Revisiting Covenant

Covenant

The rewrite.

Authors Note: Covenant was born one Sunday morning as I was reading the paper, while mentally searching for the next story idea in my 26 story challenge. I came across a report about a murder and attempted suicide of an older couple in their eighties, that happened on the east side of my small town. Details revealed the wife was suffering from end stage Alzheimer Disease, and her husband was trying to end her suffering. That of course set the gears into motion and the first thought to emerge centered around that certain stubbornest to being married to the same person for more than fifty years. 

A union like this transcended love. 

When you toss in a healthy dose of Alzheimer disease, dementia, and the assorted other demons that tend to rear their ugly little heads, you've got a tragedy in the making. Suddenly the woman, or man, you've spent your entire life with, is no longer there. A stranger has taken their place as you struggle to come to grips with this new reality. If you've witnessed this first hand, and discover later in your own life that you are likely to come down with the disease, what would you do?

What if the woman, or man, you love turns to you as their last resort in such a situation? Would you be able to do as they ask?

Archie faces that very situation, he made a promise to his wife after they buried her mother, a pact, a covenant, to not let her suffer the same fate.

Most of the rewrite consisted, as it usually does, in cleaning up my sentence structure to excise as much of the passive voice as I could. To tighten things up while discarding much of the needless stuff.

Upon completion of the first draft I realized what the story was trying to say and knew I had to set the scene. In the first rewrite I added the following passage.

She watched him from the pillows under her head, her once vibrant red hair now the color of the sheets she lay on, her faced lined with age, eyes that once sparkled with a mischievous light now watched him with guarded mistrust as he moved around the foot of her bed, and crossed to the window.

“You promised,” she said, her eyes darting back and forth as she searched for her words.

He was taken back by the comment, it was so out of place when compared to the way she had been acting lately. “I promised what, Sweetheart?” he said, choosing to ignore for the moment this turn of events. He didn’t want to get his hopes up that her condition was improving. The disappointment would be too much to bear.

Her eyes continued to dart back and forth, in search of words that were not forthcoming, her brow creased with concentration as she tried to capture the elusive tail of her comment. 

As the story is titled Covenant I felt it necessary to make an early reference to the promise Archie made to her the day her mother was buried. 

For me, the restored phone booth in the basement as well as the assorted advertisements, represent a link that connects Archie with the past. It is this link that will provide the conduit into Pat's mind where he will be reminded of his promise. I used the bar as a refuge from the storm that was her disease constantly churning beyond the walls.

In the end he comes to realize what he must do.

On the churning clouds around them flickered the scenes from their past together. Fading in and out of focus as the clouds beneath the images churned. He saw the day they met, he just a clumsy kid too big for his own good. She, as she had always been, quite and demur. Self assured where he was still coming into his own. He saw it all laid out before him, the billowing depths of the clouds serving as a living screen as those moments replayed themselves in brief flashes of light. He saw her walking down the aisle in the little church where they were wed a week before he shipped out to Vietnam. He saw the birth of their boys. Birthdays, anniversaries, and summer vacations stretching out into eternity. As he watched the scenes playing out he came to understand something that at first glance was beyond belief.

 

He looked from the clouds to his wife, and back again as the realization filtered through his thoughts. He was in her mind, experiencing first hand the loss of self she’d so far endured. His heart was broken when he realized the truth of what he had to do. 

And so the story ends with a replay of the opening sequence with one exception. The addition of a pistol on her tray.

Next to the napkins lay his nine millimeter pistol. Dark and sinister, it’s muted color in sharp contrast to the white napkin. The difference between the two was like that between night and day, or life and death.  

You can read the edited story in its entirety at this link: Covenant

Keep in mind that when the story is released I will be truncating the story on my blog, and providing a link to where it can be purchased. I'd really appreciate it if you did buy one or two of my stories, they're only a buck a piece, less than a cup of coffee, and the sale will keep me motivated and turning out more stories. Thanks,

Two new titles, along with an idea for two of my upcoming stories has come to me. 

For the letter G we will visit the boys from my Dreadland Chronicles series, Meat, Window, Einstein, and Billie-Bob will come upon a strange compound in the short story G is for GOD IS DEAD. Don't know everything that's gonna happen yet, but I can see the opening scene is in my mind, so look for the first installment that should be coming Friday April 27, 2018. 

Don't forget the final installment of F is for Funghi, will be posted Friday April 20, 2018.

For the letter H I've come up with the idea of an opening to hell appearing in the Appalachian mountains where I currently live, keep your eyes open for H is for HILLBILLY HELLMOUTH coming soon.

As always if you've been enjoying what you've read why don't you stop by my one of my Author Pages listed below to check out my other work. 

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Free Read Friday: Billy Part V

Read Billy from the start. BILLY

Billy 

Part V

Reaching the hallway much sooner than he wanted, her door stood at the shadowy end. A bleak emptiness illuminated its perimeter as shadowy traces of night flowed through the gap like smoke that hung in the air, twisting and turning over and around one another. The door glowed with a soft white light as it began to swell in the middle, the sound of splintering wood coming to him as he stood rooted in place. It was like it could tell he was standing therem and against his will he was drawn to its bulging surface.

