Not a particularly creative day, though the work going into plotting/outlining (oh, and character arcs...) is giving me ideas for the novel I'm editing.
Now, that novel has its roots in a short story I wrote a couple of years back, and this post has its roots in a conversation I'm having with fellow author PJ Sherman over on Twitter. I read a short story of his on his blog today, it's Post Apocalyptic in setting, something I have a particular love of. Go and read it - The Winter Stranger
My short story is simply titled
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Jack
“Jack” Carrie murmured, “Don’t leave the garden, I’ll be back soon”
Jack leaned forward, and sniffed her face, growling softly. A mouth full of impossibly sharp orange teeth snapped, snapped, snapped in Carrie’s face, and Jack skittered around the garden, before coming to rest in the flowerbed next to the front gate, looking outwards, sack-cloth tugging gently in the breeze. Carrie stood frozen for a moment, terrified, before closing the front door. Jack was alive, what had she done?
“No, there’s no Pumpkin out. No Pumpkin, No Knock.” The weight of Authority, hers by 6 months, sat comfortably on Claire’s shoulders. It was, after all, right that she should be in charge, Martin was a boy and boys were no good.
“We only need one more house, and they might have sw…”
Claire knew what was good, what was right. And right now that was whatever she said. “No pumpkin, no knock! And look, the next one’s got a Pumpkin out. We’ll go there.”
“But that’s Carrie’s house, Dad says they’s ‘Creepy fuckers’”. Yeah, and Carrie’s worse than creepy, no friends and people get hurt when they’re mean to her went through Martin’s mind, with a shudder for company.
“Oh, you are sooo dead when Mum hears what you just …”
Martin bristled, “Well maybe I’m gonna say it again, this time with your name at the end of …”
They were there, at the gate to Carrie’s house. Halfway up the path, looming out of the shrubs, was the meanest Jack o’Lantern they’d ever seen.
Evil blade shaped eyes, orange searchlights streaming out, seemed to follow them up the path, and that mouth… “Man, how’d they get so many teeth in there, that’s gotta be more than a shark” Martin murmured in awe, reaching up past the tattered old brown trench-coat Jack was sporting, not quite tall enough to reach.
“Martin! You’ll break it and then there’ll be trouble, let’s just get the sweets and go”, Claire insisted, pulling Martin away from the Jack.
They turned to the house, with pillage in their hearts, and tricks up their sleeves. “I want some chocolate this time” said Martin as Claire reached for the knocker, “Why’ve you got to have all the chocolate, Vampires don’t even eat, they just drink blood. Pirates eat chocolate!”
“Shut up Martin” said Claire softly, one syllable at a time, stuffing a Mars Bar into his bag and taking a Sherbet Dip, and a Swizzler or two.
“Hey! That’s not fair, why you…”
“Psshht fair. You know we always share them out when we get back”
“Yeah right. You should’ve come as a Goblin not a Witch, ‘gobbling’ all the chocolate on the way home, there’s never any to share. I’m gonna tell Mu…”
“Vampire. I’m a Vampire! Give me a broomstick and I’ll show you Witch! Boys! Always SO annoying!”
Carrie was peering out from behind the door, red light streaming past, chasing Vampire and Pirate shadows down the path. “You shouldn’t have come, Jack’s not nice anymore”
Martin knew the rules, “You put a Pumpkin out, that means you’re doing Trick or Treat. So what’s it gonna be?”
“No, he came on his own, the Sun went down and he was just there, but he was over there when he first came”, Carrie pointing to the opposite side of the garden “He moves when you’re not watching”.
“What, like he’s remote controlled or something” Claire asked, looking back at that Orange will-o’-the-wisp hovering in the shadow, coat flapping gently in the breeze, “He can’t do diddly, scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head”
Carrie reached down to a bucket just inside the door, brought up two bags of sweets and held them out “No, it’s not a toy. He was there and then he wasn’t. I, I see him jiggling about out the corner of my eye s’s’sometimes”
“Why you stuttering now?” asked Claire, reaching over for the bags
“J’j’just t’t’take them and g’g’go” Carrie stammered and shoved the door to.
