#but i did the grownup thing and outlined the Pain and now i want to write my way out of it

[swashbucklery]

Broke 10k on this sweet fun little Buffy AU because of course I did.

[sympathyfortheblinderdevil]

All Is Fair: Ch. 17 Buying Forgiveness

Tommy has been a shithead, so he tries to buy Lia's forgiveness. Little does he know, she would have totally forgiven him anyway. In the time leading up to Christmas, Lia forms a bond with Charlie and encourages Tommy to do the same.

Tommy was a half-drunk, half-delirious mess. His shambolic footsteps dragged on the stairway, pitching him forward as Lia struggled to keep him from falling. For the previous hour, he’d been whispering what she could only categorize as confession into her hair; at least, that’s what she thought it was, for she could understand very little of it. She had finally convinced him to go back to bed, which led to her current predicament. She wedged her shoulder underneath his arm and coaxed him, “I’ve got you, Tommy, but you have to help me,” and they haltingly made their way to her bedroom.

When they reached their destination, she paused at the door to switch on the light, and in a moment of lucidity, he suddenly rasped, “Don’t... No lights.” He was raw enough to feel shame and to want to hide his face from her.

Once he was on the bed, she helped him out of his jacket, her arm grazing the cold steel of his pistol as she did so. She flinched, then turned her back to drape the heavy garment over the chair. Did Tommy shoot back, or did he just run for cover? she wondered. She stood there trying to collect herself, breathing in and out, pushing those thoughts down. For a fleeting moment, she thought to walk away… just go out into the warm brightness of the hallway and down the stairs to her parlor... leave him to deal with undressing himself, and let him sleep it off. But, just behind her, she heard his shaky breaths and his fumbling hands struggling with leather straps. A rush of almost maternal warmth enveloped her, compelled her to stay, and reminded her that for all his faults she was hopelessly in love with him. When she turned to face him, his glassy eyes apologetically searched for hers as she undid his gun holster. Once freed, his arms went around her. He pressed his face into her belly and he mumbled, “Stay with me, Lia. Don’t leave me.”

Moonlight shone through the window in a muted sliver of luminescence and played off of the silver strands that hid in Tommy’s hair. She brushed it away from his forehead and promised, “I won’t leave you, baby. I won’t ever leave you.”

He was high. The vulnerability he showed her tonight would vanish in the morning, but Lia couldn’t help hoping that Tommy would reveal some small bit of his pain to her once in a while. She couldn’t pretend to understand the brutality and the coldness that overcame him, and the precision with which he could compartmentalize that part of his life. How could he put all of the horrors to one side and just get on with things? But if he could show her that on some level it bothered him, that he had still had a soul to save, she could try to be what he needed.

When she had him stripped down to his undershirt and drawers, she shrugged out of her dress, climbed in beside him, and sank into a deep dreamless sleep.

***

In the days that followed the shooting Tommy and Lia didn’t discuss what had happened. It had been kept out of the papers, so no one outside of Tommy’s immediate circle even knew about the killings or Tommy’s injury. For her part, she was apprehensive about reliving the shock of what had happened to Rodney and the realization that Tommy was much more flawed than she had previously let herself believe. Jenny had tried to tell her about the violence and criminality that were as much a part of him as his pale blue eyes, but until she was faced with the aftermath of the attack and the subsequent murder of the attackers, she hadn’t wanted to believe her.

The Tommy that she fell for was a devilishly charming, handsome man. He told her that he did bad things, but he had an art collection and country estate for God’s sake! She had naively believed him when he said that people didn’t come after him anymore even though it contradicted all evidence. She had never known anyone who needed to carry a gun everywhere, but she had never known a member of Parliament. Maybe all MPs carried guns, she had reasoned. Every warning and every red-flag sailed right past her because she was mesmerized by the warm smell of his skin, the velvet at the nape of his neck, the soft words he breathed into her ear when they were alone.

