The Ballet Shoe

Manhattan, New York, December 12th, 1987

Vasily Bershadensky stood by the penthouse window overlooking Central Park, New York  City. Outside a winter storm was brewing, and the sky grew dark with large purple clouds. Down below people moved along the sidewalk while taxis blared their horns, and truck unloaded groceries to high-priced restaurants. Snowflakes, large and heavy, swirled down from the dark grey sky. Soon the sidewalks would be coated white, and all traffic would stop.

Far above on the twenty-second floor, Vasily pressed his forehead to the glass, his hand gripping a report from the private detective. He let the paper fall to the floor.

Now heavy snowflakes mixed with ice streaked the window as the wind whipped between buildings. People below pulled up their collars and hurried on to their destinations. Vasily turned to his bookcase and reached for the old pink ballet slipper with its shredding ribbons that lay upon the shelf with all the awards and plaques he had received in his professional life. He hugged the old shoe to his chest and turned back to the window. Tears came to his eyes as he sank to his knees in sorrow. Outside, the winter storm raged, threatening to bury the city in the next twenty-four hours. He barely noticed.

Across town in Brooklyn, a woman entered St. Jude's Catholic Cathedral, shaking her umbrella and pulling back her wet hood with her free arm. She held a bouquet of roses, now wet and drooping, close to her side.

"Shall I hold those for you?" the priest asked. Without speaking, she handed them over and closed her dripping umbrella. She hung her gray raincoat a hook in the entryway. Then she took back the roses and laid them next to the wall. The priest followed her into the sanctuary. The lights were on because of the winter storm outside. Snow mixed with ice pelted the stained glass windows. Irena glanced up, comparing the snowflakes to the tears on the Madonna. She was close to tears herself.

She heard the priest shuffle behind her. "Confession, my child?"

She considered it. Then, almost in a whisper said, "You've heard it all before, Father. I can't forgive myself."

"God forgives all things, dear. You must only ask. All sins are equal to the Lord."

She smiled weakly at the priest. "I want to light a candle for my son. He's in heaven, you think?"

"Jesus calls all the babes to his loving arms, Irena. Light another candle for the lost one."

Irena looked away. "Only one candle, Father. I have to believe that my son is happy in heaven or I'll go mad. I won't be joining him after all I've done." She turned away to light the one candle. Outside the snow fell in large wet flakes.

The priest listened to the ice hitting the panes. "They say the snow has set in for the next couple of days. It'll make driving dangerous shortly. Will you be visiting the grave after this with those flowers?"

"Green-Wood, Father," She slipped into a pew and knelt. "Pray with me,  Father. It was a day just like this one when he was born. He would have been eighteen today."

She Collected Things

Jack, owner of Smith Auction House, handed them their orders early that Monday morning. Haulers Joe and Sam were just pouring their morning coffee when Jack showed up with his clipboard.

"Just got a call from a man whose old aunt died three weeks ago. The nephew wants you guys to clean out the place, throw away the junk, and bring the good stuff to me to auction off. There's only a couple of things he wanted me to warn you about. There's some complications."

Joe groaned. "I hate it when you say 'complications', Jack. What is it this time? House falling in? A flooded basement? Snakes in the attic?"

Jack sighed. "Well, he didn't mention any of things, although all of them may be true. What he did say was that his two spinster aunts lived in that house for forty years, and they like to collect stuff."

Sam sipped his coffee, frowning. "He means they were hoarders."

Joe nodded. "But what kind of hoarders? The good kind that stashes money under their mattresses and puts silver teapots in the garage? Or the bad kind that collects magazines and alley cats?"

"Let's just say the police had to use dogs to find the body of the aunt in the house. They could smell her but couldn't see her. She's been dead for at least a week."

Sam's eyes went wide. "That's terrible! Going to need masks, gloves, and a very large trash container."

Jack nodded. "Container's been delivered. Call if you need a second one. Now, the nephew had a special request. You have to bring to me the urn on the mantel containing the ashes of his Aunt Louise. He didn't want you to throw it out with the rest of the trash."

Joe nodded. "Okay. We can do that. What were things he wanted you to warn us about then?"

"He said his aunts liked to hide things inside of things. Check the insides of the couch, cabinets, and even the washing machine. They stuck stuff where ever they thought no one would think to look."

Sam smiled. "A treasure hunt, then. That doesn't sound too bad."

Jack put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "He also said the house was infested with mice. They never took the trash out."

Joe crossed his arms. "You should pay us double for this kind of aggravation."

Jack laughed. "I pay you plenty. Well, you're burning daylight. Get going."

Sam and Joe gathered their supplies and drove over to the quiet row of houses on Dogwood Lane. The house was a one story brick rancher with neatly planted rows of flowers in the yard. A large black trash container sat next to the garage.

