He bent down to reach for his favorite lure, the fluorescent green one with double hooks. But before his hand made it into the tackle-box, the lid slammed shut. His eyes met with a mauve colored cowboy boot then followed every inch of her tanned leg up to the fringes of her tiny blue jean shorts. He paused. “Excuse me, miss.”

She laughed. “David Huskin, fancy seeing you here… Don’t you recognize me?” Her sweet voice took him back.

He stood up, wiped the dirt from his hands and chuckled. “Violet Henry, I can’t forget.” The two sat next to each other at their High School graduation eight years prior. She’d stuck a “kick me” sign to the back of his gown. The entire auditorium laughed when he walked across the stage.

“You ruined one of the most important days of my life.” He raised his eyebrows.

She glanced back at a red corvette parked by his truck. “Let me make it up to you. Wanna go for a ride?” She winked.

He shrugged. “Why not?” He toted his gear up the hill. His calve muscles bulged with each step.

“You’ve changed.” She said.

“We all change.” He replied.

She wrapped her hands around his arm. “Make a muscle.”

“Sure” And with one quick punch to the face, Violet was out cold. He dragged her limp body, hoisted her into the cab of his truck, buckled her in and off to his secluded cabin in the woods they went.

Time passed… .. .. … ..

The chain clanked against the side of the bed. “Im starving, David!” She rubbed her swollen belly. “At least feed the baby!” She cried.

“You should’ve just let me be.” He tossed a bowl of grits at her.

The Weeping Willows and Tall Oaks couldn’t hide McAllister’s school for the blind – A metaphor – His pupils were not lacking in eyesight but empathy. Every year, a hundred young empty children were chosen to join the scholar at his reclusive, brown brick castle with all the windows missing. After a short stay, and many lessons of abuse, the angry students would bind together. They would choose a date to meet at midnight and hurl rock stones through anything breakable on the fortress.

McAllister found this humorous and encouraged the vandalism. He would stand atop the tower and yell obscenities towards the mob, laughing at their beginning step to freedom, releasing the first of many feelings that would sweep through their careless hearts.

When the crowd began to disburse, McAllister, an award winning slinger would hit an unsuspecting youngster square in the forehead with a large rock, killing them. The group would come together a second time to mourn one of their own, passing McAllister’s test by expressing sorrow. McAllister would swear he didn’t know what occurred to cause the child’s ill fate and would be allowed to continue his teachings. Some secrets must be kept by all who know them.

At the ripe old age of one hundred and eight, before his annual sacrifice, McAllister fell to his death. All one hundred in attendance gnawed away at his wrinkled and tough skin, a meal, McAllister, himself had once enjoyed. Though he tried, it would take more than one man to end the cannibalistic desires of those without feeling.

My love, 

Let me take you to a place amongst the silver skies. Where the reflections dancing off the quiet waters invite you into the depths of the unknown. I will be your guide and protect you from all evil. I have chosen this location specifically for you.

Undoubtedly, the potential for your heart to drown leaves you without concern. You believe that I will resuscitate your being, bring you back to the spectacular home in which we created in our minds…. well….my mind. 

Together at last, if only forever. 

If only forever were an eternity. The future is what I allow it to be, the memories I take with me from your last breath, the thought and feeling of the way you move in and out, gasping for air.

I will hold you underneath the still water until you are gone.

As one, we are unknown, unseen by the world around us, similar to when we journeyed alone.

My attention is seldomly called away from your beauty, though I must admit, I am drawn to the red lanterns, their glow, a heat attacking my soul. I can only dream of prosperity; however, I consider myself a wealthy man having my hands wrapped around your delicate neck. 

I cannot heal you nor do I desire to do so. Your elegance is far too much of a blessing for this world, with or without me by your side. 

Three folds and a lock of your hair, I will seal my envelope with a kiss and add it to the collection of words I have created for the many who have gone on before you. 

You, by far, have been the apple of my eye. 

Forever yours, 

Solitude

The group crunched through the unruly vegetation, some of which climbed the walls of the Mill Street psychiatric hospital. It closed in the eighties because of asbestos. 

“Have you heard the story of Lobotomy Larry?” Kenny asked.

“Shut up, Kenny!” Lacy playfully smacked him. 

“Yeah, shut up Kenny!” The others chimed in. 

The entrance to the asylum was slightly open. Kenny wedged his hands in between the door and its facing, with a swift tug, it opened, knocking Kenny down.

“That’s what you get!” Devon pulled Kenny up. 

“It goes like this…. Lobotomy Larry forgot all he was taught. He slashed through the halls, survivors, naught.” Kenny chanted as they headed inside.

The door slammed behind them. They scrambled to find their flashlights.

“His soul dwells within this place. His mind lost, gone, without a trace.” Kenny continued.

A noise came from one of the patient rooms. Everyone turned to run. 

“Wait!” A voice called out.

“Lacy, marry me?” Chris, on one knee, presented the girl with a small velvet box containing a beautiful solitaire diamond ring.

