by Shining in the Dark- Celebrating 20 Years of Lilja's Library (retail) (epub)
While the woman on the radio droned on about a snow warning for the entire eastern sector of the state, storm winds rumbled outside, buffeting the truck. Elliott’s breath escaped in visible puffs and, despite the lack of heat in the truck, he wiped beads of moisture from his face. With the same hand, he snatched a clear pint bottle from the top of the dash and guzzled, tilting it upward long after it ran dry. He tossed the bottle on the seat next to him—where it clinked against two others—and reached for the door handle.
The wind grabbed him, lashing at his exposed face, and immediately the sweat on his cheeks frosted over. He quickly pulled the flashlight from his pocket and straightened his jacket collar, shielding his neck. The night sky was starless, enveloping the cemetery like a huge, black circus tent. His bare hands shook uncontrollably, the flashlight beam fluttering over the hard ground. Somewhere, almost muffled by the whine of the wind, he heard a distant clanking—a dull sound echoing across the grounds. He hesitated, tried to recognize the source, but failed.
Snow coming soon, he thought, gazing upward.
He touched a hand to the lopsided weight in his coat pocket and slowly climbed the cracked steps leading to the monument gate. During visiting hours, the gate marked the cemetery’s main entrance and was always guarded by a groundskeeper, a short, roundish fellow with a bright red beard. But, at one in the morning, the grounds were long closed and abandoned.
Elliott’s legs ached with every step. The liquor in his system was no match for the strength of the storm. His eyes and ears stung from the frigid blasts of wind. He longed to rest, but the contents of the note in his pocket pushed him onward. As he reached the last step, he was greeted by a rusty, fist-sized padlock banging loudly against the twin gates. It sounded like a bell tolling, warning the countryside of some unseen danger.
He rested for a moment, supporting himself against the gate, grimacing from the sudden shock of cold steel. He rubbed his hands together, then walked toward a narrow opening, partly concealed by a clump of scrubby thorn bushes, where the fence nearly connected with the gate’s left corner. Easing his body through the space, Elliott felt the familiar tingle of excitement return. He had been here many times before … many times.
But tonight was different.
Creeping among the faded white headstones, Elliott noticed for the first time that their placement looked rather peculiar, as if they’d been dropped from the sky in some predetermined pattern. From above, he ruminated, the grounds must look like an overcrowded housing development.
Glancing at the sky again, thinking: Big snow on the way, and soon. He moved slower now, still confident, but careful not to pass the gravestone.
He had been there before, so many times, but he remembered the first time most vividly—fifteen years ago, during the day.
Everyone had been there. A grim Elliott standing far behind Kassie’s parents, hidden among the mourning crowd. Her father, standing proudly, a strong hand on each son’s shoulder. The mother, clad in customary black, standing next to him, choking back the tears.
Immediately following the service, the crowd had left the cemetery to gather at her parent’s home, but Elliott had stayed. He had waited in the upper oak grove, hidden among the trees. When the workers had finished the burial, he had crept down the hill and sat, talking with his love on the fresh grave. And it had been magical, the first time Kassie really talked to him, shared herself with him. He’d felt her inside him that day and known that it had been right—her death, his killing, a blessing.
High above the cemetery, a rotten tree limb snapped, crashed to the ground below. Elliott’s memory of Kassie’s funeral vanished. He stood motionless, watching the bare trees shake and sway in the wind, dead branches scraping and rattling against each other. A hazy vision of dancing skeletons and demons surfaced in his mind. It’s called the cemetery dance, the demons announced, glistening worms squirming from their rotten, toothless mouths. Come dance with us, Elliott, they invited, waving long, bony fingers. Come. And he wanted to go. He wanted to join them. They sounded so inviting. Come dance the cemetery dance …
He shook the thoughts away—too much liquor; that’s all it was—and walked into a narrow gully, dragging his feet through the thin blanket of fallen leaves. He recognized the familiar row of stone markers ahead and slowed his pace. Finally, he stopped, steadied the bright beam on the largest slab.