Joe pulled up to the garage. "Looks normal enough on the outside."

Sam opened his truck door and got out. "They always do. They pay someone to do the yard work while making sure no one steps inside the house. They don't want anyone to know."

Joe pulled out the keys and garage opener. When the garage door finished going up, they saw they couldn't enter the house that way. There was a solid wall of boxes, bags, and newspapers tied together with strings blocking the way.

Sam peered over a stack. "You think there's a car in there? Somewhere?"

Joe shook his head. "No room. Probably didn't drive anyway. Let's try the front door." They walked up to the porch steps to the front door. Joe inserted the key and opened the door.

Immediately the smell of dead mice, cat urine, rotting food, and something they couldn't quite identify assaulted their noses. They pulled out their face masks and covered their noses before going all the way into the entrance hall.

They soon stood in the living room. To the right was a faded yellow couch and two stained chairs which were covered with old newspapers and clothes. Cardboard boxes, paper wrappers, and empty food containers littered the floor. To the left was the peeling white mantle over a fireplace filled with trash. In the far corner Sam could see a large upright mahogany piano.

Joe pulled down his mask. "Fetch the box and bubble wrap. Let's get the urn out safely before we move anything else."

Sam returned with the box and wrap. Joe scooted the blue china urn off the mantel and almost dropped it. As he maneuvered it into the box, he said, "Since when are ashes so darned heavy?"

Joe set it down carefully into the box. The lid was loose and slid off into Sam's hands. Joe looked down into the open urn.

"Have a look, Sam. Those aren't ashes!"

Sam looked, reached his hands in, and pulled out a gold dollar coin. "Nice," he said, holding it up to the light. "It's real all right. Wonder where the aunt's ashes ended up? Coffee pot? Think the nephew knew about the money? Maybe he didn't want to step foot in this filth."

"Probably. Wrap it up good with the bubble wrap, Sam. Lock it up in the front seat of the truck."

Once the urn was put away, they returned to their work of shoveling piles of trash into garbage bags and carrying them to the trash container. Eventually they got to the walnut grandfather clock in the corner by the old T.V. Joe had to pry the clock cabinet open with his pocketknife. He was shocked when packing peanuts spilled out onto the floor. Behind them were bars of gold, stacked long ways.

Sam suggested they steal the bars, but Joe said no. "We'd be the first people they arrest. You can't  just take the bars to the bank and exchange them for cash. There'd be too many questions. Let's just do our job and get this done."

Sam moved to the piano. "A Steinway, Joe!" He ran his fingers over the keys, but was disappointed when they didn't make a sound. He pulled a chair over and stood over the top of the upright, He tried to open the lid, but it was stuck fast. Joe brought him the crowbar, and Sam carefully pried around the lid until he heard the wood crack. The lid flew open, the old hinges screeching. Sam looked inside and motioned for Joe to pull up another chair.

Sam reached inside and pulled out a mice-eaten sheet first. He dropped the filthy mess on the floor. Then he pointed to the brown rug rolled up inside the piano.

"No wonder the keys wouldn't work. There's a rug crammed in over the strings."

Sam tried to pull the rug out, but a corner was wedged tightly. Joe reached in and tugged on the other end of the rug until together they lifted the heavy carpet out. It was tightly rolled and tied with a black cord.

"What do you think is inside, Joe? More good bars? Family jewels? Diamonds?"

They set the rug on the floor and cut the cord with as pocketknife. The carpet still remained rolled up until they forced it apart. Sam held the rug while Joe unrolled it. A smelly purple housecoat and mice-chewed black slippers fell out. Then a skull with a few gray hairs and some long bones rolled out next. They dropped the rug and backed away.

"What the hell?" Sam hollered as they headed for the front door.

After they called the police and Jack, Sam and Joe waited out on the front porch, refusing to go back in. The nephew arrived with the police and identified the housecoat as belonging to his Aunt Louise, the other sister.

"It was all she wore," he explained to the police.

The police asked more questions. "But you thought she died some years back, right? Was there a funeral?"

"No. My Aunt Camille had her sister cremated and put in the urn without any ceremony. All we got was a phone call."

The police examined the skull. "There's a deep dent in the skull. Looks like she was killed by a blow to the head."

Sam and Joe gave the urn filled with gold coins and the gold bars to the nephew while the police wrapped the crime scene tape around the front of the house.

"Why do you think your aunt killed her sister?" Joe asked him. "A fight over the coins? Gold bars?"

"Not at all," he told them. "They were devoted to each other. Aunt Louise had cancer and was dying. Camille couldn't bear the thought of Louise leaving the house. Leaving her. So she collected her sister like everything else. First she put her out of her misery, and then she put her sister in the piano so she would always have her. All she had to do was concoct that cremation story. Easy enough to have an urn delivered. Fooled us completely."

