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Posts Tagged ‘Dolly Lurker’

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WMSP, Part II, Episode VIII: A Bouquet of Hope

In Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Sci-Fi, Theatre, Writing on June 5, 2019 at 12:06 pm

(Ongoing weekly narrative; new readers start here.)

For: July 12, 1952 edition
A Bouquet of Hope, DRAFT 3
by Ginger Trancas
Montclair, CA

Each morning as Betsy Hillebrandt opens her shop, there are at least three people waiting outside: the most frequent are Ed Proust, Claire Mistral and Lorraine York. Today, Ed holds a newspaper. Claire carries a bag of artist supplies. Lorraine has a black leather satchel that resembles a doctor’s bag. Betsy makes coffee inside and they chat as she fills orders.

I’ve been coming here since July 6th, just to talk to Betsy. When Ed started showing up, he said it was because he had questions about flowers. Then Claire started coming. Then Lorraine. Each had an excuse, but as I began to arrive earlier every day, I would walk in on impassioned conversations that went silent or shifted to banal topics like weather or President Truman.

As time has passed and the Piedmont Police Detectives have done less and less to find Bess and Louise, Betsy and her trio have opened up to me. “We’re the Castle Drive Irregulars,” she says. “Lorraine doesn’t live on Castle Drive, but she’s committed to finding the girls.”

“We’re tired of the silence,” Lorraine says. “We’ve started gathering information on our own.”

“I organize the searches of the park,” says Ed, a former Marine Sergeant and Oakland Police Officer. “We’re slow, careful, methodical.”

When asked what the Piedmont Police Detectives think of their organization, Claire, who teaches illustration at the California College of Arts and Crafts, scoffs. “You saw how they were at the press conference. I talked to [Name Withheld by Request] and he said, ‘Little lady, you and your knitting circle can look anywhere you want. We’ll even come watch the fire department get your kitties out of trees. But why don’t you just stay home and cook dinner like a woman is supposed to do?’ I tell you, I near slapped his face.”

“We’re not suggesting anyone go around slapping our Police Detectives in the face,” Betsy assures me. “We just want to find the girls. Ed organizes the searches, as he said, Claire is compiling artistic renderings and mapping the quadrants searched. Lorraine is our … how would you put it, Lorraine?”

“I’m the Social Engineer,” says Mrs. York, a merry twinkle in her eye. “We know that there are many in our communities—both in Piedmont and Montclair—who would frown on our organization’s activities. I’m making inroads, talking to wives and daughters, bending the ear of this or that City Councilman, helping to pave the way and smooth out any bumpy roads.”

“She’s selling herself short,” Ed says. “You gotta see her in action. The reason that namby-pamby Officer [Name Withheld by Request] was so willing to stand aside is because Lorraine plays bridge with the wives of the Police Detectives. And the wives of the Police Detectives are very angry that the girls haven’t been found. So if you detect some anger at the ladies in his words, you can bet it’s because he’s threatened by the anger of the ladies.”

“Speaking of Social Engineering,” Lorraine says, “I believe we may be about to take on more assistance.”

The bell on the door to Betsy’s shop rings brightly and a young man steps in. Clean cut, high-school age, horn-rim glasses over grey eyes. “This is Alan Campbell,” Lorraine says, “he is a classmate of Bess and Louise. He is the president of the Piedmont High Chess Club, and has advanced calculus and codebreaking among his skill sets.”

Young Mr. Campbell blushes to the roots of his hair, but when Ed Proust offers him a hand he shakes it with firm, direct eye contact.

“I’m keeping a thorough journal of every move we make,” Alan tells me. “Not just for legal purposes, but because someone needs to know the full story, when the time comes.”

Asked when that time will be, Alan polishes his glasses, thinking, before saying, “Not any time soon. Realistically, I don’t believe we’ll be permitted to tell this story. There’s something larger at work here.”

Lorraine, Claire and Ed smile a bit at this, it’s clear they think some of Alan’s ideas are farfetched.

Betsy, on the other hand, looks at him with an even, respectful gaze. I have the feeling he’s surprised her.

The bell rings again and it’s another young man, William Gardner, president of the Piedmont High Young Republicans and an upstanding citizen on all fronts. “Billy’s an Eagle Scout three times over,” says Lorraine.

Asked what that means, William holds back, blushing deeper than Alan—who speaks up for his friend: “He was a rising star in his Scout Troop, but he got asked to take a back seat to the Mayor’s son, then the next year it was the Police Chief who wanted his kid to get Eagle. There’s no rule against more than one Scout getting to Eagle at the same time, but the Mayor and Police Chief wanted their kids to be the only ones. And they pressured Scoutmaster Ted to get Bill to coach their kids through it. So, Bill’s done the work three times. And because he’s a go-getter, he didn’t repeat the same stuff. His Eagle is the strongest in the troop.”

“And rightly so,” says Lorraine. “Alan, I understand we have a third young addition to our group? Who is the mystery lady?”

“She should be along any time, now,” says Alan, looking shy again.

The boys won’t tell us who she is, and there seems to be some disagreement between the two about whether or not they should have invited her. Betsy commandeers the room:

“We’ll catch her up to speed when she arrives,” she says. “For now, reports: Claire, I understand you have some sketches based on eyewitness accounts?”

“Oh. Yes!” Claire seems surprised to be first report. “I’ve talked to nearly everyone reporting something strange. Mrs. Gladly made me tea and spent over an hour describing the … apparatus … of the park flasher. She made me draw it. Looking over my shoulder the whole time.”

“There is no park flasher,” says Ed. “She’s describing her husband. Betcha.”

“I thought Brock left her,” says Lorraine.

Ed says, “She wants revenge: get him described as the flasher, get him arrested.”