The marker was clean and freshly cared for, the frozen grass around it still neatly trimmed. There were two bundles of cut flowers leaning against it. Elliott recognized the fresh bundle he’d left just yesterday, during his lunch break. He crept closer, bending to his knees. Tossing the flashlight aside, he eased next to the white granite stone, touching the deep grooves of the inscription, slowly caressing each letter, stopping
at her name.
“Kassie,” he whispered, the word swept away with the wind. “I found it, love.” He dug deep in his front pocket, pulled out a crumpled scrap of lined white paper. “I couldn’t believe you came to me again after all these years. But I found the note on my pillow where you left it.”
Sudden tears streamed down his face. “I always believed you’d forgive me. I truly did. You know I had to do it … it was the only way. You wouldn’t even look at me back then,” he pleaded. “I tried to make you notice me, but you wouldn’t. So I had to.”
The cemetery came to life around him, breathing for the dead. The wind gained strength, plastering leaves against the tree trunks and the taller headstones. Elliott gripped the paper tightly in his palm, protecting it from the night’s
constant pull.
“I’m coming now, love.” He laughed with nervous relief. “We can be together, forever.” He pulled his hand from his coat pocket and looked skyward. Snow coming, now. Anytime. A sudden gust of wind sent another branch crashing to the ground where it shattered into hundreds of jagged splinters.
Two gravestones away from it, Elliott collapsed hard to the earth, fingers curled around the pistol’s rubber handgrip, locked there now. The single gunshot echoed across the cemetery until the storm swallowed it. Bits of glistening brain tissue sprayed the air, and mixed with the wooden splinters, showering the corpse. His mangled head lolled to the side, spilling more shiny gray matter onto the grassy knoll.
For just one moment, an ivory sliver of moonbeam slipped through the darkness, quickly disappeared. As the crumpled scrap of paper—scrawled in Elliott’s own handwriting—was lifted into the wind’s possession, the towering trees, once again, found their dancing partners. And it began to snow.
DRAWN TO THE FLAME
BY KEVIN QUIGLEY
THE SKULL, PERCHED on the top of a pointed stick and looking down at the boys with age-encrusted sockets, didn’t look like it was human.
“What is that?” Johnny asked Chip, pointing up with fear.
“Probably a gorilla or something,” Chip said, shrugging it off. Johnny felt a little better. Chip knew a lot of stuff—he was ten.
“I don’t know, Chip,” Bobby said, still staring up at the big thing. “There were pictures of gorilla skulls in our science books last year, and that don’t look like the ones I saw.”
Johnny looked over at Chip, who at first looked kind of angry, then smiled a little and explained, “It’s just a skull anyway. It won’t hurt you, right?”
Bobby took his eyes away and looked at Chip. “Yeah, I guess.”
Chip said, “Good, now let’s go. I don’t want to stand in line for hours.”
The boys walked away from the skull, heading toward the entrance. Johnny got a little thrill inside that was half fear, half excitement when he passed under the sign that said SCARY WORLD. This was gonna be great.
* * *
Oh boy, the carnival! Sweet, sugary cotton candy, the aroma floating through the air like a cloud. The sounds of the barkers calling out, “One dolla!” and “Fun, fun, fun!” and “Three tries, win a prize!” Tall, lumbering creatures with fearsome heads you knew were just men on stilts
inside but still they scared you. Hot dogs and hamburgers, roasted peanuts, and fried dough all begging to be bought and eaten. Johnny loved carnivals. All the people—even grownups—coming to be thrilled or scared or made happy. The carnival was a magical place. He couldn’t really say that type of thing to Chip or even Bobby, but he felt it in his heart. A magical place, and he felt magical inside of it.
They had all agreed, though, that the best part of the carnival was always the spook house. In the dark, scared out of your wits, pretending that it was no big deal when you came back into the light. One time, at the county fair in Scattersborough, Johnny and Bobby rode the House of Evil together. By the time the giant Dracula face lit up and seemed to jump at them, Bobby started screaming. When they got out, he tried to tell Johnny he was just doing it to scare him, but no way did Johnny believe that. He told Chip and they teased Bobby about it for months.
