Free Read Friday: Billy Part 2

The journey continues. I'm beginning to get an inkling of an idea of where we're headed here. I believe I know how it will end, but we all know how that usually turns out. Billy is one very special little boy, he just doesn't know it yet. 

Here's a link to part one if you'd like to get caught up. Part One

Billy

Part 2

Did he? He wondered as he watched her door anxiously. At any moment he expected the door to swing open and for Sarah to appear, wearing an oversized tee shirt, her hair a wild tangle as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Go back to bed squirt,” she would mumble as she passed his room on the way to the bathroom.

Tonight, as it had since the day of  her death, her door remained closed, locking away a secret that might explain what had motivated her.

Did he believe?

He didn’t believe in much of anything anymore, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were nothing more than fairy tales designed to keep little children in line. If you didn’t listen to your parents you wouldn’t get that special gift you wanted. You would get something else, something functional you could use throughout the year. Socks, underwear, new pants or shoes. The lumps of coal that had once been doled out to those who refused to listen had been replaced by the necessities.

With these thoughts in his mind he slowly closed his door on that shadowy hallway filled with secrets and crossed back to his bed where he slipped under the covers and fell asleep. A part of him wanted to recapture the wonder he had felt in that small cabin, yet another part was afraid he might fall into that dreamlike place and never escape.

As it was the remainder of the night passed uneventfully and his dreamless sleep was only disturbed in the early hours of the morning by the soft sound of crying coming from beyond his bedroom door. Carefully he crossed to his door and gently eased it open enough for him to peer through the slender crack.

Across the hall his mother stood with her back to him, the door to Sara’s room wide open as she filled the doorway. Her shoulders shook as she wiped at her eyes as that sound of her crying softly came to his ears. His heart broke for her.

He wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right, that Sarah was not really gone, in fact he had tried just that shortly after her death, and his dreams of that secret forest began. His revelation had earned him a trip to Doctor Morgan’s office, where the older women who once cared for Sarah tried to trick him into telling her how he knew everything was okay, and Sarah was safe.

Sarah had warned him they would try to do that and that he had to be real careful about what he revealed. If he told them about the cabin in the forest it would be all over, they would win, and Sarah would have to go away forever. He had done pretty good until he let it slip about the small stream running through the forest and how if one listened real close they could learn all the secrets of life  and death.

That little mistake had caused his dreams about his sister to devolve into the nightmare of fleeing through the forest depths as the others, those shadowy shapes that flowed over and around one another with sinister intent, pursued him. The cabin was still there, but they hadn’t found it yet, and every time he dreamed of them, he made sure to run away from the cabin, to lead them away from his sister.

“Are you all right, Mom?” Billy said as he stepped out of his room and pulled the door shut behind him. His mother spun around, startled by his sudden appearance, and knelt down to wrap him in a desperate embrace.

“Don’t you leave me,” she whispered fiercely in his ear, her breath hot as it tickled his earlobe. With his head resting on her shoulder he had an unrestricted view of Sarah’s bedroom, his gaze drawn to the poster tacked to the wall above the head of her messy bed.

“I promise, I won’t,” he replied dutifully as his gaze took in the sinister intent of the poster. It was of a massive tree at night, awash in the light of a full moon, its spindly branches reaching for the dark sky like devoted worshipers reaching for the heavens above. Around its massive trunk the shadows were dense, filled with slender appendages that whispered over and around one another as glowing red eyes gazed unblinking from the other side.

“Do you believe?” his sister’s urgent whisper filtered through his thoughts and he nodded his head.

He did believe.

But what did it mean?

To be continued!

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Alone Revisited

I wasn't too crazy about the opening for Alone so that was the first thing I worked on. I want to show the immediacy of the situation.

Old Opening:


It felt as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders, and in a sense, it was. A thousand feet of the earth stood between him and the sunlight above. Even with his kerchief pressed against his nose and mouth the dust that filled the air around him managed to find a way in, coating his teeth and tongue with a gritty film. He’d made the mistake of opening his eyes as he tried to assess his situation, and a piece of grit had gotten into his right eye. Though it was tiny, it felt like a pebble had become lodged beneath the lid.

Given the circumstances, he did the only thing he could do, withdraw within himself, and wait for the dust to settle. He turned off the light on his hardhat, after all, he didn’t know how long he was going to be down here, sat down and waited with his head resting on his knees.

New Opening

It happened so fast there was no time to react. One moment Pete was moving through the darkness of the mine, the small lantern affixed to his helmet lighting his path with a narrow beam of light. The next he was overwhelmed by a dense cloud of dust as the roof of the mine behind him collapsed without warning. The tons of dropping stone displaced the air so fast he was driven forward by a brief gust of wind, nearly falling to the rocky ground as he struggled to maintain his balance.