“I should’ve known this was a set-up. We’re not ghost hunters!” Lacy cried through her laughter. She wrapped her arms around Chris’s neck. “Yes! I’ll marry you!” Chris shook as he placed the ring on her finger.  

“Finish the story, Kenny.” Chris laughed. 

“I did, Chris!” Kenny spoke through clenched teeth, his belligerence, obvious. “You thought I was going to let you marry my girl?” Kenny pulled his gun.

Devon wrestled him down. Grabbing a metal rod from the floor, he forced it through Kenny’s eye, disconnecting his frontal lobe nerves from the rest of his brain. “She was your girl in Kindergarten-Kindergarten Kenny!”

“Shappa, come back.” Hotah followed quickly behind his girlfriend as she took tiny steps across the ground, dragging her feet because her deerskin dress was too tight for larger movements. Shappa was discouraged. She had worn the same dress at last year’s Native Dakota Festival, it fit perfectly then. 

She stopped on the stone bridge created many moons ago by their people. Turning to face Hotah, she tugged at her skirt for leeway, then lifted her shoe. “Look at this, Hotah! My moccasins are destroyed! Thanks!” She fumed.

Hotah, confused by Shappa’s anger, removed his war bonnet, a feather floated to the ground, landing next to Shappa’s foot. The couple had spent the morning performing traditional Dakota war dances for those attending this year’s jamboree. “I believe you’re taking this dance seriously.” He laughed, reaching for her hand.

She wiggled away from him, then loosened her costume so she could sit restfully on a surface rock.

“No.” Hotah encouraged her to stand.

He bent down pretending to retrieve the feather he lost. Balancing himself on one knee, he looked lovingly at the woman he had dreamt of marrying since he was a boy. “Marry me, Shappa.” He said, placing a diamond ring upon her finger.  

Shappa began to cry, paint washed down her face, staining her beloved dress. “I will marry you! Yes!” She spoke through her emotions. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve ruined my dress and shoes.”

Hotah laughed. “I don’t believe that will be all I ruin.” He placed his hand gently on her stomach. “I intend to spoil our little Wakanjeja.” He smiled. 

“How’d you know?” She asked. 

“The pale faced shaman charging twenty dollars for psychic readings told me.” He pulled Shappa close. “I’m joking. I know you better than I know myself. Tecinhinda, Shappa.”

 

“Oh Sally! Lovely setup!” Brenda and Scarlett were Sally’s best friends. They entered Sally’s home to attend her daughter’s seventh birthday party.

The entry way was draped in blue to mimic the ocean’s vibrance.

“Follow me, ladies.” Sally led them towards the dining room. “Mermaids this way.” She quoted the sign on the wall. 

“You’ve always had the cutest ideas for these celebrations.” Brenda leaned towards Scarlett and whispered. “Crazy.” 

Scarlett tapped Brenda’s hand, quietly asking her to stop with the mockery. 

Pink ballons hung from the light fixture above the kitchen table. The cake, iced in turquoise, sat centered on a mermaid tablecloth. The candle shaped like a number seven was already lit. There were four place settings, each with a triangular party hat. Scarlett placed hers upon her head and then screeched as the rubber band string snapped underneath her chin. That’s when she realized she and Brenda had been encouraging Sally’s nonsense far too long.

“Honey, we must talk.” Scarlett wrapped her arms around Sally’s neck, hugged her tightly and then stepped back to make eye contact with her. “We do this because we love you but, sweetie, little Katie passed away four years ago, throwing these birthday parties cannot be healthy for you. You’ve got to move on.” 

Sally, speechless, shook her head. “No, it’s different this year.” 

The home’s foundation began to shake, the light’s dimmed and a horrid smell swam through the air, violating the ladies’ noses. The candle’s flame flickered once more before extinguishing. 

“Mommy.” Katie’s raspy voice echoed throughout the room. “Don’t I get my wish?” A dirt covered child with eyes of fire stood crying out.

“I prayed you’d come back.” Sally embraced the child.

Katie’s rotten teeth were exposed as deep laughter exited her body. She was no longer Katie.

Monroe and the kids …

“Oh look!” Timothy tried to catch a tiny blueish-gray lizard sliding quickly across a tree stump. It disappeared through a mirror that eight-year-old Regina was using to apply the red lipstick she had stolen from her sister. She smacked Timothy’s hand when the mirror fell and shattered. A piece of dry scaly skin broke causing him to bleed. “You need lotion!” Regina hissed.

 ————————————————

Monroe, naked in front of her mirror, removed a glass shard from her foot then tossed it into an empty box. She’d hadn’t been gone long but missed the damp, humid safety of home. 

The door shook. She threw on her robe.

“Let me in, Monroe!” Clint pleaded.

She raised the door.

“The cops questioned me; said you were missing.” Angrily, he paced. 

“Not my fault! You solicited me, begging me to lay your eggs. How was I supposed to know the owner of this joint would say I’d been abducted?” Monroe paused. “We have one slight problem.”  Her nostrils flared.

“What?” Clint asked.