The nephew reached inside the urn and drew out a handful of gold coins. "Take these for your trouble. You can finish the house after the police leave. I still need to sell the place."

As the nephew drove off, Joe and Sam sat down on the porch steps to wait. Sam muttered again, "I hate hoarders."

Sins of Serenity Gardens-Chapter One

"We're lost, aren't we?" she asked him, shining the flashlight on the map. "We should have turned back there where the sign said Haverhill Turnpike. We're on the wrong road, and we're going to end up in Snellville. Just admit it, Sam!"

Sam kept his eyes on the road. "Never. Look, Mary," Sam told her, "It's two in the morning. Do you really want to argue with me? I know these mountain roads a lot better than you because I come up here with the hunt club. I'm telling you we'll be home in forty-five minutes. I know a short cut through Snellville. We need to get down off this mountain and as far as I'm concerned, all roads lead in the general direction of down."

Mary started to remark about men and directions but thought better of it. He was right. It wasn't worth turning around at this hour of the night. They were both tired, and the drive back from Chicago had been a long and tedious twelve hours. It was a good thing they were in love or they would have killed each other by now.

As Sam drove his Honda SUV around the curve, she felt the free sample boxes shift in th back seat. They were returning from the annual Eastern Coast Mortician Conference where they had enjoyed a week of seminars on new technology in the funeral business. Sam had loaded up the car with boxes of free embalming fluids, cosmetics, and arterial washes. He couldn't wait to try them out.

Mary, although also a licensed embalmer, had gravitated more toward the booths demonstrating new ways to advertise the business and promote package deals. She knew from experience that the real money was in selling pre-burial arrangements. The ever present struggle to balance rising expenses against what the client could afford was a juggling act for any funeral home owner.

Mary settled back and pulled her coat tighter around her. "It feels cold enough to snow."

Sam adjusted his knit cap over his bald head. "It should be snowing. It's almost Christmas. What kind of place is this, so close to West Virginia, that there isn't snow on the ground already? Up in Maryland, we always had snow by the end of October."

"It must be that global warming you don't believe in. We used to have big snows. Now days, they say the mountains keep all the bad weather in West Virginia. They can have it, I say. Why is it so light out here in the middle of nowhere? It's after midnight."

"Full moon," Sam answered and then mumbled, "Sure explains your mood."

Mary looked up and suddenly gripped the dashboard. "Watch out, Sam! Just saw eyes on the left!" Sam hit the brakes, and the car swerved back and forth in the road. Mary hung on to her seat as Sam fought the streering wheel. He brought the SUV back to the middle of the road and straightened out. They came to a stop.

"I'm awake now," he announced. "Are you still breathing?"

Mary nodded, looking in her side mirror for a glimpse of what they almost hit. "I'm glad you're driving. I'd have been over the bank in an instant. Oh my God, Sam! It's a man. Not a deer. Back up! Back up!"

Sam shoved the gearshift into reverse and moved the car backwards. Staring into his mirror, Sam saw a man illuminated by the moonlight standing by the side of the road. When they were close, the man staggered out into the road, his hand waving for help.

Sam stopped the car. "What's he doing up here at this hour of the night? We're surrounded by National Forrest. How did he get up here?"

"Maybe his car is down over that bank. Plenty of deer around here. He probably plowed into one."

Mary lowered her window and watched as the man walked right into the side of their car and then slumped to his knees on the cold pavement. He was a tall man, his face obscured by the dark hood of his jacket. He wavered on his knees for a moment, then fell face down on the road.

"Help me," Mary heard the man murmur, the air barely gurgling from his lips. Mary cracked her door, ready to get out, but Sam grabbed her arm.

"You don't know what's going on, Mary. You're too trusting. Let me park the car. I hope we're the only stupid people out here tonight." Sam moved the car to the narrow strip of gravel on the side of the road and turned the engine off. He reached across Mary and pulled out a handgun from the glove compartment.

"Is that really necessary, Sam? He's passed out on the road!"

"I've been shot and stabbed so you can hardly blame me for being suspicious. And this is suspicious. Let's go."

They got out of the car and walked back to the man who had fallen over. Mary shone her flashlight on the unconscious man, lying face down. She crouched down by his side.

"Should we call 911?" Mary asked, looking up.

Sam shook his head. "No cell service up here. It'll be faster if we take him in ourselves. He'll freeze to death if he stays out here. Not really dressed for the weather, is he?"

Mary reached down and felt for a pulse. "Alive. Feverish." She pulled back the man's hood and gasped. "What are all these purple splotches on his face? Bruises? He's hemorrhaging. Maybe he was hit by a car."