The little trip to Watery Lane with Polly reminded her that he came from hard beginnings, but it took watching Charlie Strong stitch up a gash from an enemy’s bullet to drive the point home: Once a gangster, always a gangster. Maybe that was what Polly was trying to make her see all along. When she thought back to the way he reacted when she confronted him about Rodney she felt dread. He changed into someone else before her eyes. Polly’s words echoed in her memory, He did have a big heart. Did. Past tense. But then, he was so tender with her afterward. She made herself believe that there was hope for him after all, that Tommy was the paradoxical hard man with a heart. He was ruthless on his climb to the top and would always have a target on his back, so yes, he had to be hard. It was so much an ingrained part of Tommy’s life that he simply accepted it and moved on. She wanted to be like Tommy, and accept it, too.

Consequently, they fell into a comfortable pattern of denial. Nearly every day after it happened, she received a delivery of one kind or another—Flowers one day, a basket of exotic fruits the next, a box of wine and cheese from Harrods, a box of chocolates imported from Switzerland, it went on and on. On the nights he came to stay with her he brought antique volumes of poetry (obviously Ada’s idea) and a diamond bracelet to match the necklace he had already given her. She wanted so much to tell him that he didn’t need to buy her forgiveness, but pointing that out would only draw attention to the subject they were trying to avoid. Instead, she shared her fruits and chocolates with the girls at the library and drew jealous gasps from them as she told about the first edition Shelley that Tommy had given her.

As the holiday season drew closer, Lia finished working out her notice at the Birmingham branch of the library in preparation for her transfer to London. Naturally, she began to spend more time at Arrow House. Charlie was finished with lessons, so he and Lia fell into a pattern of riding, playing games, and baking cookies. At first Tommy had reservations about the growing boy hanging around the kitchen, but then Arthur reminded him of all the winter afternoons that John spent at Polly’s elbow making the Christmas treats. Ultimately, Tommy felt that while he was at work it was nice that someone besides a maid was with Charlie.

He especially enjoyed the greeting he received at the end of a long day. It was often dark when he finally pulled around the fountain and came through the door. Charlie and Lia could hear his car’s approach down the long driveway and had displaced Frances as the ones to meet him at the door. Lia would kiss his cheek and take his coat and hat while Charlie plied him with samples of their latest confections. Dinner at Arrow House was different, as well. Except for the nights that Tommy would be egregiously late, Charlie joined the grownups for dinner. Etiquette and decorum in great houses dictated that children were fed separate from the adults, and Tommy had been too busy to even question it. Lia, however, thought it was strange. She had grown up with family around the dinner table together, and she reckoned that Tommy had as well. Tommy was distant from Charlie in many ways, and she sought to remedy that where she could; having nightly dinner together was a step in the right direction.

One night after dinner, the three of them went into the sitting room for Charlie to play a while before bed. He had spent half of the afternoon setting up a racetrack, complete with pebbles marking the outline of the oval, toy horses on their marks, and toy soldiers crowded around as spectators. Tommy had one arm draped loosely around Lia’s shoulder as he chuckled lowly at the voices Charlie did for the announcers and the people in the crowd. They sipped their whiskeys and whispered their bets to each other.

“I think the black one will win by at least a length,” said Lia.

Tommy leaned closer until his nose grazed her ear. “I think it’ll be the bay. What would you like to wager, Miss?”

She looked up at the ceiling and pretended to think before replying, “How about three kisses?”

Charlie stopped galloping his horses and crowed, “Yuck, I can hear you two, you know.”

“You won’t always think it’s yucky, my boy. Now, run the race so we can see if Lia or your old dad has won.”

When Charlie was once again engrossed in the intricacies of the Derby, Tommy crossed the room to refill his whiskey. He motioned to Lia with the decanter and she joined him for a refill. They were just out of Charlie’s immediate line of sight, so he slipped his arms around her. She relaxed into his embrace and sighed, “This is lovely, but we’ll miss the end of the race.”

“I know what you are doing,” he said. His voice had taken on a more serious tone.

She put her hands on his chest and looked up. “What do you mean?”

“The dinners, the cookies at the door every afternoon, all of it,” he took a final drag from his cigarette and held her gaze as he placed the end in a nearby ashtray. “You are trying to have me spend more time with Charlie.”

“Charlie is a precious boy, and he loves you more than anything, Tommy. No matter what you may think, you deserve his love.”

