Trapped Within First Published in 2017
Published by EyeCue Productions
Trapped Within Copyright © 2017 Duncan P. Bradshaw
The EyeCue Logo Copyright © 2016 Duncan P. Bradshaw
Copyright of each story belongs to its listed author.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Cover and Internal Design by EyeCue Productions
ASIN B06XZS8XQW
Introduction – Debbie Bradshaw
That Damn Slit – James Newman
With Blackest Moss – Christine Morgan
ChaGrin – Jonathan Butcher
George – Daryl Duncan
The Lonely Of The Scharnhorst – Ken Preston
All In The Eyes – Mark Cassell
Bad John – Adam Howe
Killing Dog And Tiger – Garrett Cook
Q&A – Duncan P. Bradshaw
Scarab – David Owain Hughes
Ghost Story – Andrew Lennon
My Own Worst Enemy – L. de Clifford
The Mirror And The Chair – Craig Saunders
The Darkling – J.R. Park
Bury All Your Secrets In My Skin – Alice J. Black
Just Eventide – Dan Weatherer
An Eye For An Eye – Dawn Cano
He And She In Heaven And Hell – Andrew Freudenberg
Habeas Corpus – Kitty Kane
Love, Eat, Prey – Ash Hartwell
Jinmenken – Adam Millard
Oil Is Thicker Than Blood – Benedict J. Jones
Rat-A-Tat – Kayleigh Marie Edwards
Paper Thin Roses Of Maybe – Damien Angelica Walters
For Mike.
The choice of the Stroke Association as the charity to benefit from the proceeds of this anthology has huge significance to me. My dad suffered a severe stroke over ten years ago and I’ve witnessed first-hand the devastating effects it can have on someone. He was only 63 at the time, young enough that he would still have been working on the farm he had run for most his life if he hadn’t been fortunate enough to take early retirement a few years beforehand.
I will never forget the day it happened. I was at work when I got the call from my brother to say that my dad had suffered a severe stroke and had been taken to hospital. A colleague took me home as I was in a state of shock, before I then drove to the hospital; the two and a half hour journey a blur, fear took over, as I didn’t know what to expect or what state he would be in.
Seeing him, I was at a loss as to how to react, what to say or do. He was pale, drawn, vacant and whether he even recognised us, his family, was anyone’s guess. The stroke had caused part-paralysis of his right-hand side and impeded all ability to communicate. As upsetting as it was, I can’t begin to imagine what my mum was going through, let alone my dad.
Following months in hospital, it was a relief when my dad was finally able to go home to familiar, albeit adapted, surroundings. My mum helped my dad to get into a new routine, as they continued his rehabilitation with exercises each morning, followed by the daily ritual of laps around the garden with his little tripod walking stick. For a while my mum was able to take my dad out for occasional trips, but the after-effects of the stroke meant they couldn’t go far or stay out too long.
In the years following the stroke, glimpses of his personality, old habits, likes and dislikes would come through, along with the occasional, bizarre change.
You would often find him on the way back from the downstairs bathroom, stopping to raid the fridge and kitchen cupboards (something he would do before the stroke), sneakily filling his jumper pockets with ham, biscuits or jam tarts. By the time he got back to his chair, he’d often forgot about his stash, leaving the collection of goodies to amalgamate in his pocket, only to be found when the incriminating jumper was put in the wash. If you managed to catch him in the act, he’d give you his ‘I’m not guilty’ smile, his old personality making a fleeting appearance.
With football, interest in his boyhood club Blackpool and subsequently Arsenal waned with Man Utd disappointingly becoming his team of choice. Similarly with TV, Only Fools and Horses and Bond movies would be on constant loop, while the westerns and quiz shows he used to enjoy were no longer of any interest.
As a result of the stroke my dad became a shell of his former self and as Duncan and I didn’t get together until a year after it happened, it meant he never got to meet the down to earth, confident, talkative and funny man my dad once was. The man who, rightly or wrongly, would stubbornly stand his ground on the things he had an opinion on. He also didn’t experience the constant worrying my dad, and consequently my mum, suffered, often due to the stresses of the farm. Sharing this trait with him, it became a common bond that allowed us to relate to each other in the years running up to the stroke.
When growing up, we weren’t especially close and certainly didn’t have the stereotypical close father-daughter relationship you see on TV or movies. But along with my two brothers, we were always made to feel safe, cared for and loved in our own, perhaps less emotional, way. A man of his era, it was also left to my mum to run the household and look after the children, in addition to pitching in with the day to day running of the farm. I deeply regret that it wasn’t until my twenties, after my parents had retired, that we were able to grow closer. Then the stroke happened and stole that away.
In recent years, my dad’s health has deteriorated even further. A few years ago he had another spell in hospital, following a suspected, but never confirmed, further stroke or set of mini-strokes. At one point we feared he may never come home, which made me worry about my mum and how she would cope without having my dad to focus on.
Luckily, he was able to recover enough to come home, though since that point he has been bed ridden, no longer able to get from the bed to his chair or to walk from room to room. He suffers even more from tiredness; just watching a sports match or having the family round to visit takes it out of him. Coupled with an array of other symptoms, it all takes its toll on my dad and consequently, my mum.