“Regardless,” Betsy says, “Let’s see your other sketches, Claire.”

Claire opens her large sketchbook, flipping past studies of hands and such that look like DaVinci, then pauses. “You need to understand, I’m drawing exactly what I was told. And for each person who described something similar, I drew a new version, with their specific details—rather than alter what I’d already drawn.” She seems to be waiting for something.

Lorraine gives Claire’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

Claire turns the page, and Betsy cries out in horror.

It stands fifteen feet tall; there’s a blank human figure next to it for reference. Its face looks like Raggedy Ann or Andy, after botched reconstructive surgery. A tattered shroud covers its form. Hands with large, thick black fingernails. Claw-like. Legs that taper down and curl into the ground, like the arms of an octopus. There are even suction cups. At the bottom, a name and date: Jones, sighted c. June 3, 1950. Sketched July 7, 1952.

“What’s that in its hand?” Lorraine says.

“She said it was … afterbirth.”

This is the bottom of the page, the rest of the piece is missing. There is a handwritten note, in red ink:

ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I WILL PRINT THIS. CANNOT BE THIRD DRAFT. REWRITE, LIGHTEN, NO DISPARAGEMENT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT OR LAW ENFORCEMENT. YOUR JOB IS IN DANGER.

In another hand, blue ink from a fountain pen:

Confirmed. Too much. This information will not ever get out.
– R

Who the hell is “R”? And what kind of power does he have over Ginger Trancas or her paper?

But there’s one thing that leaps out of these pages and grabs me by the oh-no-not-that: Lorraine York is my maternal grandmother. How the hell is she involved in this craziness? Nowhere in our family stories is there anything like this about Grandma Lorraine.

I’ve got goosebumps whose roots are a deep and resonant, What the fuck?

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Woodminster, South Pacific; Part II, Episode II: Thursday, July 27: Girls Still Missing

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre on August 15, 2018 at 12:06 pm

(This story begins here. Click it if you’re new.)

There’s a strangeness, an empty ache, when approaching a place where you expect to see people who feel important in your heart—only to find that they are not there.

Turning the corner on foot near Peet’s in Montclair, expecting to see the old wizards and Louellaughra—even mulling over possible greetings as I approached—only to be stopped short by their absence. Nobody was sitting on the wooden bench. It felt like a slap in the heart.

But why? I’ve met them as a group one time; Louellaughra does not seem to like me at all. I’ve had more direct interaction with Weedbeard than any of them, and I just spent a great deal of time with him. I could drive to his house right now. I’m not going to do that, the point is I know where to find him.

True, I saw Obi-Wan-point-five devoured by Dolly Lurker.

… giant flapping trapdoor teeth breaking bones and tearing flesh …

But I knew as I drove over here that I wouldn’t see him.

The spear of revelation finds its mark. Standing there on the sidewalk as slightly granola yoga moms in the most exclusive free-trade bamboo spandex park their expensive vintage-style wooden bicycles and talk about how they knew all along that Jill Stein was not to be trusted, and a vintage three-wheeled red Bugatti parks right there as the world moves blithely by with no sense of the shadow whirling around in the Redwoods above them—it hits deep in my heart: I didn’t know how important the idea of this group had become, for me. With all the darkness seeping out of the cracks at the theater, I felt there was this unbreakable band of wizards to whom I would eventually go for advice, protection, perhaps even instruction.

I’ve missed my chance.

The ache in my heart felt like a wound. This was a surprise. I stood there for a long time. Breathing. A little girl walked by with her mother.

“Mommy is that man crying?” she said.

“Well, sweetie, he probably deserved it,” said the woman.

That shook me out of my self-indulgent stupor. As they disappeared into the froyo shop across the street, I headed into Peet’s, procured a beverage and sat down with my back to the wall and a clear view of the entrance. A woman two tables away raised her eyebrows at the mucky-looking plastic bag, but returned to her conversation. I was happy about that. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even to joke my way out of a socially awkward moment.

This is the article:

July 10, 1952
Montclair, CA
No Progress in Missing Girls Case
by Ginger Trancas

An official statement has been issued by the Piedmont Police Detectives regarding the disappearance of Piedmont High Sophomores Louise Archer and Bess Tremaine, who have not been seen since the evening of July 4, when they were noted by neighbors on Castle Drive. The girls were said to be wearing sneakers, shorts and matching blue gingham tops.

According to Officer Whiting, everything is being done to find the girls. “But,” says Whiting, “While we appreciate the public’s willingness to help, the Piedmont Police Detectives would prefer that the public refrain from further vigilante brigades patrolling Joaquin Miller Park at night.”

Asked whether his department was looking into the cousins both girls were said to have in Reno, Officer Whiting claimed no knowledge of any Reno connection. Reminded of his quote in an earlier article on this subject, he said it’s being looked into. Local florist Betsy Hillebrandt, the unconfirmed organizer of what the locals are calling Safety Patrols, laughed aloud at this, saying “I know the families, Officer. They have no cousins in Reno.”

Officer Whiting offered this in response: “Ladies and gentlemen, you need to stay out of that park. These reports we’re getting—strange voices, echoing cries and “lost baby noises,” are unverifiable, and probably best left unmade. Just because you think you hear something in the night, doesn’t mean that you heard what you think it was. If I hear a sound in my yard and I think it’s a Russian spy, does that mean it’s a Russian spy? No. It means I heard a sound. Probably a raccoon.”

Hillebrandt had this question: “What if I hear raccoons speaking Russian in my yard?”

Officer Whiting did not respond, instead reading the following statement aloud:

“There is absolutely nothing to be concerned about, and all Montclair residents living on El Caminito Street, Mountaingate Way, Castle Drive, Castle Park Way, Melville Drive, Skyline Boulevard or Joaquin Miller Road are being asked to stay in their homes at night and stop exploring the park after dark.”