Tommy stared at her in silence, stunned that she had read him so easily. She was innocent, guileless, and had no ulterior motive for what she said. She only wanted him to have a relationship with his son. The revelation both warmed him and filled him with uneasiness. He had let his mask slip in front of her, and she had seen the guilt and self-loathing that he hid from the world.

He silently blinked at her. When at a loss for how to react, his default was always to stall with a blank expression, a cigarette, and a glass of whiskey. He had stepped back from her and begun rummaging through his pockets for another smoke when Charlie’s high pitched voice called, “They’re in the final stretch!”

She turned to face the boy and his track, and as she did she caught sight of Grace’s photograph. He was far too young to remember the loss of his mother, but he knew the sting of growing up with a father who was absent due to an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear. Lia often reflected that Charlie seemed remarkably well adjusted for a child who had been through so much. She put it down to Ada and the staff, who honestly spent much more time with him than Tommy did. Then and there, she resolved to convince Tommy to have the boy stay in London with them. She couldn’t imagine being separated from him if they could help it.

***

“One of my boys should take you to your parents. I don’t like you taking the train on your own,” Tommy grumbled as his eyes shifted around and noted every shadow of the train station.

Both statements alluded to the very topic they’d been avoiding for a month—one of Tommy’s drivers being shot, and his lingering nervousness about the possibility that danger was still lurking about. Tommy hadn’t minded the train journey before, because Jenny was taking the trip with Lia. At the last minute, though, Jenny decided to stay in town an extra day with her new boyfriend, a Birmingham police detective.

“I’ll be fine. It’s just a couple of hours. Besides, I need a chance to explain to my parents about us. I can’t just swan into the village in the backseat of a chauffeured Bugatti. It’ll give my poor dad a heart attack,” she laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

Tommy cut his eyes at her. “I thought you said you had told them about me already.”

“They know I’m seeing you, but they don’t know how serious we have become. They definitely don’t know about London. I need time to ease them into the idea of me moving to the city with you.” She didn’t say without a ring on my finger, but it hung in the air, nonetheless.

She didn’t want their last moments before the holiday to be anything less than perfect. She wanted the Hollywood movie sendoff, complete with passionate kisses on the train platform, but she would settle for a respectable kiss and less of his moodiness. She cocked an eyebrow and turned her face up to his. He licked his lips and leaned in to oblige her. She blushed up to the roots of her hair when she thought about everywhere his lips had been just a few hours before.

They had spent the night before “saying goodbye” until well after midnight. Tommy (or his secretary) had really outdone himself. They started with an extra-long supper with Charlie. He had become quite attached to Lia and wanted a chance to say goodbye before her trip home. After Charlie went up to bed, Tommy took Lia upstairs where all her things for her trip were packed into Louis Vuitton cases.

Lia gasped, “Oh, Tommy! It’s too much!” She ran her fingertips over the leather and along the brass closures and groaned with pleasure, “Its only a three-day trip.”

He approached her from behind and nuzzled her ear, “Consider it an early Christmas gift. The rest of it is at your house.”

“The rest of it!” She shouted through bubbly laughter, spinning around and grasping Tommy’s face. He was smiling broadly and loudly kissed her.

“You’ll need it when we go to London. So you see, my girl, it’s actually a very practical gift.”

“Wool stockings are a practical gift. This cost more than the house where I was raised.”

He caressed her shoulders and his face took on a more serious expression. “Get used to it, love.”

Lia leaned into him as his hands slid from her arms to her back. He traced down and back up her spine, stopping at the top button of her dress. With achingly slow hands he undid each button while Lia pressed herself closer to his body. Maybe it was the after-dinner whiskey that had made her so giddy before, but now her head was dizzy with want and she found it hard to catch her breath.

After he slid her dress off of her shoulders he grasped her chin between his index finger and thumb and pulled her face up to his. He took in her drowsy expression, and with his eyes wide he gruffly whispered, “Lia, eh? Look at me.”

She fluttered her lashes and complied.

Tommy ground into her until she could feel the blood pulsing through his veins. “I want you to get used to having the best of everything, Lia. You are with me now, and London is on a whole other level than Birmingham. You’re a smart girl, but in London, I’ll need you to be sharp. Can you do that?”