When visiting my parents, it makes me smile to see how pleased my dad is to see us, even if I’m not 100% certain he recognises us. On the flipside, it’s heart breaking not to be able to talk with him, even over something as simple as the football or what’s on TV. It’s impossible to know how much he understands of what you are saying and seeing him struggle to get a sentence out is incredibly upsetting. He will often get part way through, before getting completely stuck, his mind getting confused or going blank. You can visibly see the frustration and upset it causes.
Ultimately, I resent the way the stroke took away my dad and the essence of who he was. The way it stripped him of the ability to do things so many of us take for granted, whether it be to go places, join in a conversation or see his grandchildren grow up. The way it stole from my mum and dad the time they had earned to spend together, having worked so hard to enjoy their retirement. The way it meant my dad couldn’t be at mine and Duncan’s wedding, leaving a gaping hole in what was otherwise an amazing day.
From my experience a stroke is cruel. It leads to a complete loss of independence, as it cuts off control of your own body. It stops you being able to do what you want, speak to those you love, and spend time with those closest to you. It strips a person of their humanity, as they are left to just sit there, unable to join in conversations, or to share a joke.
It does all of this, and so much more. Slowly stealing everything that someone once was, and replacing it with a void. I cannot imagine looking out at a world that must have a semblance of familiarity, but feels so utterly alien. Struggling to do the most basic of tasks, with a body that is no longer your own. This is the cruellest thing that a stroke inflicts upon a person. You are a captive, forever looking out, forever trapped within.
I was twelve years old when I first seen it, in the summer of ‘67.
That was the day Granpappy went missin’ for the last time… the day the thing in the woods took him, and left nothin’ behind but his shoe.
He did that a lot, wandered off when we wasn’t watchin’ him close enough. One minute he’d be sittin’ in the livin’ room, mumblin’ to himself while he watched The Andy Griffith Show on our battered old Zenith. The next minute, you turned your back and he was gone. Like he just vanished into thin air.
Granpappy had come to live with us the previous winter. He used to have his own place across town, but he’d slipped on some ice, hit his head, and he hadn’t been the same since. At least once a week he forgot where he was, or who we were. He was nothin’ but a nuisance to Daddy. I heard my folks arguing about that a lot, especially when Daddy got to drinkin’. Mama said the old man probably didn’t have too many years left, so it’d be wrong to throw him in some rest home and just pretend he never existed. That was the only thing Mama never would budge on. Usually, Daddy got his way about everything, ‘cause it never took too long for him to use his fists to settle whatever they were fightin’ about.
On the day in question, Daddy had just come home from work to find the front door wide open. No sign of Granpappy. Me and my sister Shelly was playin’ outside in the backyard, and we heard Daddy yellin’ at Mama all the way out there. That’s the way most of our evenin’s started when we was kids. With a whole lot of yellin’.
As always, it was me and Shelly who were given the task of findin’ Granpappy. I guess it never occurred to our parents that we was just a couple of kids, and if we did find Granpappy and he didn’t wanna come it wasn’t like we could force him to follow us back to the house. There wasn’t any guarantee that he’d even know who the hell he was talking to. But he came. He always did. Like a scolded puppy, he’d follow us back home, and he’d sit on his bed with tears in his eyes while Daddy hollered at him, “For Chrissake, Pop, what if we never found you? You’d be dead, and since I’m supposed to be the one takin’ care of you I’d probably go to jail. You think I wanna go to jail ‘cause of you?”
Granpappy’s lip would quiver, and judgin’ by the look on his face he woulda liked that just fine. He didn’t know much, but he had to sense that nobody really wanted him around. I guess that’s what made him walk off in the first place. Not his feeble old brain. But a brain that knew he’d be better off someplace else, where he wasn’t a nuisance to anyone.
“These damn skeeters are eatin’ me alive, Jesse,” Shelly said as we made our way through the woods in search of our grandfather. My sister was twelve years old, same as me, but when we was alone she cussed worse than most grown-ups I knew.
“Why don’t they suck on you for a while?” she said. “For some reason they never bother you. Your blood must taste like shit.”
“We’re twins,” I reminded her. “We’ve got the same blood runnin’ through our veins.”
“I don’t think it works that way. Why do you reckon God invented skeeters? The sons-a-bitches don’t serve no useful purpose.”
“Shelly, I wish you wouldn’t cuss all the time,” I said. “It makes you sound like poor white trash.”
“We are poor white trash, little brother.”
Despite the fact that we was twins, she always got a kick out of remindin’ me that she was born a few seconds before me.
She slapped at another skeeter, leaving a chunky red smear on her arm that looked like a half-chewed cherry. “Oh, well… guess I learned from the best, didn’t I?”
“He ain’t much of a role model, you ask me.”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You got that right. He ain’t much of anything.”