The man suddenly moaned and rolled his head. Sam grabbed his arm to help him to his feet. "Get him to the car. We'll have to take him to the hospital. Something very weird about all this, Mary. How could he get hit by a car up here? There's no traffic. No one lives up here but bears. He looks sick. He might have something contagious. Mortician school 101."

Mary grabbed the man's other arm and together they got the man to their car. Sam roughly shoved the few boxes he had on the seat into the back of his SUV. They pulled and pushed the man into the back seat where he immediately collapsed in  ball, moaning in pain.

"Had all your shots?" Sam whispered to Mary.

Mary sighed. "We've seen a lot of terrible things in our business, Sam and we survived them all. I doubt if this is going to be the exception to the rule. I do worry that he's not going to make it, though. Hurry! Onward!"

"Well, we did the best we could do. We're not doctors. Undertakers aren't really trained for this. Call Joey and tell him we're taking a detour. You're going to be late."

They sped off into the cold night, the moon light leading the way. Half way down the mountain, snowflakes began to fall.

Return to Drohrback Hollow, Chapter One

Return to Drohrback Hollow

 

Chapter One

 



 

The loggers arrived at sunrise to begin the day's work. They had a full day of work ahead of them sawing trees, loading logs on the trucks, and burning the brush left over in the pit the bulldozer kept enlarging. With time slipping by, they were behind schedule, and it was May already. Drohrback Hollow was slated to become Sweet Hollow Springs in just a few months, a community of two-story rustic cabins with modern conveniences that appealed to the suburbanites who wanted country living with city luxuries. Half the lots were sold already.

 

The experienced crew of the Bentonville Logging company climbed out of their pickup trucks and huddled together at the supervisor's trailer, hard hats in their hands. They stood around the steps of their temporary headquarters. The boss, Frank Johnson, appeared on the wooden steps with a clipboard in his hands.

 

"What's the word on Jimmy Black?" someone asked.

 

Frank looked away from the clipboard and into the men's concerned faces. "They couldn't save the thumb, but they did re-attach the index finger. He's home, resting."

 

Some of the men mumbled expletives. Sam, the crane operator, shook his head. "That was some freak accident, man. It was like that saw just flew out of his hands and turned on him. He was lucky he didn't lose his whole arm."

"This place is cursed," someone else grumbled loudly.

"No luck here for sure," Sam agreed.

The boss frowned. "Come on now. We've  got to finish this job. I know there have been a lot of accidents on this assignment, but we're loggers. It's dangerous work. That's why you have insurance. Jimmy got all his medical bills paid for. Pay attention to the task. Don't get sloppy, and you'll be just fine. Now, get to work. These trees won't disappear on their own."

The men moved on to their assigned work stations. Frank turned to his assistant John who stood at the door to the trailer. "The men are right, John. This place is cursed. I can feel it. How can you explain Daniel's broken leg when that tree fell on him, Jake's stitches from that stray branch, and Jimmy's saw accident? All these men are veteran loggers. They don't make careless mistakes."

John nodded. "Corporation is asking questions, Frank. OSHA is coming by to insepct the work site next week. What did this place used to be before we started cutting down the trees? There are no sacred burial grounds around here, right?

Frank shrugged. "I've  never heard of any graveyard around here at all. When they did the survey, all they found were some deserted and falling down cabins. No one lives out here anymore. What for? We're just now putting in a road, electricity, and water lines. Sure, I guess there were farmers up in these mountains a long time ago. Appalachian people. But they're all gone now. They've moved on to civilization by  now."

John looked up at the sky. "What's up with the weather here? The forecast says bright and sunny, but it does nothing but rain here."

Frank agreed. "Tell me about it. The rain has put us behind for the last six weeks. It's like black clouds just follow us around. One minute the work is going great, and the next we're standing up to our ankles in mud."

The sun was up now, glowing red and pink through the trees. Around the men's heads bugs buzzed in the growing heat. The boss and his assistant walked down the steps of the trailer and out among the men who were oiling and fueling up their chain saws and heavy machinery. The bulldozer was piling up brush and pushing it toward the fire pit. The crane warmed up, preparing to stack loads of logs on the backs of trucks waiting to leave for the paper mill.

Frank glanced up at two men up on the ridge overlooking the trailer and current work site. They were measuring trunks of trees and marking those big enough to be cut with bright orange tape.

One of the men, Ed, was tying a knot in the tape wrapped around a massive oak tree when his partner Tom yanked on his T-shirt.

"Who's that, Ed?"

Ed looked up to see a strange woman walking out of woods. She was tall with dark tanned skin and long, straight black hair that hung to her waist. Wearing a white peasant blouse and multi-colored skirt that touched her ankles, she walked softly on the grassy floor of the forest on bare feet,

"Hey lady," Ed called out. "This is a work site. You can't be here!"