“So…….” She plopped a piece of gum in her mouth. “Lizard breath.” She laughed. “It’s unsafe for me to lay eggs here. I teleport to another location, drop those babies off and retrieve them later….” She raised her finger. “However, my teleportation device has shattered.”

Clint punched the wall. “I can’t believe I allowed myself to get involved with a half-human, half-lizard who spends thousands on the latest trends and lives in a storage unit because the climate’s more fitting.”

“Lucky for you……” She bobbed her head. “I’ve laid for some dead-beats. My other children will realize I can’t visit without a mirror. They’ll replace it and then I’ll bring your kids home.” She sighed. “It’s a shame what you full-blooded humans will do in order to have something no one else does.”

Monroe was a tall, slender blonde. Her taste for high-end fashion caused her many woes. 

Every opportunity she got, she danced around in her Louis Vuitton heels at the local nightclub. Her chance meeting with Clint, a short stocky construction company owner, might’ve been fate.

She pressed up against him on the dance floor, laid her head on his shoulder, and as the two swayed back and forth, Clint noticed her lizard-like tongue from the corner of his eye. She playfully licked beneath his jaw line, up and down his neck. Chills shot through his body. She twirled around, stopped and took him by the hand. “Come with me.” 

He tugged at his belt buckle, strutting behind her, they left. 

“You live here?” He asked. 

“So!” She skipped backwards looking in his direction. “Stay a few feet behind me.”

“It’s a storage unit.” He said.

“It’s free. My friend works here.” Stopping at one of the larger units, she bent down, unhooked the latch and sent the door rattling upwards. Once inside, she flipped the switch on a battery powered light, revealing the apartment like setup. 

“Amazing.” Clint wrapped his arms around her hips. The two locked lips, falling backwards onto her air mattress. And… it wasn’t long before Clint was on his way out the door. “Call me.” Placing his thumb to his ear, his pinky finger closer to his lips.

Monroe shrugged. “No phone.”

********

He slumped down in the chair, his hands cuffed behind him. “Take these off!” He pleaded. 

“You don’t get the luxury of comfort!” The detective placed his hands on the table, his coffee fueled breath caused a quick closure of Clint’s eyelids. “We have a missing girl and surveillance video of you following her!”

I try so hard to minimize the problems, the wrong people do. I watch from a distance and pretend these things aren’t happening, to keep myself safe. My safety is priority one because if I’m not safe then no one is. I’m not sure how many people understand that.

I don’t need what they have, I just want it. What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander. Isn’t that what they say? All men are created equally. Yeah, sure, but what about women? Oh, no, wait…. A woman shall only be as good as the men around her. What if she doesn’t recognize the men around her? Are they actually there?

Ready, set, go. “Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.” Saying this out loud is how I go to sleep at night. “Shhhhh.” I quiet my need to rest. I need to think about it. Maybe it did happen, the facts line up. I woke up at seven o’clock, drove to work, went to lunch at two o’clock. I passed the car on the street. I’m sure that was the car. I made a u-turn, and followed it. He turned into the state park, I trailed behind. We drove all the way to the lake. We parked, I got out of my vehicle. Maybe I killed him, maybe I killed her. All I really wanted was to be his.

Wait… his side of the bed is empty. Are these my sheets? Is this my room? I’m not in any of these pictures, not even the wedding photo. That’s not me.

My reflection in the mirror, it looks kind of like the woman in the white gown with the bouquet.

My mind, I’m lost in it. He’s not here to tell me if the worms are back inside my brain. Maybe there’s a way for me to look.

Marvelous floored the gas on his pickup, stopping on the brink of the ridge. The reason they called him Marvelous, he’d somehow manage to nearly get you killed, then miraculously find a way to prevent your untimely death. Easily enough, the solution on this occasion was the brakes. “Marvelous.” he said, his burly laugh mismatched with his age.

“The best spot in town to watch New Years Eve fireworks.” he said.

Jill was tall and skinny, her physique allowed her to join Marvelous on his awkward excursions. “We won’t be able to see the show from here.” she ran towards the edge, slipped and fell over.

Halfway down, an arm covered in camouflage, reached out and grabbed her. “You can.” the foulest breath she’d ever smelled was a brutal attack upon her nostrils. The man pulled her onto a soil ledge, half covered by a tree, its roots exposed. He stumbled backwards, taking Jill with him. Reaching into his pocket, he offered her some moonshine.

“No thanks.” she wiped the mud from her clothing.

Marvelous stood safe above, unaware of the situation. “Close call, Jill.” he hollered.

The fireworks lit up the night sky. Jill was amazed at the magnificent shower of colors, even more so at the landscape that revealed itself with each burst of light. She almost forgot about her fall… and her rescuer, until his horrific howl filled the air. He fell to his knees. Thick dark hair flourished from his every pore. Claws replaced his hands.

The monster ripped through the unsuspecting woman’s flesh. Blood dripped down his beard, covering his uniform.

His mouth quivered as he scaled the earth’s wall. He reached the top and pulled himself up on all fours. “Marvelous.” he growled as he pounced upon his feast, keeping on track with his 2025 New Years resolution.