From Hillebrandt, “If we shouldn’t explore the park after dark, I assume it’s acceptable for us to continue exploring during the day?”

Officer Whiting asked if any of the journalists present had any questions for him. All eyes were on Hillebrandt, who said, “Are the Piedmont Police Detectives posting guards to prevent our explorations, Officer? Won’t that take men from the massive task force you’ve assembled to find Louise and Bess?”

Officer Whiting announced that the press conference was over, stepping away from the podium. He was briefly halted by Hillebrandt’s final question, “Officer Whiting—are we really going to pretend this hasn’t happened before?”

Officer Whiting left before answering any further questions, and has not been available for comment.

Anyone with information on the disappearance of Louise Archer and Bess Tremaine is encouraged to contact the Piedmont Police Detectives, but according to one older gentleman who prefers to remain anonymous, “Those boys are useless. Betsy Hillebrandt is more organized on her worst day of the year. People with information should stop by her shop. That’s what we all do. And you know what? We’re not going to stop looking. We owe it to their families. We’ll find those girls.”

There was nothing else of note in the clipping. On the back were ads for ladies’ shoes at Capwell’s. I sat sipping my coffee in silence for a long time. Something was bothering me, a wisp of a memory from Obi-Wan-point-five’s final moments. Something he’d said, what was it … ? About barbecue or a bonfire …

The same mother-daughter team who passed me outside sat down at a table nearby. Her tone earnest, conversational, the girl said, “I can’t wear my Cinderella dress to see Beauty and the Beast, Mommy. I need a Belle outfit.”

Jostled memory. I let my eyes unfocus, concentrating on my breath.

Words erupted into my mind:

“Browning! Pyre! Cinderella! To bring my to outfit and now become necessary!”

That’s what Obi-Wan-point-five said as the hands were tearing his junk before Dolly Lurker popped him into her evil funhouse gullet.

I wrote them down. No idea what the first three words mean. But the last nine words felt familiar. I wrote them again, in three rows:

to bring my
to outfit and
now become necessary

These feel like the words from outside the Old Firehouse, the curb, the wall, the base of the pyramid.

Sudden certainty, solid as the pyramid itself: Obi-Wan-point-five was the author of the charcoal messages!

But why?

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — Dark Carousel III

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 17, 2017 at 12:06 pm

(Hi, friends! New to this story? Avoid the spoilers below; start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 12, 2001 – Dark Carousel III

I resist at first, but Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit leans in and brushes her lips across mine. I follow. She leads me past what I now know are the stage left stairs. Nobody sees us. We’re among picnic tables, turning right and going down three steps to a shadowed terrace. She draws me to the darkest corner, furthest from all sources of light. In the moment, goosebumps and arousal fight for dominion.

Re-visiting the memory, I’m galvanized by fear:

We’re on the rooftop picnic terrace above the mens’ dressing room.

As if on cue, a sound floats from the trees on the dark slope beyond:

“Ma-Ma … Ma-MA …”

It’s like a whisper; it could be mistaken for a night bird. I didn’t notice it at the time. My impulse, in the clarity of hindsight, is to turn and run. Only for some reason, I can’t flex this memory. I’m stuck. And Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit is kissing me, so it’s much easier to just give in.

“Close your eyes,” she says. I do. She says, “The moon is waning, did you know?”

“Yes,” I say. “My mom’s an astrologer – ”

She stops my mouth with another kiss, then says, “The moon is waning and the dust will blow.” Then she knees me in the balls.

I gasp, eyes popping open, as she blows something in my face. It’s powder or dust and I feel little bits of it get in my eyes and on my lips. I’m gasping, choking, sputtering. I can feel my eyes swelling up. The urge to rub them is overwhelming. “What the fuck was that?!” I say, raspy, coughing.

“The webs of fate have all been spun,” she says, and she sounds ecstatic. Euphoric. She puts something on her tongue and kisses me, shoving her tongue into my mouth as she pushes me to the cold hard concrete. I’m trying not to cough into her mouth, but whatever is on her tongue is in my mouth now, and it’s crunchy. Like, bugs crunchy.

At the time, I thought she was trying to be kinky. Clumsy, embarrassing, potentially fatal kinky, but still — sex.

Pulling up my shirt, she breaks the kiss. Knowing what I know now, I realize she isn’t really trying to undress me. The concrete is cold and rough on my low back. I want to tell her this is really uncomfortable, but it feels like my throat is closing up.

“Ma … ma?” from the shadows in the trees just beyond the terrace. It sounds excited.

She’s whispering, grinding against me, and I hear her words this time: “This day’s the last you’ve seen the sun. This day’s the last you’ve taken bread. This day’s your last, your end’s begun. The dark moon grows, your breath’s unspun, the webs are strong, you’ve lost the sun, your lust is crumbs, the bread is mold – ”

I want to tell her I’m surprised at her use of internal rhyme, because she’s strictly an ABAB kind of girl — but I’m distracted by the click of something metallic. I try to open my eyes. They’re swollen mostly shut. In spite of that, I can see movement now among the branches, in the darkness beyond the terrace. A shape is coming closer.

Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit puts a cold, sharp blade against my low back, on the left side. She says, “I promise you will Not.” The blade cuts into me. “Get.” I struggle back from her, trying to push her off, but her fingers are pressing, rubbing a stinging substance into the slice. “Old!”

Even with my eyes swollen mostly shut, I can see something strange in her face: her left eye has something shiny in it. Something … golden. I marvel at it a moment before the shape in the darkness raises up above and behind her. It looks like a fleshy scorpion’s tail, but all wrong. Unnatural and revolting. It jiggles as it moves with such wrongness that I sit up fast and straight – smacking my head into Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit’s nose.