She slowly turned her head to look at the men at the tree. Reaching for her necklace of white bones, she slipped it over her head and held it up to the sky. As she spoke, large black clouds gathered quickly overhead.

"When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people that you should besiege them?"

Ed felt the hair raise on his neck. The wind rose up suddenly, blowing dead leaves in a spiral pattern around him. "What the hell?" he muttered as he was hammered by forest debris.

Tom's eyes were blank. "Deuteronomy 20:19." Ed shook Tom back to the present.

"How did you know that?" Ed asked him, pulling him away from the woman and toward their truck.

Tom glared back at the woman. "I just do. She put it in my head. Oh God, look at the trailer."

The wind grew stronger, swirling tree limbs, dirt, and gravel around the work site as though a tornado was touching down. Men tried to take cover under the beds of the logging trucks. When the trailer began to lift off its foundation, Ed and Tom took off running in earnest for the safety of their pickup truck parked off in the woods.

One side of the trailer tore away from the cement pad it was resting on with a loud screech and flew into air. Howling, roaring like a runaway train, the wind ripped the rest of the trailer away and rolled it toward the brush pit. The bulldozer driver who was trapped inside his cab watched in horror as the metal trailer came at him, rolling over the ground like a tin can. With the engine still running, the driver gunned the bulldozer and barely got out of the way before the trailer rolled by him and into the pit of brush. Seconds later, the trailer exploded in a ball of flames.

The woman on the ridge lowered her arm and slipped the bone necklace back around her neck. As she walked away, the sun returned, and the wind died down to a cool breeze. The black clouds blew away revealing blue sky. As the men crawled out from under the logging trucks, they brushed the dirt out of their eyes and hair. They walked around the work site, dazed and stunned. Broken chain saws, overturned oil cans, and scattered tools lay scattered over the work site covered in a layer of dark dirt.

Frank pulled out his cell phone and called headquarters, pleading for help.

"What the hell just happened?" John asked Steve who had run from his bulldozer as soon as the wind had stopped.

"Oh Jesus, up on the ridge. Didn't you see her?"

John squinted in the sun and looked up at the ridge where Steve was pointing. "Ed and Tom were up there. What exactly did you see?"

"The witch. She was standing up there chanting something, some verse from the Bible. I could hear her in my head. That's when all hell broke loose."

John stared at the man. "That's not really possible, Steve. You sound like you took a hard knock to the head."

Steve was furious. "Ask everyone else! Ask Ed and Tom. Here they come in their truck. I bet they saw her!"

Ed and Tom and the rest of the crew walked off the job before the hour was over. John and Frank stood alone on the now silent work site, watching the last of the men drive off.

"What do you really think happened here, Frank? Did you hear her in your head like the rest of the men?"

Frank sighed. "I heard this project going down the toilet, that what I heard, John. Don't ever use the word "witch." I can't tell those idiots in Bentonville that the site is cursed. I have to say a tornado came through. We'll wait for more orders from headquarters. They're sending some men out to clean up this mess. They're also transporting a new trailer to the site."

When Frank walked off to answer his phone that was buzzing, John looked again at the ridge overhead. That's when he saw her. She fingered her bone necklace and stared straight at him, her skirt swaying in the breeze. John didn't know why, but suddenly he had the sudden urge to run away and hide. As they locked eyes, he knew there was no where to hide where she wouldn't find him. And kill him. Kill all of them. Frank was right. This place was cursed.





Night of the Unicorn

Note:One night I was driving home in the rain and fog and saw a white creature standing on the bank. I told my husband I saw a unicorn and of course was laughed at. Later I found out there was an albino deer in the area and later saw it in the daylight. The other day I saw something white again the woods and recalled the unicorn theory. Thus a story was born.


The day the doctor told me the treatments weren't working, I wasn't surprised. It was hard to come back from stage four breast cancer. I thanked him for all his help and reconciled myself to finishing my life with dignity. I drove home slowly through the steady rain, wary of the heavy fog that was moving in and covering the road like a blanket.

As I turned into my driveway and glanced over at the woods, something white caught my eyes. I slowed down even more, eventually coming to a full stop. There on the bank stood a white horse with pink eyes that stared into my headlights.

I couldn't be sure of what I was seeing. The fog floated in and out, obscuring the animal. Even so, I could clearly see its white body, legs, and glorious long mane. Then when it lowered its head, I saw a black horn that touched the ground. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. When I looked again, the unicorn was gone, lost in the rain and fog. I was alone again, wondering if my medication was causing me to see things.

The next day I was helping my older sister box up her things for the move to a nice living-assisted facility in town. Ever since her husband had died ten years ago, she'd been living with me. Now that I was dying, she had to find a new home. My children would be selling my house to pay the medical bills. I told her about the creature in the woods.