It lay just beyond the door. Drawing him with a sinister voice that spoke to him on a deep primitive level. He knew what waited for him beyond the door, as well as he knew the night, and the terrors it inspired. Shrouded in shadows it moved among the living like an errant thought that brought a brief chill on a warm sunny day. It was the essence of the night, of time immortal, and of a despair that knew no end.

It had claimed Sarah as its own. Driving her to the point of no return, filling her with a deepening sense of hopelessness that offered no light at the end of the tunnel. Driving her to the only option that remained.

Death.

It was as old as time itself, this thing that had laid claim to his sister’s soul, gathering her to it like a farmer reaping its fields. Walking among the living, spreading a boundless despair as it gathered the souls of those too weak to combat its touch.

Ebony traces of emptiness slithered through the shadows toward him, keeping to the dark corners as they sought out the essence of his life.

“Do you believe?” his sister whispered in his thoughts.

Believe in what? He wondered as he moved the length of the hallway, getting closer to her swelling door with every hesitant step. Here those shadowy tendrils of night caressed his legs with black tips that left a chilled touch in their wake. Every touch awakened an old memory that rose from the nighted abyss of his sub conscious, trailing oily bubbles of fear as it breached the light of his awareness, filling him with that overwhelming emptiness of despair.

He loved her, he knew it as well as he knew his own name. Though at times she had been brutally indifferent to his feelings, he still loved her as only a younger brother could love his older sister.

Each memory that rose to the surface of his consciousness contained a snapshot of her disdain for his existence. He saw her as she flipped her head impatiently as she walked away from him. She had no time for her younger brother, she had a life to live, people to meet, pleasures to yet enjoy.

Yet for each slight that rose to his consciousness, there lay another memory that stood in sharp contrast.

Her frantic terror the day he had become lost at the mall and she along with their parents had spent a hectic half hour searching for him.

Therein lay the key. His secret, his belief.

“Do you believe?” She asked with an urgent voice.

It was then he realized she was waiting for him on the other side of the door, trapped in the ebony grasp  of a ferocious beast that could turn any happiness into an endless despair. A creature that existed only in shadows, avoiding the light of day, of reason, and most importantly, the blinding light of love.

He loved her as she loved him, a love only siblings could truly understand. As he moved down the hall, deeper into the shadows, the gloominess was pushed back by a faint white light that came from everywhere, and nowhere. He was like a shining beacon pushing back the night, exposing those shadowy corners where nightmares held sway over the light of reason.

Those shadowy tendrils of night retreated in the face of his approach, drawing back to the door to vanish into the darkness that outlined its soft white façade. As he was reaching for the knob he realized the light was coming from within him. Filling him with calm as that crashing sound came from the other side of  his sister’s door.

It was waiting for him.

Taking a deep breath he turned the knob and pushed into the room.

She was sitting on the bed, her knees drawn up under her chin, watching him with wide, terror filled eyes.

“They’re out there,” she whispered as he crossed to her.

From the poster on the wall behind her came the sound of some massive beast as it crashed through the forest. Along the edges of the poster faint tendrils of night slithered over and around one another in a primitive dance to a forgotten god.

Billy took her hand and tried to lead her to her door.

“No,” she said as he yanked her hand from his grasp. “Not that way.”

“How?” he asked and she turned her head to look at the poster on the wall behind her. “It’s the only way.”

He recalled how it had felt, his finger vanishing beneath the surface of the poster, the cold chill that had crept the length of his arm, the soft whispers that invaded his thoughts. How could he touch it again?

“I can’t,” he said as he backed away.

“But we have to, we can’t stay here.”

“Why not, it’s where we belong.”

“You don’t understand do you?”

“Understand what?”

“We’re not where you think we are.”

To be continued!

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Free Read Friday: Billy Part IV

Reading over the past installments before writing this one I see I have a serious problem with repeating myself. Something I'm working hard on controlling. Will need some editing for sure to whip this one into shape. Let's get to it.

Billy

Part IV

He yanked his hand back from the poster, his finger coming free with an audible pop, and he turned and fled from the room. The image of those shadowy shapes leaping and jumping around one another in a primitive dance to some ancient god burned into his memory.

He raced down the hall, stopping when he spotted his dad standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom, his gaze fixed on some distant point that existed beyond the reflective surface.

“Dad,” Billy said as he pushed into the room.

His father remained motionless, frozen in place, and when Billy slipped his little hand into his father’s larger one he felt how cold his father’s flesh had become. At one time his hands had provided a comforting warmth that offered a sense of well being and security that had been absent lately.

“Dad?” Billy said as he gazed up at his father’s immobile features, unblinking as he continued to gaze into the mirror.