She cries out, clutching her face.

Electric light floods the terrace. The thing of wrongness is gone. Blood is pouring down Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit’s face.

“What the hell’s going on here?” I hear a familiar voice. “Laurabell? Is that you?

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R X

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 12, 2017 at 11:54 am

(Sometimes you are dusty. Let these mummified hands brush you clean. Listen to their first insidious whispers here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R X

As he braces himself to fire,Weedbeard’s right bootheel touches a small patch of the insect grool and is burned away on the right side. He doesn’t notice, racking a fresh charge with a lever on the underside of the shotgun as he shouts, “Rocksalt, Fatherfucker!” The second blast is a dull roar; my ears are still ringing from the first.

The blast of salt tears through the baby doll, its larval plorper and the rotting hand, burning chunks splattered backwards onto Dolly Lurker’s porcelain skin – which now cracks, like actual porcelain. Dolly Lurker is gnashing its giant flapping shutter trapdoor teeth, breaking spider legs with juicy, meaty chunkings; the arm of the rotting hand holding the nightmare baby doll jutting off at an odd, jaunty angle like FDR’s cigarette holder. We have nothing to fear but a giant mouthful of spider legs! This thought is all mine, and it’s a relief to not hear others in there.

Weedbeard racks a third charge with the lever – I look over: this is a revolving shotgun. I say, “Fucking rad!” – but I’m drowned out as Weedbeard bellows, “Thrice-blessed by Rabbis, Priests and Pagan Conjurers! Smoked in the Smokey Smoke of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!”

As he says those last five words, ancient harmony wells up around us: thousands of monks, angelic choirs, every hippie who ever lived? Whoever it is, there is a moment of soul-wrenching beauty as that harmony coalesces around Weedbeard. He fires the shotgun on the button of the musical phrase.

There is a strange stillness to the blast – the salt crystals meet a barrier in the air for an instant, but the words Smokey-Smoke appear in the air, in a circle, around the blast. Is this the smoke of the blast, or the smoke in which the salt was smokey-smoked? I don’t know. But it puffs out into those words and then is sucked into every shard of salt – and the barrier is broken.

Dolly Lurker is blasted back against the wall, shrinking, two hands reaching up to hold its cracking face together, spider legs scrabbling at odd angles for purchase on anything. One of them is caught on the doorjamb of this upper door and rips out, falling to the floor with a clatter. Weedbeard has racked a fourth charge and blasts the leg away from the door; it shatters, but even the shards twitch and jumble about. I have a feeling that they’d slice anyone they could reach right now.

“Ma-MA! Ma-MAAaaughlghghghllllrrrrrghhhhh … ” Dolly Lurker sounds like it’s back down at the bottom of the stairs. I’m standing – when did that happen? – and I move toward the door to look.

Judy and Weedbeard both grab my arms and pull me back. I’m fighting them. Why?

“You heard the voice, didn’t you, Edward?” Judy says.

“It’s got a deeper hold on you that it would if you’d never heard it,” Weedbeard says.

They’re strong, but I’m determined to look through that door. I’m dragging them toward the opening. It looks innocuous. Just a doorway. I say, “How do I tell you both to fuck off but in a very respectful way?”

Weedbeard steps in front of me, grabbing me by the shoulders. I’m able to push him toward the door. I’m not usually this strong. “This is why I told you the memory was unsafe!” he says. “This doorway is warded and therefore acts like a portal – memories are malleable and can be changed here! You passed out when Alan fell, you didn’t see all of this. You need to step back to your present before you alter this leaf of time!”

But I’m pushing him. We’re almost at the door. I’m winning.

It feels so good!

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R IX

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 11, 2017 at 11:45 am

(Do you like the marzipan? Yes you love the marzipan! Do you like the licorice? Maybe not the licorice! Only take a bite. Only take a bite. Bite and bite and suck the taste: licorice and marzipan, everything that’s moist. Take your first nibble here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R IX

It’s like a cartoon. Dolly Lurker is thrilled with this turn of events, eyes lit up as it regards us, pausing before slamming into the doorway again. Another pause and it’s clapping its weird tiny hands like a giddy, evil fop before the next wall-shaking assault.

“How long since these wards were refreshed, Judy?” Weedbeard says.

“No way to know, Bill. Alan was in charge of this portal.” Judy is running toward Joel’s office, all business.

Another fully-voiced sentence in my head, What vast emptiness awaits all devoured by the deadening? It’s the other voice – the not Dolly Lurker voice. Good to know I’m hearing multiple voices. But this question has been nibbling at the back of my mind: how far down will Obi-Wan-point-five fall before he lands? I still hear him screaming as he falls.

“Do we know the basis of his warding?” Weedbeard says.

“I think he was trying to charge it up right before he stopped making sense,” Judy says, stepping into Joel’s office.

Dolly Lurker is whispering something to us, gesturing us closer with its little paper hands. It wants us to come closer, but Weedbeard and I scoot back. Dolly Lurker frowns, then grins bigger than before – we can hear its mouth stretching – and a veritable forest of jagging, grabby giant spider legs vomit forth, scrabbling at the floor, their massive raptorial tarsus claws gouging the concrete. In my mind I hear,

No, no, no, no, no you will not get away. Oh my, oh my, oh my, no you will not.

Aloud, “Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAAAAAAAA!”

One of the claws is reaching, scratching at the upper left corner of the doorway, searching for a target I cannot see. It flinches as the little purple sparks of the warding singe its long, thick tactile leg hairs.

“Will the wards hold?” Weedbeard says.