He still had her chin in his hand, but she nodded as best as she could. She had barely breathed out, “Yes, Tommy,” before he had taken her mouth with his own. He spent the rest of the night taking everything else she could give him.

He was thinking of the same thing when he reached into his pocket for his watch. It was time. “Call me when you arrive,” he insisted as he looked her up and down. Even though she would only be gone for a few days, he wanted to remember every detail: the soft waves of her hair, the freckles on her nose, the sad smile on her deep red lips. Standing on that platform watching her go, he began to realize that he wanted her to stay. In the sober light of day, he wanted her to stay, and that worried him.

Hell yeah, I have a Masterlist!

[maid-kitten-blog]

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[missterfear13]

Snippets of “Puppets”

Believe me, this current original story of mine is not dead. It’s being slowly written. Now, in the eleventh chapter (yet to be finished), there are some very intense happenings so crazy, that I just can’t wait to show people. 

I will give a snippet of what happened in chapter 10 so that you, the reader, will understand the second snippet from chapter 11. 

I will warn you, this will contain some very graphic situations (with absolutely no sexual content). It’s meant to also trick and confuse you with what’s reality, a dream, a memory, or simply another world conjoining to ours. 

I give you an un-revised look of what’s yet to come in Puppets.

****

Terra Mark was quite unnerved, but unusually calm the day her close friend returned to school. She felt that this shouldn't have been a surprise to her. After all, she knew of such horrific things before. She's experienced them before. During lunch that day, Terra kept her dry lips pressed shut as she ever so lightly tapped her unopened applesauce cup with her white plastic spoon in deep thought. These thoughts swallowed her vision of the present whole, for she witnessed different things. Her thought process rewound her back to when she mingled with that demonic puppet at Nately's house. She was pulled back further to when she was practically ditched by Josh, when she stood there in the middle of the street on her bike. Ah, yes, the cat.         That twisted, mangled black cat that appeared behind her as she stood parked there in the middle of the street.          (Has it come for me?)         The way it hissed at her.          That sour, gut-wrenching presence was all too familiar for Terra Mark.         Those eyes. She absolutely recognized them. Spiders.         "This way! I think the lake is back here," Spencer exclaimed, one of Terra's older cousins. It was Easter. It was horribly wet outside. Terra's family got together at her uncle's place that day. Everyone dressed their best, including the very young Terra (who hated that baby pink dress and white tennis shoes that sunk into the mud and got her cotton socks wet).         She loved her cousins, especially the three (Spencer, Connor, and Nicky) that she chose to follow into Scar Woods that day. Being the youngest, Terra always wanted to be apart of the big kids and go with them to do cool things. She thought of them as grownups, anyhow. On that particular day, her older cousins decided to quickly pay a visit to Scarlet Lake. Terra's heard the ghost stories of that place involving shipwrecks. Her cousin Spencer spoke about it and tried to prove it to the others this time.         He brought them through Scar Woods. Terra's small feet kept sinking into the mud as the bitter wind nipped at her fragile soft cheeks when she chased after them. Looking back at it now, her cousins didn't seem to care when she followed them, nor when she fell those few times into the mud, nor when she cried out their names to wait for her.         They chattered on as they got further and further through the woods. Terra fell behind.         She fell once again, her mud-stained knees scraped against a rock. Now that fucking hurt that time, and the tears filled her glossy eyes. She cried out her cousins' names again. They either didn't give two shits, or they didn't hear her. Too far.          Terra's mouth stretched into a painful grin as the tears trickled down the side of her face, her wet and muddied hand rising to her chin. It started to rain.         A giggle.         Bright and cheerful.         Little Terra lifted her head up, her lips pressed back together before they seized into a quivering fit. Her tears slowly ceased.         The giggle echoed around her. Her little pig-tailed head darted in different directions of alarm as she tried to pinpoint where the giggle originated.         The tears from the darkening sky thudded and tapped the wet ground; hitting the long-dead leaves, making an orchestra of a million people clapping at once. But the giggle was louder.         There!         Young Terra's eyes went big like a doll's once she saw it.         Another girl.         She seemed a little bit older than Terra, for she seemed a bit taller. Her dress was beautiful- the purest and brightest of all whites. It quickly reminded Terra of those toothpaste commercials on TV with those perfect people with the absolute most perfect white teeth. Pearly white. In fact, there was this sort of misty glow that outlined this other girl. The rain didn't seem to touch her perfection. The girl had long, flowing hazel hair that young Terra had always wanted. She wanted it to be perfect like her porcelain dolls that she kept oh-so-neatly aligned on her shelf at home. Terra wondered for a moment if her face matched her dolls' faces.         Terra struggled to get up and succeeded. It was then she ignored all the mud soaked into her shoes and socks, stained into her despised Easter gown- she wandered forward towards this other girl.         The other girl giggled once more.          Terra indeed chose to follow her. Once she got closer, the other ran farther; deeper into the woods, they got.          "Hiya!" Terra called as she scrambled after this new playmate. "Wait for meeee!"         The other girl paused, seeming to stare off into the distance. The rain was intense.         Terra paused in her tracks, the mud splashing over her toes.         "What's your name?" Terra asked, her voice a bubbly tone. After all, she was nearly five years old.         This other girl. . .her head twisted to the left as she peered over her shoulder. Yes, Terra did see her face. She was sure of it this time. There was no threat engraved in the other brunette's face. No. It was almost like how Terra imagined it to be, how she wanted it to be: perfect like her porcelain dolls' faces were crafted. The girl's button-nose glimmered with her misty appearance. She was dreadfully pale. Her eyes, well, Terra couldn't quite picture them correctly.         "Eli-JAH," she responded. Her voice was a few octaves higher than Terra's. Which was unusual to little Terra, since she assumed that the other girl was older than she. Elijah, did she say?          Then, as if she read Terra's mind, she said: "Yes, indeed, sweet Terra."        "Hey," Joshua Silver said as he nudged Terra's shoulder. "Bell's gonna ring."