Then, the most amazing thing happened. They were all watching TV at Chip’s house when they saw a commercial for something called Scary World. Until then, they’d been horsing around, play wrestling and laughing so hard that it sometimes hurt, but when the commercial came on, they all stopped.
“Do you like to be scared?” a deep, grating voice asked them through the TV. They all looked up. The TV showed a guy dressed up like a werewolf coming toward them. Johnny’s eyes went wide. Yes, definitely, he liked to be scared.
“Then come to Scary World!” Now there was a spooky clown with blood running down his face dancing in slow motion. Johnny’s heart leapt while his stomach clenched in fear.
“Games! Rides! Five new spook houses!” Five, did the voice say? Five spook houses?
“Open every night in October! Come one, come all!” At that moment, they all decided to be three of the ones that just had to go.
“No way in hell,” said Chip’s Mom. Johnny’s Mom and Bobby’s Mom had similar opinions. “You’re too young,” they said. “It’s too scary.”
Leave it to Chip to come up with a plan. The second Saturday in the month, Chip and Johnny told their Moms they were staying over Bobby’s. Bobby told his Mom he was sleeping over at Chip’s. They all met up at the cross-city bus stop near the edge of town, giggling and not believing they actually got away with it.
Now, here they were: in the middle of Scary World, all by themselves. Johnny had never been this happy.
* * *
“Hello, hello, hello boys!” a tall man in a tall hat said to them, bending down and grinning a huge, toothy grin. Johnny and Bobby recoiled a bit, but Chip just laughed.
“Who are you?” Chip asked, smiling.
The man stood up at full height.
* * *
“I am one Etienne LaRue,
master of Scary World, how about you?”
* * *
They all laughed a little, but Johnny felt some fear, too. This guy didn’t seem right.
“I’m Chip,” Chip said, “And this is Bobby and Johnny.”
Mr. LaRue put his hands on hips and grinned even wider. “Chip, Bobby, and Johnny, young lads! Are you ready for all of the scares to be had?”
Chip laughed out loud this time. Johnny smiled too, but he felt a little nervous. Weren’t they never supposed to talk to strangers?
* * *
“Come one, come three, I’ll show you ’round
there’s many thrills here to be found!
If getting spooked is your aim
why don’t you try Drawn to the Flame?”
* * *
“Drawn to the Flame?” Johnny asked. “Is that a game?”
LaRue looked down at Johnny as if he were a bug. He bent down and showed his teeth again, but this time Johnny didn’t think he was smiling.
* * *
“Drawn to the Flame is not a game
for it’s a thrill upon that hill.”
* * *
LaRue pointed, and for a second Johnny could only look at the man’s trembling, outstretched finger. It was huge, longer than it should have been, ending in a yellowed, cracked fingernail. Johnny thought back to the skull near the entrance gate. It really hadn’t been human, had it? If it hadn’t, what about Mr. LaRue? Real fear began to creep into Johnny’s belly, but before he could say or do anything, Chip hit him in the shoulder and Johnny turned.
There it was, on a far hill past all the other attractions. It was a spook house, not brightly lit like all the others, and it looked like it was falling apart.
“That’s a spook house?” Bobby asked, and Johnny could hear the fear in his voice.
* * *
“It’s the spookiest of them all,” LaRue began,
“As you soon shall see!
Its thrills and chills are all first-rate
and guaranteed by me!”
* * *
Johnny was already spooked, though. Looking at the house far away on that hill made him feel more than scared. It made him feel bad all over.
“I don’t…” he began, but then Chip leaned over and
whispered in his ear, “You chicken?”
“No,” Johnny said, and he swallowed, trying to make some of that bad feeling go away. When LaRue began to walk toward Drawn to the Flame, Chip followed him. Reluctantly, Johnny caught up to Chip, Bobby hanging back but still coming.