“I’m not waiting to find out!” this from Judy as a shotgun roars over our heads. Judy is knocked onto her ass from the force of the blast. All sound fades as it tears into Dolly Lurker, sizzling black burns that send the spider legs back into that still-growing mouth for a moment; they’re in there, glistening, their tactile leg hairs rustling as Dolly Lurker’s face lights up in beatific rapture.

“It’s breathing! Gun!” says Weedbeard, reaching to catch it — again, without looking — as Judy throws the shotgun.

A massive, gnarled hand punches from the center of the bunched spider legs – fingers blue-black with deep, dry gangrene – punching all the way out and through the door. A wave of decay rolls from the hand, and the memory of chunky rotwater boils over in my mind. Clutched in the hand is a squirming baby doll, its face scarred and stitched with a patchwork of different colored skins, some light, some dark, some fresh and soft, some old and leathery. They look like actual human skin. One eye is blue, its eyelashed lid blink-blink-blinking at us. The other socket is dark, but not empty. Something wet and larval squirms in that darkness, and under the cloth of the baby doll’s body is a squirming mass of living insectoid terrors, devouring and hatching by the billions every second, their juices and chunks staining the cloth and dripping through to land like gooey, sinister espresso, thick and sizzling on the concrete.

“Ma-MA! MA-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Dolly Lurker’s screeching would deafen anyone not already ear-numb from a shotgun blast.

Something is worming its way out of the dark eye socket, a sleurmy winged plorper. The baby doll’s fingers twitch and clutch at the air, its mouth opens to show way too many square teeth.

“It’s larval!” Judy says, “Kill it before it lands!”

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R VIII

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on October 10, 2017 at 11:34 am

(This part is not where to start. Be not the silly person. Instead, start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R VIII

I roll to my right, thrusting my left hand toward where I remember the door being. In the instant I reach, my eyes open and I see things in stillness and slow:

Weedbeard has cast the bag inside out; its contents, I can smell, are the saltiest salt that ever salted. They cut through the air like tiny diamond bullet crystals, slicing through the buttery light which has spread up the stairs and wrapped Weedbeard’s feet. They leave trails of clarity where they’ve sliced through the light: ordinary reflected daylight somewhat penetrating the gloom of a dark stairwell; I find unexpected comfort in that.

The turkeybaby and sporangia are turning back toward Weedbeard, screaming. The pink of the meatfrond is burned black everywhere the salt is landing.

Judy is reaching for my hand as I sprawl across the dusty red concrete floor; Obi-Wan-point-five jumps in over me. And though the voice in my head has been saying,

No, no, no, no, no I am already on your face, in your eyes, your hair, your pink and muscular tongue,

Obi-Wan-point-five says loud and clear, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York!”

Judy grabs my hand on the word sun, pulling me out on my back. Once I’m through the door, the voice in my head dims significantly, though I can still hear it:

Oh my oh my oh my how I would enjoy to rip that tongue from your muscular manly mouth …

Its words are growing dimmer by the second, but on this side of the door, I hear:

“Ma-MA! Ma-MA!”

What eldritch strangeness is held at bay by this warded door? And why does it turn my inner monologue Lovecraftian? I shake off the Howard Phillips, trying to ignore Dolly Lurker’s fading voice in its unpleasant discord with its baby doll noise, focusing on what I can see: as he lands, Obi-Wan-point-five turns his back to the wall and sloping ceiling of the stairwell, pushing Weedbeard back toward escape. Weedbeard falls to the ground half on top of me, just outside the door.

… for indeed your words are your power and I will sap you of it before I devour you.

“Ma-MA-MA! Ma-MA-MA-MA!”

I grasp Obi-Wan-point-five’s plan in an instant. The salt and oil are holy – or he believes they are. He is anointed and safe. He’ll push Weedbeard free, burning with salt the turkeybaby and sporangia that try to touch him, then follow.

Except that his shoes are slick with oil.

Obi-Wan-point-five slips backward from the force of shoving his friend to safety. As Weedbeard lands, Obi-Wan-point-five comes down hard on both knees, right on the edge of the top step. I feel sympathetic pain in my knees, hearing bone shatter.

“Ma-MA! MA-MAAAAAAAAAAaaaahhhhghghglerlklkggggllllllle!” It sounds triumphant, gurgling and frothing in delight, echoing in the stairwell and again from deeper in the basement.

A hand grasps Obi-Wan-point-five’s right shoulder. He looks at it, and though it is burning from the salt, it stays. Claws grow and dig deep into his flesh. Another hand, delicate and ladylike, grasps his left shoulder; he turns to look at it and sporangia on the wall to his left burst black spores the size of cotton balls in his face. He gasps, inhaling them by the thousands. He tries to cough, but they’re forcing their way into his lungs.

Obi-Wan-point-five’s eyes grow too large. More spores burst from around him. They were black at first, now they’re pink.

His eyes turn golden. Cotton candy colored spores are covering him, burning away from the salt, but covered over again by millions more in an instant, until a layer forms and falls off like a strange sweet shell in your Americana nightmare carnival: the salt is neutralized. All this in seconds.

The third hand snakes around his right side, into his pants.

Obi-Wan-point-five loses all control, emitting high-pitched, terrified screams. He is fighting like mad, unintelligible phrases bursting from his mouth: “Browning! Pyre! Cinderella! To bring my to outfit and now become necessary!” There is a sound like tearing cloth and I realize it’s the sound of his flesh ripping open. His screams are just screams now. Fluids stain the crotch of his khakis, running like rainwater down the steps behind him.