   *****

 "Elijah," Terra muttered.  Her shoes dragged along the sidewalk as she walked slowly down the street with her backpack slung over her shoulder. Cousin Nicky was supposed to pick her up from Josh's place.         An hour ago.                 Cousin Nicky lived nearby. Terra's mother worked late. She didn't want to bother her. She couldn't remember exactly why she left her friends so late, too early. A blur. Somebody called. Wanted her home. Forgotten chores. Angry. But it's . . . almost midnight . . . Isn't it?          A blur.         Tired, maybe.         The lights that partially extended over the street flickered. So blurry.         An hour ago.         Nicky didn't care about Terra. She never did. What did Terra expect?           (Eli-JAH)         Terra rubbed her eyes, exhaling. A mist blew past her dry lips. She pursed them, her upper lip tucking under the bottom against her teeth, which scraped and nibbled on the dry skin; pulling on the tiny, tiny scabs. She gazed down the street. Her eyes rolled up, and the surprising blinding light of the street lamp stunned her. She grimaced and blinked several times, shaking her head and looking down. She picked her head up, the blobs of colorful, metallic light danced across her field of vision. But as these anomalies were seeming to be dragged away from her at different rates and speeds, there was a darker shape in the distance. A figure.         Terra rubbed her eyes and squinted. Her gut felt as though it tightened after the thought of                 (Eli-JAH)         the almost angelic little girl she encountered in her younger years flashed in her mind.         But it was not. No; but a boy. He stood under another light down the street. He slouched horribly; bending forward some with his head drooping downward. His chin seemed to unusually touch his chest. His hair of strange lengths fell before his face- his hair of twists and curls and straightness. His hair of a greasy, greasy brown that almost blended into a tarry black. His spine seemed to poke from his back under a grotesquely thin layer of dirty, bruised, and rash-like skin. Terra from afar could see his shoulders. His attire, she could not make out much. It was horribly tattered. It was darker than his tarry black hair, and had a similar greasy look to it.         The boy suddenly inhaled, and the sickly sound jumpstarted Terra's fear. The sickly sound- a morbidly low, animalistic, and demonic growl that came from Hell itself.         And it belonged to the boy. He sucked it in, and his shoulders raised.         Terra's eyes were nearly as wide as her mouth, which formed into an O; aghast.         Before she could realize it, there was no boy standing under the light down the street.         There was a snake.         The biggest snake Terra has ever saw.         Another animalistic growl which thundered from the trees. Yes, this horrific being touched the trees.         All time painfully slowed down in Terra's view. A petrifying pressure and weight was absorbed within her.          This had to be a nightmare, then! Terra suddenly felt sure of it.         But then-         "HAGH-" Terra yelped. She instantly straightened her back and raised her shoulders as she suddenly felt something tickle her- something was crawling on her.         IN MY SKIN!         IN MY CLOTHES!         A foul stench filled her nose as it breathed over her. Her screams were rising in her throat, yet a shrill yelp only managed to escape it. Her wide eyes rolled up to see. . . to see the-        hhhhhhhhhhhhhh         A tickle again- this time on her pale, quivering cheeks. Her eyes dropped down to meet the other thing-         Those were hands! Touching her face! Hands made of  hairy, twisted, severed spider legs that tickled her face! Connected to dozens of the pitch black, beady spider eyes for wrists. They made this grotesque, indescribable sound as they rolled over to look at the petrified mortal girl.         The dismembered parts of different spiders were joined with seemingly normal arms of a milky pale color. Terra's eyes followed up these arms to see the torn sleeves of a pearly white dress-          Something wet dripped atop Terra's head.         Then a hiss from above that gurgled into a familiar demonic growl.         And a shrill, girlish giggle brought sickly pain to Terra's suddenly sensitive ears. She winced before the spider-leg-hands twisted and grabbed the side of her face, the hairy "fingers" dug behind her ears and inside them.         A tear managed to slowly roll down the side of Terra's face- a product of silenced fear.         