindness, and love.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Scars – Joie Dunham Parent
Nightmares – Char Hardin
The Poe Paradox – Rob Shepherd
The Eyes Of Temptation – Stephanie Wolfe
The White Knight – Andrew Katz
I Believe In Mary Worth – Zoe Adams
Separation – Stefan Ellery
Meaning of Life – R. A. Sears
Last Train – Luke A. Pollard
Family Reunion – Susan Burdorf
Good Father – Collette Burjack
Granted Wishes – Adrian Ludens
The Fabled ‘Movingphotographic’ Device of Sigurður Pétursson – Sergio Palumbo
Just A Little Miss-Understanding – David Perlmutter
Ater Angelus – JT Lewis
In The Shadow – Linna Drehmel
Duck – H. G. Bleackley
Lady of the Boat – Monique Diplock
Door To Door – Lori King
A Pink House After Midnight – Kent Alyn
Misplaced – Diane Arrelle
Angels in Blue-Black Skies – Blaise Torrance
Chiaroscuro – K. R. Jordan
A Full Wolf Moon ~ Retribution – L. R. Ricard
Alone – Joie Dunham Parent
Scars
By Joie Dunham Parent
It is no secret. Physical pain lasts only temporarily…while emotional pain seems to last a lifetime. There are scars from both types of pain. While one is on the outside, the other is hidden on the inside, reopening every so often.
There was a point in my life where I did not think it was possible to feel empty, and also feel so much pain at the same time. The mere definition of empty is void… void of emotion, almost indifference if you will. On the other hand, deep within, there is a hurt buried so far that it almost wells up and consumes you.
Sometimes the darkness doesn’t seem so bad, because the light almost burns. Isolation is a relief. The Scars will fade, but never truly go away. They are there forever. You bring them from one relationship to the next, whether it be with a lover, family, or a friend. The end result of that causes further damage, and yet more scarring.
I wear my scars proudly, as they have made me who I am. They have taught me many things… things about people, about life, and about love.
Feeling empty, and still being able to hurt is not necessarily a bad thing. It proves you are human, and still capable of “feeling”. The older one grows, the more they tend to reflect on the past. The scars they have, and the memories attached to them, become, more vivid.
Through life, we will always collect scars. Both kinds. And just as the visible scars, we will remember… with the emotional ones as well.
Embrace your scars; learn from your journey. Remember each one has its own special story… good or bad.
You can’t have one, without having the other.
Joie Dunham Parent is an actress, model, and writer from Louisiana. One of the most photographed women in Southern Horror, “Scars” and “Alone” are her debut works.
Nightmares
By Char Hardin
I close my eyes and the darkness finds me and the loneliness seeps into my weary mind. Another fruitless search leads to more questions with no answers. If I can just have some peace and get some rest. I crawled beneath the covers and roll over with my back to the wall and face towards the phone…should she call. Just reach out and let me know…she will soon be home.
Banshees wail as sleeping monsters rise through the forest of nightmares and past dreams of hope, I run calling out her name, “Sarah, baby-girl where are you?” The cold tear stained path is muddy and causes me to slip and fall going down to an unforgiving ground. Muddied and bloodied, I push up and come face to face with evil. He reaches down and pulls me up with a look of concern and air of care. I see past his knight in shining armor to the deceitful evil that is hidden behind candied kisses and promises of love and happily ever after. He is the sleeping monster, come to keep me from my daughter.
He pulls from his coat pocket a flask of water and I slap at it in anger. He bends to retrieve it and I lash out only to slip and fall into the arms of a soul eater and home wrecker. The winds begin to howl and the ground shakes with fury, rain pelts the ground and lashes at my clothes, he pulls me closer in his darkened embrace. He tilts up my chin and looks deep into my eyes, there he is met with fear, longing and hurt. He smiles and then opens his mouth…a memory from childhood welled up and became my savior, pulled from something my father told me. With limp hand that fell down between the soul eater and me, I stretched and grabbed his balls and gave a twist as the soul eater roared into the wind. He released me and I ran.
In the distance I could see a light, deeper into the nightmare until I found the source. Tied to a tree with her light fading was my baby girl, whimpering for her “Mama.” My fingers ripped and tore at the vines that sliced through my frantic fingers, with thorns that drew my blood. I could hear the monster getting closer his breath was ragged as he roared and stopped the instant I ripped the last vine and felt my baby fall into my arms. I spun around to face the beast my love giving me the strength to stand my ground.