I watched my sister walk on ahead of me, her pretty brown hair swishin’ back and forth, and I tried my best not to hate our father. His drinkin’ wasn’t the worst of it, nor the way he hit Mama when she did something he didn’t like. There was things about Shelly’s relationship with Daddy that bothered me somethin’ awful, things I couldn’t explain at that age. I just knew they didn’t feel right. Daddy seemed to love Shelly a little too much. One time, a few months before all of this happened, I seen him sneakin’ out of her room one night. He didn’t know I seen him, but I did. He was adjustin’ his pajama bottoms, and when a snatch of moonlight struck his face I could tell he was all sweaty.
I never asked Shelly about it.
We trudged on through the woods. Twigs and dead leaves crunched beneath our feet. Overhead, through the canopy of trees, we could see that the sky was the color of ripe peaches. Soon it would be dark.
We wasn’t far from home. A quarter of a mile at the most. But the woods around our house were thick. It was like we was walkin’ through another world, one covered with nothing but thick forest. This had always been our favorite place to play, as far back as I could remember, but at times like these, when it was gettin’ dark and it had been left up to us to find our lost grandfather, the woods could be more than a little scary.
Shelly said, “One of these days I’m afraid to death he’s gonna wander off, fall and break his neck or bust his head open on a rock. Maybe a mountain lion will get him, eat him up before anybody has a chance to save him. I think about that every time we have to come find him, Jesse. Like this time’s gonna be it.”
“Maybe Daddy’s right,” I said. “Maybe we should put him in a home somewhere. For his own good. Where people could look after him, make sure he don’t hurt himself.”
“Don’t talk like that, little brother! Don’t you dare talk like that. He needs us.”
“I don’t mean nothin’ by it. I’m just sayin’… ”
“Who’s soundin’ like Daddy now?”
I didn’t get a chance to retort. ‘Cause that’s when we found it, in a small clearing smack-dab in the middle of the woods.
I was lookin’ down at my feet, makin’ sure I didn’t trip over a root as we hurried along, so Shelly saw it first.
“What the hell… is that?”
The first thing we’d noticed was one of Granpappy’s shoes, lyin’ there on the forest floor. We knew it was his ‘cause we had bought those shoes for him last Christmas. I had used my own money, money I earned for helpin’ Mr. Henderson down the road split firewood.
But it wasn’t Granpappy’s shoe that made me and Shelly stand there with our mouths hangin’ open like a couple of starvin’ catfish.
It was the thing a few feet away from that single brown loafer.
The thing in the rock.
Instantly we both knew—without a doubt—that it had gobbled up Granpappy.
It was a thin, vertical slit, about six feet tall, on the underside of a rocky hillock. It looked like a tumor on the back of Mother Nature, I remember thinkin’. There was some moss growin’ on either side of it. It looked wet. At first, I thought it was the muddy openin’ to a cave, but the longer I looked at it I knew that wasn’t quite right.
I was pretty sure I felt a strange warmth radiatin’ from it as me and Shelly stood there starin’ at it.
I stepped toward it.
“Jesse, don’t—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s… not hungry anymore.”
I don’t know how
I knew that. But I did.
Just like I knew that it had eaten Granpappy.
His shoe lay on the forest floor just a few feet away from the slit.
I picked it up, threw it.
The slit sucked it up with a sound like somebody steppin’ into a fresh pile of dog crap.
And that was the last of Granpappy.
They never found any trace of him. Not that they tried too hard.
Even at the age of twelve, I knew somethin’ wasn’t right about the whole thing. I didn’t know about stuff like waitin’ periods and bodies bein’ pronounced dead when there wasn’t a body to pronounce, but I was smart enough to know there was somethin’ suspicious about the way it all went down.
And I knew it was ‘cause of the sheriff.
Daddy had been friends with him since they was little boys. I might’ve even heard Daddy say at some point that they was distantly related. In any event, I knew he didn’t help Daddy out of the goodness of his heart. The kind of men Daddy hung out with didn’t have no goodness, you could tell just by lookin’ at ‘em.
Any fool could see why the sheriff had Granpappy pronounced dead within a matter of just three or four weeks after he went missing.
Our parents were cleanin’ up Granpappy’s house, preparin’ to put it on the market, when Daddy found an old lockbox under Granpappy’s bed. It had some money in it. A lot of money. More money than anybody in my family had ever seen before. I guess Granpappy had been hoardin’ it away for years, and when his mind started goin’ feeble he forgot all about it.
It was like we had won the lottery. For the first time in years I saw Daddy smile. Mama too.
Once he found the money, Daddy didn’t push for a big investigation into Granpappy’s disappearance. The sheriff put together a search party for Granpappy, but that lasted all of about four hours before they called it quits.
Daddy used his newfound wealth to do a bunch of renovations to our home (by that I mean he paid some guys; he didn’t lift a finger, of course). The place actually started lookin’ pretty decent after a month or two. For the first time, we had a roof that didn’t look like it might blow off the house in a heavy downpour. The holes Daddy had punched in the walls through the years were patched up and painted over. We had air-conditioning that kept us cool in the summer like it was supposed to and a furnace that kept us from shiverin’ in the winter.
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