The porcelain skin. The grin too wide, stretched beyond the cheekbones. Like a smile pulled to ripping by the cruelest uncle with his too-thick fingers. The huge square teeth clattering the clatter of old shutters in a windstorm, Dolly Lurker’s face is next to Obi-Wan-point-five’s head, turning slow like a sloth to look at us – and I know now it’s been moving up behind him this whole time. A whisper in my brain ears:

Oh no, no, no, no, no, I’ve been moving up behind you for three years my tasty. Oh my, oh my, oh my, yes.

“Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAA! Play time!”

Creaking and clattering from behind the teeth explode giant spider legs, grabbing at the doorway and yanking Dolly Lurker’s face forward, slamming into the wall and the doorjamb with force enough to shake the building. The mouth is vast and the hands (now small, ineffectual, paper hands) bat Obi-Wan-point-five side to side a couple times — like a playful kitten with a doomed mouse —  before smacking him inside.

The teeth come down, half-open, flapping like loose cupboard doors. I see his right rib cage and left clavicle crushed; nude white bone protrudes, jagged. His abdomen is pierced, his small intestine caught on a splintered bit of square tooth; the smell of hot dark shit and bright copper blood says death is near. His body is jerking involuntarily, like a man healed by a televangelist. Three of his fingers have fallen to the dusty red concrete, just inside the door. One of Dolly Lurker’s hands bats him farther into the gaping maw.

Obi-Wan-point-five is still screaming, but now it’s the scream of a man falling, falling, falling. There’s a tug, then a tautness and a twang before his intestine rips from the tooth and follows.

Dolly Lurker is slamming its face into the doorway, pushing through. The corners of the door are sparking little purple sparks. 

The wall is cracking.

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R VII

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on October 9, 2017 at 11:43 am

(Applebee’s sucks. In your heart of hearts, you know it’s the Fuller House of chain restaurants. If you love both of those things, you probably won’t like this story. If you loathe both of those things, you’re in the right place. Start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R VII

Lanky dark hair just beyond the doorjamb moves in a breeze I can’t feel. I see it now: an eye. Golden iris, pupil far too large. Locked onto me. Skin porcelain white. A gigantic, goofy grin, with way too many huge square teeth. The expression in that one eye: towering, giddy, ravenous rage. A clear thought forms in my head, the entire sentence sounding inside my cranium as though spoken, It wants us dead, and it wants to be the deadening.

Then another voice speaks in my head, shadows of terrified screaming beneath every vowel; my ears itch inside as it slithers around in my brain, unlocking every worst memory, breathing fresh fuel into every fear and insecurity:

No, no, no, no, no, my tasty, I am the deadening. Oh my, oh my, oh my, yes. I am the deadening. I am the deadening.

I shake my head against its slithering brain eggs; the nodule and sporangia all shift to focus on me with wet squish and plorpings. I’m trying to ignore the whirlwind of bad memories in my mind.

No, no, no, no, no, my tasty — all of the things. You remember all of the things. They are your esssssssence. Why try? You are that rejected ring. You are the miscarried child. 

Weedbeard says, “Alan, now!”

I can see outside the door, at last: Judy is there, and now there’s a face to the voice of Alan – it’s Obi-Wan-point-five! He’s throwing a Crown Royal bag full of something that isn’t a bottle to Weedbeard, who catches it without looking, eyes on the nodule. Obi-Wan-point-five is covered in oil. Judy is upending a box of kosher salt over his head, then pouring on more — olive? — oil. There’s another box of kosher salt nearby. I want to make a joke about savory sex, but I’m afraid to speak, and the voice in my head won’t stop:

You are the broken heart, abandoned promises, mistaken love, foolish indiscretion, erotic obsession, shameful indulgences, every dark and bad thing you work so hard to hide is why you should give up.

The nodule and sporangia shift back to Weedbeard – shphleurk-pop-pop-pop! – when he catches the bag, but I can’t stop shaking my head – I can feel it moving in there! – and they shift back to me, the frond fluffing to cover the ceiling and come halfway down the walls. It sounds, I realize, like a tom turkey puffing up his feathers. This strikes me as funny, until the nodule presses against the skin surrounding it, stretching the skin thin enough that it looks like the nodule will break through.

My tasty, when you tell this story, others will come looking for me, and oh how I want to be found.

It’s the face of a turkey. If a turkey was part vulture and part newborn baby. Grinning, with wriggling tongues for teeth, its eyes crudely-chopped mismatched triangles like a psychopathic jack-o-lantern. There’s a flickering light inside, casting horrid little shadows on the inside of its skull. It’s the light of a candle made from human tallow. How do I know that?

I am the one standing at the foot of your bed, that’s how.

Weedbeard is muttering something over the open Crown Royal bag, moving his hand in a pattern as he does so. The turkeybaby is getting closer to my face, the sporangia growing darker, like they’re engorged with blood.

I am in your closet, watching you sleep. Sucking at your dreams.

“You’ve got one chance, Edward,” Judy says, all calm business, tearing open and dumping the next box of kosher salt on Obi-Wan-point-five, “But you’ve got to shut your eyes. Trust me. Shut your eyes, and when I say NOW, you turn and reach out your left hand. We’ll try to get you in time. Edward? Shut your eyes.”

Mine are the grabbing hands waiting under your bed, reaching up to touch you.

I do as she says, shutting my eyes. Something warm and wet gloms onto my face, wrapping my head in flesh, clogging my nose, sealing my mouth shut. I try to breathe, to scream. I can’t!

I use your mouth to spill my seed in your lungs. Hold real still. Hold
real still. Hold real still.

“Edward, listen to me,” Judy says, her voice still low and calm. “It’s making you think you’re suffocating, but you’re not. And if you open them again, it’s going to breathe those spores right into your eyes and you will be lost to us forever, with no memory of any of this. Be ready, Edward; to your right, with your left hand. Trust me, you’re breathing. Just trust – NOW!”