They stood staring at each other for a moment, listening to the muffled sobs coming through the door, “What was that all about?!” said Claire’s face. Martin was somewhat less tactful “Well Dad did say they were Creepy, gimme my bag.”
Dropping their loot into their orange lantern bags, they started to turn back to the gate. Froze, stopped dead. The Jack O’Lantern, the Scarecrow, that Scary-Jack, wasn’t down there anymore.
Jack was here, Jack was right here. Up against the path, next to the door, his coat flapping in the breeze.
It was all wrong, everything slowed down, stretched out, and then their happy little World really jumped its tracks.
Jack loomed, taller, wider. The sky, the trees, the world, all seemed to be getting bigger, darker. Dread washed over them, pushing that Autumn eve full of tricks, treats, and excited laughter six feet under.
Claire reached for Martin’s hand, there was no “Yuck”, no “Gross”, he just squeezed back. “We’ve got to go Martin”, she whispered. He nodded, tears running down his face now, trying to be his Mummy’s “Big brave boy”, trying so hard not to call her name. They turned, and bolted for the gate.
Jack’s withe hand, protruding from the end of his musty old coat sleeve, caught Martin’s bag full of golden, sugary loot, spilling its contents on the ground between them.
The gentle evening breeze picked up, now rushing and twisting through the trees arching over their heads, “nooo sssttaayy” they soughed, “pleasssee sssttaayyy”
Not wanting to hear, longing for home’s warm embrace, “My Vampire, my Pirate, how did we do?”, they ran, desperately reaching for that gate.
The red-eyed Cyclops at the end of the path had beckoned, and now the Lion, the Witch and the Zombie stood knocking on Carrie’s door.
Coat flapping in the breeze, Jack had greeted them at the gate, arms out wide he welcomed them in, grinning manically at the world as they sidled past. For once that evening, they were silent. They could feel something there, something dark, something lurking. Those malevolent, glowing, orange eyes. Was that gore smeared across his maw, as if fresh from his last meal? Was that a hair clip stuck in the corner of Jack’s mouth, its orphaned lock wisping in the wind?
“That, is the freakiest, coolest Halloween pumpkin ever”.
The Zombie looked across at the Lion, Ron was having none of it from Gayle tonight “Whaddaya mean That’s the coolest, just now you said my cost…”, Gayle had knocked at the door. It opened a crack.
Only a crack, more closed than not, nothing would get in. “You shouldn’t have come, go now, run” whispered the silhouette.
“What?” Zombie and Lion shared a glance, “Pumpkins mean Trick or Treat, hand it over”.
The Witch was tugging, frantically, at the Lion’s mane “It’s gone, why’s it gone Gayle?”
The Lion was confused, who to slap first, Zombie or Witch. The Witch won the prize, “What are you…”
All thought of well deserved slaps vanished. Right beside them It was, dousing them with terror.
“I’m s s s sorry” was all the girl could manage, between sobs. Pulling back from the crack, she pushed that door to. The Moths drawn in, the light at the end of the tunnel faded, went black.
“Sslicketty-snakk sslicketty-snakk sslicketty-snakk…”, that sound was almost all around, near, far, above, below, always behind, never in front.
Their world was gone, no twinkle twinkle up above, no clickety-clack of cellophane wrapped treasure filling up the bag, no tricks for the grumps. Now in the midst of some dark, bewitched grove, betwixt skeletons reaching for the burnt-out sky.
There, no more out of the corner, but from the darkness in front, skittered that burnt orange fiend. Orange embers and hideous maw, arms outstretched they were embraced. Maw turned horizon, reefs of flesh-rending spires.
Carrie, with the door ajar, her dark companion adrift in a golden sea, wished her curiosity was as dead as those three.
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