ajwardens

[ajwardens]

Two Beds

The detective clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. The house reeked of blood, the scent thick and metallic, clinging to the back of his throat like rusted iron. His stomach churned as he passed the two beds.

They sat side by side, their blankets peeled back, frozen in the act of waking. The sheets, rumpled but not tangled, still bore the faintest imprints of their last occupants. A stuffed bear slumped against a pillow, its fur worn thin at the neck where a child’s hand had once held tight. The open window let in the summer breeze, stirring the sheer curtains. The fabric billowed, whispering against the sill, the only thing left with the luxury of movement.

The detective followed the breeze and stepped out onto the awning. He struck a match, the sulfur bite sharp in the thick air. A cigarette perched between his lips. It caught the flame, paper curling, embers flaring before settling into a slow burn. Smoke curled around him, coiling in the dry heat. The stone wall at his back pulsed with the day’s stored warmth, seeping through his shirt. It did nothing to settle the itch beneath his skin.

Delphine twisted her wedding ring, rolling it up to the knuckle and back again. The gold had lost its shine, dulled by time, by sweat, by the dried blood wedged deep into its grooves. Her fingers trembled, as though the movement had become habit rather than thought. She rocked forward, the plastic chair creaking, then back again, her gaze fixed on the space just beyond the awning. The wind shifted, pulling silver strands of hair across her hollowed face.

The detective exhaled. The smoke unravel between them. “Mrs. Suthers, tell me what happened.” His voice came steady, practiced, the same way he had asked a hundred other widows, orphans, ghosts-in-the-making.

He pulled his notebook from his coat, the leather cracked, its pages soft at the edges from years of ink and grief. He flipped to the last empty page, the white paper untouched, waiting.

Delphine didn’t look at him. Her fingers still played at the ring, twisting, twisting, pressing it into the ridges of her skin. “A man was there,” she said. Her voice was brittle as if it had been dried out by the sun. “And then he wasn’t. It was as if a phantom had entered the house.”

Her words hung in the air, weightless. The wind shifted dust along the patio, carrying the distant scent of saltwater. She shook her head, a slow, tired motion. Her eyes were empty-the light in them had dimmed a long time ago, according to the testimonies the detective had gathered. A ghost would have looked more alive.

“There was someone else in the house?” The detective tapped the ash from his cigarette. The embers spiraled down to the concrete, racing to see who would stain the ground first. “Why would he leave you alive?”

Delphine’s hands stilled. The ring sat crooked on her bony finger, catching the light like a dull coin at the bottom of a fountain long since drained. She inhaled through her nose, sharp and slow, before her lips parted.

“What are you saying?” Her voice wavered, thin as old paper. “I didn’t kill my family.”

“I said nothing of the sort, Mrs. Suthers.” The detective said.

Her shoulders curled inward, the slightest flinch at the sound of her last name.

He had done this dance before—too many times to count. The cigarette burned low between his fingers, the heat licking close to his skin. “How did this ‘phantom’ get inside?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know.”

His patience stretched thin, pulling like an old wire ready to snap. He needed a break, needed to step away, to experience something other than the press of heat and the weight of dead things that clung to his skin. The ocean called to him—the hush of waves, the pull of the tide, the promise that saltwater could scrub away the years spent walking hand in hand with Death. Innocence was already too far gone, buried under ink, blood, and the cold certainty that he would never outrun the ghosts that followed.

"Why should I tell you?" Delphine's voice was small, a thread unraveling. "You’re already convinced I did it."

"That remains to be seen." The detective inhaled, slow, measured, letting the smoke settle in his lungs before exhaling through his nose. "Please, for their sake, tell me what happened,” he said. "Why would this man kill everyone else and not you? I need to know what you saw."

Delphine lifted her hand, the movement stiff and mechanical. The ring slid from her finger, leaving behind a pale band of skin, untouched by sun, unmarked by time. She stared at it—just for a moment, just long enough for the weight of it to settle in her palm—before shoving it back onto her bony finger with a flinch.

"Okay," she said.

The detective’s pen hovered over the paper, catching the rhythm of her speech, the hesitations, the practiced cadence of a story told too carefully. A fight. Raised voices. The sharp crack of a door bursting open. A bang—loud, final, echoing through the walls. Then… red. So much red. Nothing but red, and silence, thick and swallowing, like the house itself had exhaled its last breath.

The detective had heard this story before, told in different voices, wrapped in different dialects, but always the same at its bones. The ghosts of past victims crowded close, their laughter dry as their cold fingers traced the ink as he wrote. Murderer. The word sat crooked on the page, the letters uneasy, slipping into the margins as if trying to escape his pen. He had written it a thousand times, yet it never settled right beneath his hand.

The facts twisted in his gut, coiling tight. Mr. Suthers had it coming—that much was clear. A thesaurus could break trying to find enough words for the man’s cruelty. But the children? No. That was the jagged edge he couldn’t smooth down. His fist curled against his thigh, the itch in his skin flaring. A mother’s instinct was to shield, to shelter, to fight until there was nothing left of her but bones and willpower. Yet here she sat, hands stained but whole, her body unbroken, her story too neat at the edges.

She was lying.

“Why the boys?”

“They had his eyes,” she said.

The detective pushed himself away from the wall. He stepped into the bedroom, the air inside still and thick, clinging to his skin like dust. The walls stretched bare, their surfaces too smooth, too uniform—no faded outlines where posters once clung, no stubborn smudges of marker or crayon near the baseboards. The room held no echoes, no lingering touch of the boys who had slept there. No trace of them at all.

