Rock-a-Bye Bully

I stood in the fresh country air, feet on the lower runner of a split rail fence, elbows on the upper. The strong sun beat down from behind the hazy clouds in the cadet blue sky and beaded sweat from under my long, silky bangs. The tall grass tickled in the muggy breeze and bugs buzzed and whined somewhere in it.

In the distance the trees seemed dense. Jungle dense. To a west coast kid, this place was like Africa or South America. It felt like being in the Amazon basin, and I expected night time to be filled with alien sounds of nocturnal animals crying their bloodthirsty wails into the stillness at the moon.

But it’s only Kentucky, and

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Western-Fantasy Vignette #1

A short (less than 2400 words) vignette with a western flair, but a fantasy foundation.

I had a dream several weeks ago, and this was the dream.  There’s another piece of it, too, though it seemed unrelated in how diverse the scenes were.  I’ll get to that one soon, I hope.

Enjoy, and please feel free to let me know what you think.  I appreciate the read!

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He lowered his haunches onto his broken, dust-caked boots.

His fingers touched into the powdery, silver dust in the dirt.  The fine, flour-like granules blew into a tiny cloud and wafted on the air currents along the tops of the more grainy, sandy gravel and grit of the box canyon.

He held it up to his eyes, narrowed them, and rubbed his fingertips over it.

Platinum.

His brows drew lower over his face beneath the brim of his battered hat, and he tugged it lower on his head.  He rubbed his hand over his stubble-crusted chin.

Not far.  Somewhere in the canyon, probably.

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A Jog in the Park

By now, my dad knows I’m missing.

I don’t know where I am.  I’m lying in sand.  I was running, running through a park.  Someone came up behind me — I thought it was another runner — and then a sharp pain, on the back of my head.  Blackness, shot through with stars, then a binding over my wrists.  Something over my mouth next.

Pain.  A lot of pain.

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Do Not Enter, Part 5

The end of the story.  If you’re interested in seeing it from the beginning, you can do so from this page.

Thanks for following along, everyone!

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A hot wash of air rushed up from behind Rose.

It raised the hair on her arms and neck and a shudder wracked her body.  She heard her breath, thready and whimpering, rasp in the tight confines.  She felt the air heat, a layer of gleaming, slick sweat caked her skin.  She turned her head, slow, her eyes searching in the dark for the eerie dances of light.

The door stood black against the bright, hot edge of orange and yellow which danced on the wall, and from the crack between the door and jamb.

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Do Not Enter, Part 4

The kiriban prize for one of my faithful and very kind watchers on my deviantART page continues.

Enjoy, everyone.  I think – think – only one more after this.

If you’re interested you can see the whole thing here.

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Rose shook, her eyes darted across the battered pavement.

Nothing.  Utter solitude.

She heard a rasping breath, and her heart spiked.  She yelped and looked over her shoulder, but only the dark square of the building against the bright midday sky stared down on her.  She panted and realized the rasping breath was hers.

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Do Not Enter, Part 3

Here’s another installment of the “Do Not Enter” story, a kiriban prize for one of the terrific watchers on my deviantART page.

I hope you enjoy it.  If you want to catch the whole thing, you can do so here.

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Rose scrabbled up the stone steps on her hands and knees. She tore her weight forward, ripped skin and broke fingernails to the quick. Her rasping breath dragged gulps of dust, dirt, grime. She felt tiny stones stab the soft flesh of her knees and palms. The top of the dark stairwell seemed so far away and her frantic efforts didn’t seem to close the distance.

She exploded through the opening and pulled herself away from it across the splintery subfloor. Daggers of ancient wood sank deep in her hands. She flipped onto her back and skittered away until she slipped and crashed down on the back of her head in the middle of the room.

A new wave of dust puffed motes drifted and glinted in the white, soft daylight. She heaved and panted, stared.

The hole sat innocent, innocuous. A hole in the floor; nothing more.

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Do Not Enter, Part 2

Continuation of “Do Not Enter”, which you can find en totem here.

Thanks for following along!

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Rose came back into the building, the dusty haze still lingering in the sun streaming through the windows.  She held a tiny, silver flashlight from her car’s glove box in one hand, her purse slung over the other.  She pointed the flashlight at her face and clicked the button.  A strong white beam stabbed her eyes.  She snapped it off, blinked the blue-white spot out of her vision, and moved toward the staircase shaft to the grinding sound of grit on the rough floorboard planks.  The thump of her soles on the age-hardened wood seemed deafening.

She set her purse down next to her, and stared at the staircase shaft.

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Do Not Enter, Part 1

So begins a kiriban prize someone won over on my deviantART page.  She captured my 21,000th page view.  This is her prize.

As usual, I used the winner as the main character.  I’ve been moving this along at a steady pace now all weekend.  I started on Friday night.  At this point it’s about 4,100 words long, broken into three scenes, but it’s not over yet.

Anyway, enjoy, everyone.

You’ll be able to catch the whole thing over here as it progresses, if you’re interested.

God bless,
-JDT-

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Rose set her hands on her hips, jolted her whole body and huffed an exasperated breath.  “So … what do we do?”  Her eyes stared into the dark hole in front of her.

Butch stood beside her and fiddled with his Ray-Bans.  “Um … nothing, Rose.  There’s nothing we can do.  That’s why I called you — if we could do something, I’d do it.”

Rose turned to speak but her mouth hung agape for a moment before she snapped it shut.  Butch shrugged.

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Field Trip

The train station platform thronged with people, all of them jiggling and jostling along under the warm, yellow lights. They gleamed like sunshine from skin, coats, hats, scarves, luggage. The murmur clamored to an unintelligible crescendo as tones, voices and conversations of so many, swirled in an audile wave and washed over the human beach. Hands rose into the bright illumination over the heads, necks craned and faces lifted on tip-toes to find family members, loved ones, friends.

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Misty Hollow

There’s a fog-stuffed path near my house, where all you can see is the ghosts of tree trunks and dense underbrush, the brambles and thorn bushes, the thickets packed with bird nests and slimy things.  The mist swirls like stagnant smoke and the trees make an umbrella over it, shield it from the greedy sun trying to burn it off and expose the path of pine needles and dead leaves and soft, muffling peat.  That path is at the edge of a flat where my great-great granddaddy built the house.  He flattened out and cleared an area where trees weren’t too dense, where the hillside wasn’t too deep and where he’d have a view of the leaves changing in fall time.  Off the front porch and down the rough-hewn half-log steps, down the gravel-coated walk and to the left you go, and there, between the trunks of two mighty trees, older than our country maybe, older than anyone can remember, the path sort of sneaks up and drops down a slope into the mist.

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