Boulders and stones tumbled to the ground behind him as he covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief in an attempt to keep the dust out. It was too late, his teeth and tongue were coated with a coarse film that turned to mud in his mouth. A piece of grit had gotten into one eye, and though it was tiny, it felt like a pebble had become lodged beneath the lid.

Given the circumstances, he did the only thing he could, withdraw within himself, and wait for the dust to settle. He turned off the light on his hardhat, after all, he didn’t know how long he was going to be down here, and sat down with his head resting on his upraised knees. As he was not the superstitious type he felt comfortable in the dark and as he waited his thoughts turned to what had happened.

They’d been getting warnings about a potential cave in for the past two weeks, if the older miners were to be believed. Gustaf was growing restless, they’d say.

Hiram Gustaf had been one of the first miners killed in Tredwell number seven affectionately dubbed The Pit. They believed it was his ghost that had been knocking on the stones as he tried to warn them of the coming danger. 

As this is a story about superstition I need to touch on that issue briefly near the beginning. It's a point  that I will expand on as I explore the conflicts in Pete's upbringing. A college educated man who spent his formative years listening to stories of tommyknockers and ghostly miners on his grandfather's knee. 

What do you think?
 
Did you like the old opening better?

Monday Motivation

You know, it's Monday.

Spent the biggest part of the day working on a stand up desk. Nothing elaborate, but it's functional. Need to get off my butt now that sciatica has become a part of my life.

Free Read Friday: Billy

Welcome to the start of a new short story I call Billy. He's a special little boy, how? I'm not sure yet, as the journey has just begun, but I get the feeling he's going to be very important. Wrote this last night in an hour, and just went through to correct typos this morning. Tuesday I'll be posting the updated opening of Alone, along with notes on what editing was done to bring the story to that point.

Billy

He heard it crashing through the dark woods around him, the sound filled with deadly intent as he turned to flee into the gloomy depths. He didn’t know which way to run as the sound of the beast hunting him came from every direction. He was trapped between the emptiness of nowhere and gloomy depths of a featureless void. He could smell its rancid breath as the slender trucks of the trees on his right slowly parted, razor sharp claws glowing in the faint light of a sliver of moon that was playing hide and seek behind the low clouds skirting along the treetops above him.

He opened his eyes, relief and disappointment battling for dominance as the featureless void of his bedroom ceiling came into view. The moonlight painted the shadows of the branches of the tree beyond his bedroom window on the wall above his bed. His gaze tracked across his room as he struggled to shake off the paralysis that held him in its grip.

It would ease up shortly and he’d be able to get up, until then he was trapped, only able to move his eyes. Like the dream the paralysis had been happening every night since his big sister, Sarah, was laid to rest several weeks earlier. He hadn’t told anyone yet what was happening to him. Not that they would listen. His parents were still wrapped up in the sorrow of his sister’s passing, going through the motions of their daily lives on auto pilot. Getting up, going to work, coming home and going to bed.

They rarely spoke anymore and several times he’d found his mother standing at Sarah’s door just staring at the unmade bed, and the piles of clothes still littered across the floor. Everything had been left just like it was the day she had been rushed to the hospital. As if at any moment she would crash through the front door, slamming it behind her, before charging up the steps, taking them two at a time.

His father used to yell at her all the time about slamming the door, threatening to take it off its hinges, not that that ever made any sense. Why would you leave your front door open like that.

But what did he know, he was only six, and as the paralysis eased he threw back his covers and crossed to the door of his room where he opened it and peered across the hall to his sister’s closed door.

Was she waiting for him in there?

The night continued around him, so full of possibilities, and he was tempted to sneak across to hall a take a quick peek. But he didn’t, just as he hadn’t the night before, or the night before that, or even  before that. Every night he looked across the hall at his sister’s door, wanting to step across and find out, but fear kept him rooted in place.

Just as every night it had been the same dream, repeated over and over again. Always beginning in that small house sitting next to a babbling brook whose soft voice whispered about secret places and unknown things. The forest around the house was filled with shadowy things that slithered over and around on another in an endless dance to gods whose names had been forgotten long before man set foot upon the world. Held at bay by forces they had little understanding of.

Inside a roaring fire filled the small house with the scent of fresh pine and an embracing warmth that wrapped you in a loving manner, that made any worries seem insignificant by comparison. They sat together on a handmade rug before the leaping flames of the fire, side by side as they gazed into the dancing flames.

Every time she turned to regard him for a moment with weary eyes, to ask him a simple question for which there was no simple answer.

“Do you believe?”

To be continued!

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