The carpet, however, had not forgotten. Small footprints pressed into the fibers, their shapes deep, unmoving, caught mid-step. They led nowhere. No scattered toys littered the floor, no toppled bookshelves spoke of lives interrupted—only the quiet indentations, the weight of movement that had not been allowed to finish. In the corner, a pile of clothes lay twisted in itself, sleeves turned inside out, pant legs tangled, abandoned in a hurry.

The detective let out a slow breath, his fingers tightening around the worn leather of his notebook. The final page stared up at him. He tore it free, the rip loud in the hush of the empty room.

[ajwardens]

Death of the Dragonflies, Story Snippet

Fallon crouched low, her muscles coiled like springs, ready to bolt. Nestled in the tangled arms of the lilac bush, where bright, downy leaves fluttered in a dance, she eyed the makeshift starting line she had carved into the grass. The breeze whispered secrets, warm and thick, carrying hints of crushed grass and sunbaked earth. Clouds waltzed across the sky’s endless blue, as if drawn by an unseen hand. On her signal, the race of their lives would start.

A group of children gathered around Fallon. Their breaths held tight, and bodies coiled with a shared anticipation that hummed in the roots beneath them. Adults on the sidewalk murmured to themselves. Their disapproving tones clear indicators of their loss of joy and mischief.

The hill sloped before them, green and wild, sweeping down toward the group home’s backyard—a slope both untamed and inviting, daring them to test its heights and race its steep descent. For Fallon, the hill was a path woven with possibility, alive with the thrill of the chase that lay waiting just beyond the brush.

“Do you see Hank?” Fallon asked over her shoulder.

Half-hidden by the bush, Henry leaned forward, his tall, wiry frame catching the slant of afternoon light. He stood still, but there was a quiet readiness in the line of his shoulders, the kind of focus that made him appear a part of the landscape—he was alert, waiting for something just beyond the edge of sight.

His thumbs were tucked into his pockets, hands steady, relaxed—a contrast to the hungry look in his face, where sharp cheekbones cut the soft breeze. A tousled mop of dark hair fell over his brow, hiding the blue eyes that tracked every shift on the hill, sharp as flint.

Henry’s lips curved, a faint, crooked smile that flickered like a shadow in sunlight.

“I don’t see him,” he said, words rolling out low and quiet, no more than a breath. The smile lingered in his eyes for a heartbeat, then vanished like the flick of a barn mouse’s tail disappearing into the hay.

Fallon turned to the sea of bright eyes and restless limbs; a dozen little sparks held in place by thin string. “Alright, you know the rules,” Fallon said. “Fast and quick. Don’t let Hank catch you. First one down the hill, dry as a bone, wins.”

A thrill rippled through the group, spreading like lightning in a summer storm. Tiny hands gripped fists of grass, feet shuffled, and muffled giggles escaped like bubbles rising from a hidden spring.

The hillside hummed in answer, buzzing with their anticipation, each child a live wire, breath held, ready to release the energy coiled in their small, eager frames.

“On your mark,” Fallon whispered, knees hovering just above the earth. Her weight shifted to the edge of her toes, coiled and ready. Her fingers splayed, pressing deep into the cool dampness of soil, nails scraping the dirt, seeking a grip on something steady.

“Get set.”

Henry crouched low, muscles taut, tension coiled like a spring about to release. He pulled his hands from his pockets, expanding his fingers on the concrete sidewalk. His eyes locked forward, unwavering, tracing the path down the hill with a focus sharpened by silence.

A spark flared deep in her chest, fanning into a fierce thrill—a drive not just to win, but to give the kids a race that would burst open the quiet spaces of their small-town lives. She wanted them to feel it, that reckless, wild freedom that pulsed in her veins.

In a town like Stone Brook, excitement didn’t come served up but had to be dug out of dusty corners and hidden places. This was the sort of race they’d talk about later, voices breathless, eyes wide, reliving each heartbeat as if it were happening all over again.

The distant green door, chipped and faded, filled her sight—every scratch and flake of paint pulled her closer, the world narrowing until only the door remained—a singular, unwavering goal. Fallon’s muscles tightened, every part of her aligned toward that weathered frame at the end of the hill.

In the space between safety and recklessness, nothing else existed—not the laughter behind, nor the hum of leaves, just the door, steady and inviting, waiting for the burst of movement that would bridge the space between them.

“Go!”

[ajwardens]

Run

The earth squelched under her feet, damp and alive, clinging to her skin with every step. A chorus of cicadas rolled over her, pulsing through her chest in waves that matched the rhythm of her heartbeat. Twigs crack beneath her heel. The sound shot through the air as they split in two, swallowed by the symphony of the forest.

A cool breeze coiled around her legs, slid up her arms, and spilled over the back of her neck. It carried the bite of bruised ferns that mingled with the sweetness of wildflowers. They  poured their fragrances into the dark with no care whose nose they assaulted.

Bark, rough and jagged,  pulled at her clothes and dug into her skin. Rain pooled in its groove and left trails of time against her palms. Sticky sap clung to the tree like a memory. Its resinous smell cutting through the floral haze. The tree creaked low, straining against the wind, branches rattling like old bones.

Water dripped nearby. The sound rippled outward, each drop splashed into the symphony of the night until it became one with the soft rustle of leaves and the faint scuttle of small critters moving through the underbrush. Moss cushioned her fingers as she crouched, yielding before the unrelenting hardness of the stone beneath. The ground breathed a low hum that carried the tiny skitter of ants navigating the stones and the ripple of worms pressing through the dirt.

Under it all lingered the faint breath of rot—the long dead plants and animals the forest refused to let go of. It pressed into her, a stench that demanded her attention. The splatter of blood on the ground reminded her that Death was patient, waiting on the quiet edges of the world. Her breath caught. Fear sank it’s icy claws into her heart.

She couldn’t out run him forever.