I heard another sound, like the sound of rushing water, and felt something cold and wet pressed against my face, the nightmare was collapsing as the trees snapped like toothpicks and fell to the ground, the beast roared and gnashed his teeth, surely we were going to die and then I heard a voice and reality came crashing down. The banshees, the soul eater, the rain all started to fade away and the scent of Lysol and bleach assaulted my nose. I blinked and the light was so bright, a few tears slipped out.
“Ms. Hardin, it’s time for your medicine.”
I whimpered, “Where’s Sarah?”
The night nurse frowned and leaned down, so I could see her better and she broke my heart anew, “Ms. Hardin, there is no Sarah.”
Cha
r Hardin hails from Louisiana. Her work has appeared in various e-zines, horror blogs and podcasts, including the first Dark Light Anthology. Char is an Independent Horror Film Reviewer, hosts a radio show “Charred Remains”, and owns an independent bookstore.
The Poe Paradox
By Rob Shepherd
The night is cold and still. You walk across the old wooden floor, through the dark, empty room and up to the lonely wooden desk and chair. Each with just the other as it only company.
You strike a match from the box sat on the corner of the desk and you light the solitary candle lamp, which sits almost centre of the desktop. It breathes a sad dim glow, warming a weak light around the dark area in which you sit.
You reach down into the drawer to your right of the desktop, where you presently sit and pull out some paper and sit it down in the centre of the desk In front of you. Reaching down you pull out a pen and dipping it in the ink well, you begin to scribe shaky words onto it, hands shaking with the cold and a slight but ever so distinct hint of fear and trepidation.
“The night, although already dark and cold, began to lose all and any last, lingering light. The black looming in like a menacing beast, closing in on its unfortunate prey. The black, invisible presence crept ever closer to the door of the old house. The noise of the wind, seeming to follow pace, matching the fearsome air of danger for each step it took, closer and closer. The gravel of the old path, moving away, as if in fear itself from underfoot. Crunch crunch crunch as the sinister sense neared.
The man sat at his desk, began to feel his heart beat rise. ‘Tap, tap, tap’, on the old oak front door. The man’s heart began to race. The beats doubling in fear of terrible expectation of an unknown and visitor. A fearsome and strange guest. ‘Click’, as the door latch moved and a long deep creak as the old door slowly moved open to allow entry to this awfulness that had besieged him tonight, waiting behind it.
The man clutched at his quill as the night air vibrated and quivered to the sound, a deep, almost base-drum beating, of steps across the ancient wooden floorboards downstairs below. ‘Thump, thump, thump’, the sound went and the air rippled in response, as the steps slowly progressed along the and up the old rickety stairs.
Each step groaning with an unknown pressure, as this psychologically crippling menace made its way up the staircase. Each creak, each moan of protest from a floorboard, making the ever present feeling of danger and loathing, feel like an eternity of damnation inside his own head.
You put down your pen. It was almost as though you were there. Almost as though as you wrote the feelings, the sensations, the sounds were being played out to your own ears. Following proceedings of the words upon the page, out into your own world.
You shake your head with distrust for your own mind. Silly notions of a creative mind. You reason to yourself that wasn’t possible, that it was not possible for it to happen.
You lift your pen once more and begin to carry on scribing on to the paper.
“The ever present sentient feeling waits where it has stopped, outside the door to the room where he sat at that very moment. Almost as though it is clenching its hands and twiddling its fingers. Just waiting and biding its time. Building a forward presence, a sense, a tension of epic proportions, before it.
The old man’s hands shudder and tremble as he tries to scribble more words upon his page of fear. Each fraction of a second that passes by increases the feeling of utter dread and foreboding danger.
Suddenly, another deep thud and the footsteps close in on the old rickety door behind him. He knew it was weak and would not be able to withstand any pressure exerted upon it. Any force, no matter how slight, would open it, shattering it’s flimsy structure.
Now, the danger felt all too real and his heart began to pound and palpitate. Each beat creating new palpitations, causing his chest to scream in agony as though it were collapsing in on itself, whilst expanding rapidly as his lungs desperately tried to steal and grab oxygen from the air into his failing body.
‘Crack’ went the door behind him. It never stood a chance. The old man dropped his quill and spun on his chair to meet the ominous trespasser of the night, that had come to take him at will and decide a fate for him, a fate he felt was too terrible to contemplate.
The door swung open with a creak, a musty attic smell blew through with the draft and made the flame on the candle lamp flicker wildly. The old man shuddered and began to cry as a dark shadow crept eerily through the open doorway, each floorboard creaked and groaned under an invisible weight under a silent fear closed in on him…”
Suddenly you hear the creak of the stairs and footsteps, heavy and cumbersome, tread close to your door, the chair, shadowing your fear as you shudder and tremble, the story is all too real from the ink of your pen. Each word is creating the fear that is in you, the same that befell the old man under your own pen.