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R VI

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on October 6, 2017 at 12:24 pm

(Your curiosity has gotten the better of you, now take control! Start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R VI

I feel pulled toward the first step, even as another cry echoes from below:

“Ma-MA … Ma-MA …”

It looks like there is light coming toward the dark doorway, a dim glow outlining shapes in the darkness not revealed by the light of my phone.

I hear Judy to my right, it sounds like she might be coming from the scene shop, but I can’t turn to look. She’s saying, “I think I heard it coming from over here, Bill – Oh Good Lord – ”

She’s much closer now, I think she’s just outside the door to my right. A set of footsteps has followed her; someone says:

“I thought this door was warded.”

“It was, Alan — it is. Where’s Bill?” Judy says. Her words are casual, her tone is one of deep concern.

From far away, I hear a man bellow, “Protego!”

Weedbeard

But that doesn’t matter, because at the bottom of the stairs, a hand is reaching around the right side of the doorjamb.

“Ma-MA … !”

Closer now, Weedbeard’s voice bellows, “Servo!”

I’m very cold. The light is brighter down there. Fingers numb, I drop my cell phone. I sense that Judy catches it, her reflexes quick. I note my surprise at this through a novocaine mist of fascination. The light looks like wisps of fog, it’s spreading and reaching along the floor to the doorjamb and beyond. It looks warm like butter, and I take the first step of the stairs.

Running footsteps arrive. I hear Weedbeard outside the door to my right. He bellows, “Praemunio!”

A wave of warmth washes over me from the right. I shudder at the initial contact, goosebumps covering my body. A second hand grasps the doorjamb below.

“Ma-MA! Ahauuughghghghghlllrrrrrblghhhhh … ”

One of the men gasps. Judy says, “No – it can’t be – ”

I’m shoved to the side, landing among boxes and large umbrellas – and Weedbeard is there, throwing a handful of white powder down the stairs. Where it hits, the concrete walls and steps sizzle as little black burn marks appear.

Something pink unfurls from around the base of the door at the bottom of the steps. It looks like a fern frond, growing fast. Weedbeard goes very still. I follow his lead. He moves a foot and the pink thing puffs and stiffens, expanding across the ceiling of the stairwell like a cobra inflating its hood. Only it sends out meaty pink tendrils that stick to the ceiling and walls, a nodule under the surface of its skin turning to follow any movement by Weedbeard.

“Alan,” says Weedbeard, and the nodule pulses out toward Weedbeard’s face when he speaks, as from all of the frond’s meaty surface little sporangia blossom with thick popping plorps. They look like strange lollipops: a thin white stalk supporting a dark pink candy. Weedbeard is more still than before, and I sense that he’s barely breathing.

I see movement at the bottom of the steps. The buttery light is much brighter, and with tarantulic precision something crawls around the doorjamb below the two hands – then grasps tight.

It’s a third hand.

 

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Seven — Voice Memo V

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on September 19, 2017 at 12:43 pm

(If you like to be frightened, at least know the backstory: start here.)

Day Seven: Tuesday, 25 July 2017 – Voice Memo V

[Sound: still garbled and watery; frantic sloshing through water, wet hands on concrete; in the background, growing closer from the right, jingling and high-pitched laughter.]

Edward: Not one single fuck do I give right now, I’m getting out of this fuck-cunted fountain. Nightmare where you can’t run fast enough from the monster, and now I’m in a fucking toxic algae bloom!

Voice: Splishy splashy, little fish … !
Toxic algae, be my pal, gee!
Little fishy, grant my wish!
Crunchy-cralgae,
Here … !
I … !
Come!

[Sound: light footsteps on concrete and jingles punctuate the last three words, moving just above and to our right.]

Edward: Do you have to do everything with internal rhyme? Fucking creepy shitbags!

[Sound: During the above, huge frothing splash of a fully-dressed 190lb man throwing himself out of a fountain into dry dirt and brittle weeds.
In the far distance, sirens and horn of firetruck.
Hands and feet scrabbling for purchase, we hear wet shoes squeaking, wet cloth squelching under the following:]

Edward: In the movies, everyone gets away so fucking easy …

[Sound: car engine close by, brakes engaged, engine idling. Sirens are closer.]

Edward: Headlights! On the trees above me, please let it be …

Voice: Scribble-scrabble in the dirt!
Fearful panting, jeerful janting.
When I catch you, it will hurt:
Leerful lanting, tearful ranting!

Edward: How does it feel about headlights, I wonder? Oh fuckno – it’s here, stripey pants – on the wall of the fountain – yeurks –

[Sound: Edward scrabbling to his feet, stumbling.]

Edward: Run fucking run, fucking run you pudgy fuck …

[Sound: running feet underneath the above line, then a trip and a fall into leaves and dirt.]

Edward: Graughhh!

[Sound: a voice, male, from the direction of the idling engine: You hear that?
Edward is struggling to his feet, cursing, breathing hard.
Another male voice from the direction of the engine: What, you think it’s the old Witch of Woodminster?]

Edward: They’re right up there. Here we go –

[Sound: THUD, Edward falling to his knees in leaves.]

Edward: Fuck. Tree. Head. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. … Bleeding … Oh God …

[Sound: stumbling steps through leaves, panting, wet shoes squelching with every step.
Second Male Voice from car: It’s an old wives’ tale, man.
Jingles and snapping branches overhead.
First Male Voice from car: So you say, but my friend said he saw her.
Idling engine and the voices in the car are getting louder as Edward moves up the slope.
Sirens are much closer.
Giggles and jingles and branches rustling, snapping overhead.
Second Male Voice from car: Okay, fine: what does she look like?
First Male Voice from car: Covered in leaves. He called her a bog hag.
Second Male Voice from car: (laughing) Bog hag? Your friend into D&D and shit?
First Male Voice from car: That’s the thing. He wasn’t. And he couldn’t sleep alone for two years after.]