A face- Terra couldn't see a face of the being in front of her, the being that was touching her with such morbid limbs. It violated her. There was no face.         No face.         No face.         It has no face.         But it must have a face.         Don't want to see its face.         But I did.         I did. I did. I did.         And it knows         (knew)         my name.         (You)         Then I am         (are)         her         (my)         puppet         (precious dolly)         through the rest of         (your)         my          (life)         and for all          (eternity) "Yes, Terra, just like I know your cousin's name and your mommy's name and your daddy's name," the angelic little girl in the pearly white dress chanted with a widening grin. "I remember your name cause it reminds me of the word terr-AIN,  and, you know, to tear apart."         "But you can't do that!" confused Terra blurted out. Her hands quickly covered her mouth as she gasped. Was it the memory? A dream? Was she older or was she a naive little Terra that  went off the trail in the woods that one Easter day?         This Elijah girl continued to give a wide-eyed stare towards Terra. Her grin didn't seem to match with her face anymore. There was no warmth in her expression, nor her presence. There was the ice-cold stare and the psychotic grin.         That was until she slowly leaned down closer to Terra, closer to her face. Terra kept her hands over her mouth, her feet sinking a little in the mud as she stapled herself in place.         "I tore you away from the big kids, didn't I?" said the other girl. "They don't care, and they'll never find you; never find your body, never find your sanity, never find me. I'll only greet them as soon as they go into their permanent sleep. But then they'll still keep trying to run away."         Tears filled Terra's eyes. Her face reddened as she wheezed behind her hands. Her terror leaked down the sides of her face.          The twisted girl that graced the name Elijah leaned closer, and both Terra's and her own nose touched.         "I know," Elijah piped up, her breath ice-cold, and her shoulders raising as her hands locked together in front of her by her knees, "let's play a game."         "N-NO!" Terra cried, her voice wavering. Her eyes squeezed shut as she slightly curled up before Elijah with her hands now hiding her face. Terra turned her head and looked away. "I-I DON'T WANT YOUR GAMES!"         "Oh, well," Elijah inhaled and stood up straight with her hands laced together in front of her, "where are my manners? I can't make you do what you've already been doing. Why, that won't make any sense. . ." Her petite, almost shrill voice trailed off as her eyes rolled to her left. "But a game to make this. . ." her eyes rolled upward and to her right, "pitiful place fun. . ." She gritted her teeth as her unsettling grin grew wider now with her bottom row of teeth emerging.         Terra's torso moved backward, yet her feet were still planted in place. She continued to shield her face from this sinister girl. Terra's face scrunched up as she bit her tongue to prevent herself from sobbing.          "OH, I LIKE THAT!" Elijah exclaimed, which seemed almost like a scream considering her fucking shrillness. She stood on her toes as she shouted that. "LET'S PLAY HIDE AND GO SEEK! OH YES, SWEET TERRA, LET'S DO THAT!" And in that second, her horrific face was not but an inch away from Terra's shielding arms now.         Terra sniffled, her eyes still squeezed shut. "H-How about you s-start c-counting, uh-and I go h-hide?" she stammered.         There was a sudden crack as Elijah quickly stood up and straightened her torso.          "Okie-dokie, sweet Terra," she said, nodding vigorously. "But I have to warn you. . ." Terra finally glanced up from her shielding arms. "Nobody knows what's out in the woods. Nobody knows about the spiders and the snakes." Her sinister eyes rolled down to stare at Terra. "They're bigger than you think."           Help.         Help ME.         She took off.          The psychological weights tightened around her ankles.         Or are they chains-         (The chains of many, sweet Terra)         Droplets of mud flew up from the ground and splattered her white tights as she ran.         Run and hide. . .         HIDE!         She nearly tumbled head-first into the trunk of a tree when she slipped once again on the mud. She quickly put her hands out in front of her and stopped her fall against the tree. The pressure in her chest intensified when she stopped. She cautiously glanced over her shoulder with her hands still on the trunk. Her nails scraped against the bark as her fingers curled back to the palm. Trembling. 