"White unicorn? Not likely, dear. I do believe you might have seen that albino deer the neighbor was telling us about last year. He said the head and half the body was white, but the back half and legs were brown. Speckled-like. That's probably what you saw, Harriet."

I mulled over her explanation. "I suppose you are right, Jane, and yet it seemed so real. You used to teach folklore at the university. What does it mean to see a unicorn?"

Harriet taped a box shut. "Well, that would depend on which culture you are talking about. Did you know the unicorn is mentioned seven times in the Bible? It was the first animal given a name by Adam. After the fall of man, it  followed Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Its compassion for humans made it white. During medievel times. unicorns were said to show themselves at times of peace and prosperty. They also were seen before the death of a great leader, leading them to a blessed eternity."

I stacked her box with the others by the door. "Then I would prefer to believe I saw a unicorn rather than some flower-eating deer," I told her. I heard her laughing in the living room. She suddenly stopped and called my name. I came back into the living room where she was standing by the large picture window and pointing out into the yard.

I moved to her side and looked outside. Where the yard ended and the trees began, a white creature stood half hidden in the brush. It was tall, resembling a horse. Its head was covered by the leaves of a tree.

"I told you I saw a unicorn," I said to Jane. "What do you see? "

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. What I can see of it looks like a white horse. Maybe it got loose in the woods and people are looking for it right now. We should call someone."

The creature moved away in the woods. I thought I saw a glimpse of a black horn on its head, but didn't mention it to Jane. She wouldn't believe me. Jane went back to her packing. Her daughter was coming that afternoon to pick her up and take her to her new home. I would be left to fight the cancer alone and to the bitter end.

After Jane left and all the good byes were done, I got into my car to drive to the lawyer's office where I had an appointment to sign final papers. I was heading down the driveway when suddenly the car swerved to the right as though I had no control. I screamed as the car charged into a large oak tree, and my head flew into the windshield. When I came to, I was outside the burning car lying in the wet grass. I crawled on my knees to get away from the heat of the car. When I looked up, I saw the unicorn again. It stood over me, its sad eyes gazing into mine. I stood up, my body stiff and painful. I looked back at the car and wondered how I had escaped the burning inferno. It didn't matter now. I felt suddenly free from my earthly worries. I reached out and touched the unicorn. It turned and let me rub the white fur on its back. Immediately all the pain in my body evaporated. The unicorn began walking down the driveway which was bathed in a bright white light. The world seemed to fall away as I walked beside the unicorn into paradise.

Insomnia

Note: This week's prompt is insomnia, a chronic condition I have been struggling with for four years now. The story just came to me (anywhere from 1:30 am to 4:30 when I seem to be up almost every night).

Night One: When the clock struck two am, I finally gave up the struggle to sleep and admitted defeat. I threw back the covers and found my socks on the floor. Then I slipped my bathrobe over my pajamas and got up. I moved around the dark room of my bedroom, stretching out my sore back. I wandered over to the window and pulled back the curtain. Just as the weatherman had predicted, snow flakes were falling fast and furious, covering the sidewalk below my apartment. I glanced across the street where a streetlamp illuminated the white storm and was surprised to see a man standing next to the pole. He was wearing a black leather jacket and matching ball cap. When he turned around, I saw he was smoking a cigarette, the smoke lost in whirls of white snow that floated around him.

I recognized him at once. He was Ned Green, owner and pastry chief at the Morning Sunflower Pastry Shop one block over. We often spoke when I came by everyday to buy muffins for the office.  I wondered why he was standing there at this time of night, all alone, with the snow piling up around his tennis shoes. He had to be cold. For a moment, he lifted his eyes and seemed to look directly at me standing at the dark window. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms and backed away from his glance. I knew he couldn't see me, but I still felt like I needed to hide behind the curtains. Finally, I got tired of watching him stand there and moved to the chair beside my bed. I flicked on the light and reached for my book. Later, when my eyes finally got tired, I decided to try the bed again. After I turned off the light, I returned to the window and discovered that Ned was gone.

The next morning, I walked to the Morning Sunflower Shop to collect my usual muffins and coffee. I was shocked to find the place closed with a note taped to the door saying that there had been a death in the family. They would be closed until after the funeral of Ned Green.

I saw Julie, my favorite waitress, inside the shop so I pounded on the glass. She came and unlocked the door. I could see her eyes were red from crying.

"What happened? I saw Ned standing under a streetlamp late last night in the snow. What was he doing there?"

Julie looked at me, puzzled. "Couldn't have been Ned, Donna. He was in Philadelphia last night visiting his sick mother at the hospital. He was killed this morning on his way home on Highway 63. His car was hit by a tractor trailor."

Again I felt the goosebumps. I went on to work, wondering if I had been hallucinating from the lack of sleep. It couldn't have been Ned. It had to be someone who looked like Ned, waiting for ride, I reasoned.