Voice (whispering, with glee): I’m above you in the trees

Edward: Finally. Haugh, it’s the police. Get these leaves off my face.
Excuse me, Officers?

[Sound: from the right, Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAaaaaaeuuuurrrghllllthhhh …]

First Male: What the fuck – ?

Voice (whispering, with even more glee): Jingle branches, queurky queranches!

Edward: I need your help –

Second Male: The fuck is in that tree?!

[Sound: Jingling, giggling, thrashing branches.]

Voice (whispering, with way too much glee):Yous will not escape from mees … !

Edward: Offfficcc –

Voice (whispering, with what can only be called an excess of glee): Tingle tanches, tingle tee … hee … heeeeeee … !

[Sound: hacking, retching, the splashing of chunky vomit]

First Male: Outside your window!

Edward (groaning, doubled over in pain): Fuchhthasserbrilighhhh … [Fuck, that’s a bright light.]

First Male (simultaneous): Jesus Christ!

Second Male (simultaneous): Jesus Christ!

Edward: Glorphloorgh, phflorgleblorg … [I’m sorry about the vomit, but this is an emergency.]

Second Male: Bog Hag! Drive!

[Sound: Police vehicle thrown into gear, tires screaming as it speeds away; Second Male’s voice fading with distance as he bellows, What the hell, man, what the holy hell?]

Edward: No!

[Sound: Shambling, squishy footsteps as Edward runs after the police car.
Sirens are blaring, close.]

Edward: Fuck. My car. It’s in the lot at the top of the hill. Wait …

[Sound: squishing footsteps halt. A jingle and a giggle from behind us.]

Edward: … I smell … smoke.

[Sound: Firetruck hurtling down the road toward us, horn blaring, siren howling.]

Edward: Oh shit. I look like the guy who’d set a fire. In a bog. To roast toads.

[Sound: screaming squeal of brakes, footsteps on gravel as Edward leaps to the right. Siren cuts off, window rolls down, a voice speaks from the driver’s seat:]

Weedbeard: Edward. Get in. We don’t have much time —

[Audio cuts off. Battery dead.]

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Seven — Voice Memo IV

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on September 13, 2017 at 12:32 pm

(You, like me, are a geek. Timelines matter: start here.)

Day Seven: Tuesday, 25 July 2017 – Voice Memo IV

[Sound: rusted steel doorknob rattling, stuck.]

Edward: It’s locked. Fuck. Okay, moving along the wall …

Where was I? Pyramid, chanting … right. So I was listening to the chanting, standing up, getting ready to jump out and scare them. Because it would be fun to scare Burton Thomas. I think he’d enjoy it, actually. He’s that kid, at your 8th birthday party, the one who brought a VHS tape of Faces Of Death. Tells your mom it’s a comedy.

Anyway, I’m standing there and a leaf goes up my nose. I snort it out, shake my head, rub my nose.

The chanting stops. Someone says, “What was that?” Sounded like Weedbeard. That would be fucking weird.

[Sound: footsteps on concrete, occasional crunching leaves.]

… Another corner … and … a tree near the wall … and more trees, feels like … Redwood. Growing right against the wall. Listening …

[Sound: wind in the trees, Edward breathing. Forest, night. Nothing else.]

…

…

Okay, I’m waiting here for a minute. These trees make me feel safe. And I need to record this. Phone’s at 8%. So … I was breathing in to jump out at them. The leaf goes up my nose again. I smack the branch away.

It’s solid. Meaty.

It’s an arm. I think it’s Burton, because Burton would stick a leaf up your nose in the dark.

I turn to my right and there’s a face. Bone white. Grinning at me. It says, “Yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhlssssssssss …” Rocking side to side, moving closer. Hands in white gloves. Squeezing my shoulder. Puffy, striped sleeves. I think, I swear I saw … a ruff around its neck? Like, an Elizabethan ruff. Or lace?

[Sound: whispering from the right, then, barely audible, a jingle.]

Okay, moving along. Away from the trees … feels like metal … another door, wait …

[Sound: pulling, turning knob that doesn’t want to move.
Whispering moves closer, jingles are louder.]

Double doors. Also locked. Moving on … the ground is sloping and the wall is curving outward. I’m following …

[Sound: from the right, jinlging and high-pitched giggles.
From the left, overlapping: Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAAaaaaaa … !]

Voice: I am silent when I need;
Sneaky-sneaky, peeky-peeky!
Thickly do you think you’ll bleed?
Reeky-creeky, cockie-leeky!

Edward: What the holy fucknuggets?

[Sound: from the right, jinlging – much closer, overlapped with keening screech laughs.
From the left, louder than before, closer, angry: Ma-MA! Ma- MAAeurghghgllllllphhhmmmmmnnn … !]

Voice: Some are here who should be not!
Interloper! Dolly groper!
I will bite you, like as not …
Filthy roper. Secret doper …

Edward: There are two of them. (A shout, surprised:) Fuck!

[Sound: huge splash, phone submerged; when it comes up, sound is garbled and watery; we hear gasping, coughing and retching.]

Jesus! … Christ, I’m … I’m in … disgusting water. It’s all goopy and full of algae. I’ve got … chunks in my mouth …

[Sound: more coughing, hacking, retching.]

Fuck. Is my phone still working?

Wait … goopy water, curved walls …

[Sound: wet hands smacking concrete, water sloshing.]

I think … I’m at the theatre. In the fountains … that means the parking lot’s …

Voice: I can hear you in the dark.
Secret noser, red-red-roser …
You will not escape this park,
I’m the poser, moving closer …