You can feel the quiver of your hand, rising throughout your entire body, you can hardly keep a hold of it as your heart goes into palpitations and you clasp your chest, the door behind you creaks, gives and then swings open slowly and ominously, signalling the appearance of something dark, cold and otherworldly. Something sinister and evil.
You drop your pen as you spin round on the old chair and face your own fear. The demonic, black shadow you have been writing, has surfaced, out of your mind, away from the page that you have been scribbling on and has met you mono et mono, in the flesh, to deliver your own fate.
The shadow looms in to the room, almost extinguishing your candle lamp on the desk, with its musty draft of dirty air. And at long last you get to see the eyes of your ending. The eyes that you were creating on paper from your own mind and they are more terrifying in front of you, than your brain can comprehend, it is almost too terrible to configure in any of the synapses that are now weakened with tortured, psychological fear. And you scream. You scream loudly, as loudly as your voice allows you to.
You scream your last scream as your heart tries to push it’s way out of your chest.
The eyes. The eyes.
They have you.
Don’t look!
They have you locked in their sights.
Stop looking!
Stop reading!
Because…
The Eyes, Evil and Cold.
Empty and Deadly. They have got a hold of you!
Look away!
Look away NOW!
Look away before…
GOODNIGHT!!
Rob Shepherd is the author of novella “Life With Boris Karloff” and WW2 story “Sofiah” and also wrote the script to the accompanying short film currently showing at screens and film festivals across the UK to great reception. Rob was also published by Poetry.com & made a poet fellow by The International Society of Poets.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sofiah/263044777091247
https://www.facebook.com/LifeWithBorisKarloff
www.stanhopebooks.com
The Eyes of Temptation
By Stephanie Wolfe
They lived in small town. The kind of town with no malls, dirt roads, in the middle of nowhere. An old southern town on the edges of Georgia. They were married. Her name was Elizabeth. His name was John.
It seemed destined in the beginning. They were typical lovebirds. Hands all over each other, passionate nights for months and months. Insatiable hot desire until… it happened. That day it was like a boulder came falling down from the sky crushing her childhood hopes and her dreams of being a big movie star.
Elizabeth had just been cast to play a heroine of a thrilling movie. A Canadian movie studio was going to fly her out to Romania to film her first high budget film. A movie about smuggling Americans, and the tragedy of the underground black market of human sex slaves. Her character escapes. She had just lost the last few pounds on her hourglass figure for her nude torture scenes.
John had gotten so upset when she had to send in naked snapshots of herself to the director. They had gotten into a fight over it
, yet it was all for nothing.
She was standing there in the bathroom holding a urine test from the local dollar store. It revealed two blue lines, and she knew her dreams would never come true. Elizabeth didn’t cry. She never called the studio to explain. She just ignored their calls. She tried her best to not think about the baby, because at the time it felt like another huge mistake of many she had made in her pathetic life.
John told her he loved her but as soon as she gained weight he lost interest in her. He never looked at her in the same loving way. Never touched her with the same romantic intentions as he did before. During the pregnancy she would exercise as much as possible despite the pain. Skip meals no matter how hungry she felt, no matter how weak she got. All to try and keep his interest in her. Nothing worked. He had lost all amorous feelings for Elizabeth and if he cared about the baby he never showed it. She would beg him to touch her growing belly, to “talk” to their baby girl, but he refused to even look at her most days. It was the loneliest time of her life. Every night she cried herself to sleep except nights when John used her for sex, and then he would hold her reluctantly afterwards. The next morning he would go back to ignoring her.
After the baby was born he took to hitting Elizabeth. He started by slamming her into walls, throwing hard things at her head. Sometimes he’d be sober sometimes he’d be drunk. It didn’t matter.
Either way, the John she fell in love with vanished before her eyes, like a cruel magic trick she would pay anything to see undone.
“How does a person change so much in such a short amount of time?” she asked the mirror as she stared into her ghostly reflection. It had only been three years. Their daughter, Ella, was two now, feisty and as special as a snowflake in the desert sun. Elizabeth was another story; she was so sad and starved for romance. Starved for a glimpse of her former self. She remembered she used to be so bright. Her face once glowed with happiness and hope. Her now vacant eyes were filled with stress and regret. Dealing with John’s violence and cruel remarks had made her numb and quiet.