Night Two: The next night I managed to make it to three o'clock before I found myself staring up at the dark ceiling. I sat up, cursing my life and my body. I had tried all the drugs and nothing would put me under for long. My brain had long ceased to recognize night time. I was sentenced to endless day. While others slept soundly in their beds, I was awake with racing thoughts. Like the night before, I got up and wrapped my bathrobe around me. I moved to the window.

The snow was gone, the cold front now over Maine. It was cool, crisp night with a bright half moon overhead. I glanced at the streetlamp below and was surprised to see a woman leaning against the pole. She was dressed in a long black trenchcoat and brown boots, her purse dangling from her arm. I knew her immediately. It was Jean from the office. She worked in the cubicle next to mine and lived across town. She looked at me standing in the window, and I shivered from the imaginary cold.

I shook my head to clear it. Was I asleep or awake? She couldn't be there. It made no sense. I reached up to unlock my window, but the clasp was stuck tight. I went to the kitchen to find my hammer, but when I got back, she was gone. I never went back to sleep.

The next day when I got to work, I went first to Jean's desk. She hadn't arrived yet. Hours went by, and I kept checking but she never showed up. Finally, the supervisor came, called us together, and told us Jean had died in apartment fire that morning. I dropped my coffee cup, shattering it into a million pieces. Everyone looked at me as I jabbered on about seeing her last night outside my apartment.

"You do know how strange that sounds, Donna, don't you?" the supervisor said. "You must have dreamed it."

I wanted to tell him I didn't dream because I never slept. Instead, I went back to my desk and took an aspirin.

Night Three: I sat straight up in bed at twelve midnight. A whole three hours had passed since I turned out the light so I was disappointed when I looked at the clock. I had an overwhlming urge to throw it against the wall.

Eventually, I got up and went to the window, fearing the worst. It was another dry, but cold February night. Clouds blocked the moon. The wind whipped dead leaves and loose paper wrappers around the light pole across the street. I was relieved to see that no one stood there. A car drove by, and I watched  its taillights disappear down the road.

Out of the shadow of the alley walked my neighbor one floor down, John Bingham and his wife. They were dressed in their pajamas, his wife pulling their four-year-old son Sammy who was barefoot along the pavement. They stopped at the streetlamp and stared up at me at the curtain. Sam had a teddy bear in his arms.

I wanted to scream. This couldn't be happening again. No more death! I raced to find my apartment keys and flew out the door. I ran down the steps and pounded on Apt. 4B with my fists. No one came to the door, but I continued to beat on the door and yell their names. An old woman opened the door down the hall and threatened to call the police.

"Please do!" I hollared back. "Something is wrong.  Call 911!"

When the police arrived, they pulled me away from the door. One of the officers forced the door open,  and we all smelled gas. While I and the other tenants were shuffled outdoors into the cold to await the firetrucks, the police carried out the unconscious Bingham family one by one. I craddled little Sammy in my arms, trying to keep him warm.

"You saved them," the officer told me. "They would have died. How did you know the stove was leaking gas?'

I couldn't explain it without them thinking I was crazy. "Maybe I smelled the gas in my sleep."

The next day I returned to my apartment after work. The gas leak had been fixed, and the tenants cleared to return. Neighbors told me the Binghams were recovering in hospital and would be alright. I turned in after watching the ten o'clock news  and lay once again in my bed wondering who would be standing under the streetlamp tonight. But I never looked. Instead, I rolled over and slept the sleep of the dead.

The Blue Sky

Note: This is an example of prompt writing. I am using "Is the sky really blue?" that a fellow at a diner asked my husband and a Lowe's commercial where he said "All you need is a hacksaw." The background for the story is a previous story I wrote called "The Story of Jimmy Evans" which is on my web site and was the result of finding a whole saw laying on the sidewalk in NYC and finding a soccer ball in the grass of the Irish Famine Memorial. Crazy, yes, I know. Impossible? Not at all.

The Blue Sky

After three hours of talking, serial killer and death row inmate Jimmy Evans took a break. I looked up from my notes that would finally finish my doctorate degree in violence and trauma at NYU and saw Jimmy stretching his arms as far as his shackles would allow. He was surprisely upbeat for a man facing execution soon. Jimmy showed no signs of stress, joking with the prison guard and laughing at my attempts to make my recorder work. He was only twenty-nine and should have been working a job and starting a family like regular folks. Instead, he was locked up and charged with thirty-two murders. That was the official count anyway. He'd already confessed to me that he had begun his serial killing career by hacking up his soccer coach and staging a fatal accident for his mother. That would bring the number to thirty-four. I saw book possibilities.

"Anything else you want to tell me before we wrap up for the day, Jimmy?" I asked him while he finished his Coke. He took some time to answer, savoring the treat, and then set the can down.