“Johnny?” Bobby asked suddenly, making Johnny jump up a little. “This is okay, right?”
Johnny looked up past the lights, past the other rides, up onto the hill where the creepy, creaky black house stood. It was the spookiest of them all, all right.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” he said, but when he tried to smile, he couldn’t. He was too afraid.
* * *
“Where are all the lights?” Bobby whispered to Johnny in a trembling voice. Johnny jumped up a little, startled by the sudden noise. The path they were walking on wasn’t lit, and Johnny turned back to look at the lights of Scary World. They seemed far away.
“I don’t know,” Johnny whispered back, feeling almost as scared as Bobby sounded. He was about to say something again when Mr. LaRue interrupted.
“Why are there no lights, you ask?” his voice boomed out over the long expanse of flat, shadowy earth between the park and the hill,
“Can’t see what’s before your eyes?
Why, if lights shone out everywhere
it would ruin the big surprise!”
Johnny nodded, but Mr. LaRue’s rhymes were getting creepy. Especially in the dark, with only the moon shining up above. In this hazy time of night, it was hard to see the tall man’s face.
“Would you guys shut up?” Chip spat, sounding angry. Johnny knew better. Underneath the anger in Chip’s voice, Johnny heard fear, and if Chip was afraid…
“Well, here we are, my fine young boys, tread gently on the stair! Enter the door, step inside, get ready for a scare!”
They were there, at the small set of steps that led to the porch of the house. A giant, rickety door stood slightly ajar at their end of the porch. Painted above the doorway, the words DRAWN TO THE FLAME stood out in yellow contrast to the drab, creepy outer wall. Something squishy and crawly moved around in Johnny’s stomach. All at once, he felt like he was going to puke. LaRue scurried up the stairs, throwing open the door and grinning fiercely.
“Unless you’re scared, then come on in, there’s terror to be had within!” he cackled. Chip clambered up the stairs slowly, hesitating at the open door. He looked back at Johnny with doubt in his eyes.
“Go on,” LaRue said, still grinning but letting it drop a little, “Go on, step through the door. Tell me, boy, what are you waiting for?”
Chip turned away from Johnny, seemed to breathe in deeply, and stepped up and over the doorjamb. He was swallowed in blackness immediately.
Go, now! Johnny’s mind commanded, and he rushed up the steps after his friend, plunging through the door and bumping into Chip before his mind could counter: I meant the other way! Bobby, calling out “Wait, you guys!” followed last, colliding with the other
two, cramped in the small, dark entry way to the house.
“Wait,” Chip said, his voice coming vaguely from the left of Johnny, “Didn’t he want tickets?”
Then, the door slammed behind them, immersing them in darkness. All three cried out, and the haunting, disembodied voice of Mr. LaRue called to them from outside:
“Now you’re trapped, you stupid boys
it’s all worked out as planned!”
Johnny realized for the first time that he very small, very scared, and his parents had no idea where he was.
“You’re young and fresh, and caught like mice
and feeding time is now at hand.”
“What?” gasped Bobby, clutching onto Johnny. “Is this part of the spook house?”
“Shhh!” Chip hissed. Bobby fell silent, and now Johnny could hear something in the high, unseen ceilings of the house. It sounded like … something rustling, like those Oriental hand-fans his Mom liked to use in the summer. A delicate sound, but somehow sinister.
Like the fans: flap, flap, flap, all in darkness.
“Let’s get out of here,” Chip said, his voice cracking. They started walking forward, Johnny feeling his way along the pitch black corridor. His crawly, nervous stomach was now doing somersaults and his brain was screaming out Run! Run! He wanted to answer Bobby. No, this wasn’t part of the spook house. This is for real.
Just then, a light came on in a far corner, accompanied by a heavy slamming sound. Suddenly, they could see where they were standing: a charred wreck of a former hallway with flame-scarred floors and peeling, burnt wallpaper hanging in tatters all around them. The light, coming from the floor, was situated at the end of the hall in a kitty-corner, pointed up at the ceiling.