“Dad?” Billy said again, more forcefully this time, yanking on his father’s hand, pulling him off balance. His father straightened up, his stare never leaving the mirror, and Billy released his hold.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, he found his mom standing at the sink, the water running into the bowl, slowly reaching the lip over which it would flow into the bowl next to it. Her hands were in the soapy water, her gaze fixed on the small window over the sink.’

“Mom,” he said with quiet fear that blossomed into unrelenting terror when she remained where she was, never acknowledging his presence, blinking, or looking away from the window where sunlight filled the day with warmth.

It was then he realized that not a single sound was coming from the neighborhood beyond the walls of the house. Racing to the front door, his heart clambering into his throat, he yanked the door open on a silent world that appeared to have stopped in mid-stride.

Mr. Winslow sat on his silent mower across the street, the spray of grass issuing from the chute on the side of the deck hung in mid-air. The Baker kids had ceased their rowdy yells, becoming frozen in place, the football they had been tossing back and forth suspended in mid-air between them.

Struggling to catch his breath he took a hesitant step back, then another, before he slammed the door on the silence that awaited him outside. When he did he became aware of a steady pounding that was coming from somewhere in the house. He went from room to room, searching for the source of the pounding that kept its distance. Once he’d finished with the first floor he stood at the bottom of the steps gazing into the shadowy hallway above as the pounding intensified.

He knew where it was coming from.

His sister’s bedroom, the poster over her bed, and with a slow gait he mounted the steps to the second floor. 

To be continued!

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Free Read Friday: Billy Part 3

Welcome back.

Sorry I haven't posted all week, sciatica has been having its way with me making it difficult to sit and concentrate on anything. But I did manage to get part 3 of the current story done. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to your comments.

Here's a link to the whole story if you would like to start from the beginning. Billy

Billy

Part III

After a breakfast of waffles with strawberries Billy was returning to his room when he stopped at the door to his sister’s bedroom. The mystery of what was waiting behind that closed facade had been dispelled when he’d come upon his mother standing in the doorway that morning. Beyond the door lay his sister’s bedroom as it was the day she passed away.

There was no secret forest, no babbling brook, no dark and slithering shapes that moved along the periphery. It was just a bedroom. Though the poster over her bed had disturbed him on a deep and primitive level, it was after all, just a poster.

Emboldened by what he had seen earlier he opened her door and slipped into the silent room. He stood just inside the door, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom, slats of morning sunlight lying across her unmade bed, segmented by the drawn blinds covering her window.

From beyond the window came the sound of everyday life, a lawnmower roaring as Mr. Winslow cut his grass. The Baker kids across the street yelling at one another as they played in their back yard. The occasional car gliding down the street as sunlight twinkled from the glass.

In her room it was as silent as a tomb.

To his right the door to her bathroom stood open, a white towel draped over the top, a pile of dirty clothes at the base. The bathroom was where they found her, and he flashed briefly on the memory of that night. The air alive with the crackle of radios as uniformed men moved down the hallway to her room. He had watched from his own room, the door slightly ajar, his parents standing to the side as the police and paramedics did their job. His father had wrapped his arm around his mother’s shoulder as she wept into her hands.

They brought her out on a stretcher, two paramedics maneuvering the wheeled gurney between them. He thought he would see her face and was disappointed when he realized they had wrapped her in a thick black plastic. After they were gone his mother and father  remained where they had stood the entire time the paramedics and police were here. The hallway beyond his room filled with their sorrow.

The memory receded like the waters of the ocean rushing out to greet the next incoming wave as he moved across the room towards the open bathroom door. He didn’t know what he would find, but when he stepped around the door to find a sparkling clean room he was relived.

Word was she had slit her wrists, lying in a tub of warm water as her life giving blood fled from her body. This he did not hear from his parents or anyone in a position of authority. It had come as most information did, via rumors and whispered gossip. So he was surprised, and not a little relieved to find the bathroom clean.

He didn’t know what to expect.

Turning from the bathroom his gaze tracked across the room until it came to rest on the poster over her bed. In the shadowy gloom of the room it glowed with a malicious intent. From the base of the tree came a hint of a breeze that carried with it the muted odors of decay.

He wanted to flee, to run from the presence of that poster, yet his feet had become rooted in place as the shadows around the tree slithered over and around one another with a sinister intent. It was calling to him on a dark, instinctive, level, drawing him to that emptiness like a moth to a flame.

He took a step towards the poster, his feet moving in accord to a sinister presence that offered little hope, and an eternity of despair. And though a part of his consciousness rebelled against everything this essence had to offer, he could not stop himself from taking another step closer.

He lifted his hand, reaching for the emptiness gathered around the base of the tree, his finger getting closer and closer. As his fingertip came into contact with the surface of the poster he felt a momentary resistance. It was overwhelmed as his finger vanished into the emptiness, and a cold chill washed the length of his outstretched arm, burying itself in his shoulder as the first knuckle of his finger slipped into the nothingness behind the wall.

To be continued!

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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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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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