"Nah, I'm good. Say, is the sky still blue?"

I frowned, puzzled. Jimmy was nothing, if not cryptic. "It was when I got here? Why?"

Jimmy leaned forward, his chains rattling. "Write this down. 1435 McCarthy Street East, Brooklyn. My old childhood home. I hear the bank put it up for sale since I stopped making the payments. You should have a look at my old haunt. It would make a great picture for this book you mentioned. Give you some insight."

"Sure Jimmy," I told him, still thinking about the blue sky comment. "What kind of insight would I be looking for in an empty house?"

He laughed, then motioned the guard he was ready to leave. As he shuffled to the door, he turned and looked back at me gathering my notes.

"You'll know it when you see it."

The next morning I arranged to meet the realtor at Jimmy's house and took a cab to Brooklyn. The old brick townhouse was in a nice neighborhood with trees lining the sidewalk. A large "For Sale" sign hung on the stair railing near the front door. Jean, the realtor, was busy adjusting the sign when I walked up.

We shook hands, chatted a minute, and then proceeded into the house. I snapped pictures as we went through the hall. She pointed out we were not alone in the house. Painters were slapping a coat of yellow paint in living room while plumbers were replacing the rusted pipes and leaky water heater in the basement. One of the plumbers, a hacksaw in his hand, greeted us at the basement door.

"We're going to have to rip off the sheetrock to get to the pipes. You okay with that?"

Jean nodded. "Do what you have to do. We got to have water. All that damp, moldy sheetrock has got to come out anyway. Do you need more tools for that?"

The plumber held up his hacksaw. "All you need is a hacksaw. That's my philosopy of life. For everything else, my partner carries a crowbar." He disappeared down the basement steps.

Jean had some calls to make so I wandered around on my own, checking out the kitchen and eventually climbing the steps to the second floor. I was standing there in the hallway guessing which room was Jimmy's when I heard a commotion downstairs. I ran down to investigate. Both plumbers were pointing to the basement and asking Jean to follow them. I went too, my camera ready.

There, in the corner by the rusted water heater, I saw an exposed section of the basement wall where the sheetrock had been pulled off. The plumber was showing Jean a small wooden door where the sheetrock had been.

"What in the world?" Jean peered in the hole with the plumber's flashlight. "A door to a crawlspace, perhaps?"

The plumber inserted his hacksaw blade between the door and the wall to break the seal. The door popped open, and a skeleton arm fell out, dangling down the wall. Jean screamed, then fainted into the plumber's arms.

I dialed 911 and shortly the police arrived. I flashed my ID to the detective who already knew from the police chief of my research on Jimmy Evans. I was allowed to stay while the police conducted their investigation.

I watched as the skeleton was carefully removed from its earthy crypt. It soon became evident that the head was missing.

"Jimmy's trademark. He always removed the head to slow down the identification process," I explained to the detective.

"And where do you think we might find it? Did he have a special place he liked to put them?"

I shook my head. "Not really. Public parks mostly. This is an old killing, probably one of Jimmy's first. Yesterday, he asked me if the sky was blue and asked me to come here for insight. He wanted us to find this body. I just have to put it all together."

The detective had the policemen tear out the rest of the basement wall and sent a man into the crawlspace to check for more body parts. They came up empty. I went back upstairs where Jean was pacing the floor.

"Is there an attic?" I asked her. She nodded and led me upstairs.

"This was the children's room," she told me. A ladder sat in the closet which she climbed to reach a ceiling panel. She shoved the panel aside to reveal a dark opening. "There's no light."

She came down and I went up, sticking my head through the opening. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was able to see light coming from the attic vent. I could also a skull next to the vent, it's eyeless sockets turned to look out toward the blue sky.

When I saw Jimmy again the next day, I told him about the skeleton the plumbers had found at his childhood home. He didn't seem surprised, and at first wouldn't offer any information. He was waiting for me to figure it out.

I hoped I had. "I know of only one person in your life that is still unaccounted for and that would be your long lost father who abandoned you and your mother when you were a child. What really happened, Jimmy? When did your father come back?"

Jimmy sat down at the table and straightened his orange prison suit. "You got me, John. I knew you'd figure it out. My father showed up right after my mother died. He wanted the house and my mother's bank account. I let him in the door, but I never let him out. No one came looking for him, either. A little sheetrock, and the problem was solved."

"And that crack about the blue sky?"

"Well." Jimmy flashed me that evil smile. "The head wouldn't fit so I put it up in the attic. Used a hacksaw. He never wanted to see me in life, so I figured he could spend eternity staring outside at the blue sky."

With that, Jimmy leaned back in his chair and was silent. It was the last thing he ever said before he was executed ten days later.