        "Have you any idea how. . .precious this is, sweet Ter-RAH?" shrieked Elijah. Her piercing voice seemed so close- "You have such nice friends- nice friends, indeed! Now. . .who was it. . .N-N. . ." 

        Terra's eyes widened as she winced. She shook her head, clenching her teeth together. 

        "You leave Gnatty a-alone," she wheezed. "Don't scare her like you've done to me-"

        All these years.

        "Oh, that's RIGHT! Nately. Her daddy died just recently."

        "LEAVE her BE!" Terra cried. She weakly hit her knuckles against the tree. 

        "He's really been wanting to talk to her, you know? He keeps SCREAMING N SCREAMING-"

        "STOP IT!"

        "And I saw you locking my favorite dolly away! You know, his mommy is very, very maaaad."

        Terra inched her way around the tree, trying to ignore the demon-girl as best as she could. She felt something tickle her fingers as they brushed themselves along the bark. Spiders. She yelped and flicked it away. 

        "Not mad at you, not at Nately, but mad at me, 'cause I kinda foiled her plans. I really think they weren't working in the first place."

        Terra continued to run further away, but the voice remained at the same volume everywhere she ran. 

        "I think I might use that cute puppet boy for something. I'm not letting such soul go to waste-"

        Terra ran her clammy fingers through her hair in distress. She managed to let out a growl.

        "And that Nately girl has been suffering quite enough, don't ya think?"

        "NO!" Terra yelled. "I WON'T LET YOU! SHE WILL MOVE ON! HER BROTHER WILL MOVE ON! AND I WILL MAKE SURE SHE KNOWS WHAT WE'RE AGAINST, AND SHE CAN LEARN TO BE STRONGER THAN YOU! AND YOU WILL WEAKEN! YOU WON'T HARM HER!"

        It hissed.

        "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

        It snarled.

        Terra began to chant: "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

        Leaves began to crunch around her. Branches cracked and twigs snapped. 

        Terra's fingernails dug into her scalp as she screamed: "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

        Something tickled the back of her neck. 

        And under her clothes. 

        "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

        Spiders emerged from under her sleeves, from her pants, from her shirt. She yelped and began swatting and aggressively brushing them off and stomping on them as they fell. But they seemed to disappear in thin air. More of these spiders appeared from such place and attempted crawled to her face and in her hair as she chanted. 

        "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

        Terra screamed as the arachnids continued to appear and increase in numbers all over her, but she kept declaring that single line. The footsteps got louder.

        It growled.

        "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

        REPEAT.

        "I-"

        "QUIET!"

        "WILL LIVE-"

        "I'LL CUT YOUR TONGUE OUT!"

        "AND YOU-"

        "SILENCE!"

        "WILL-"

        Terra gathered the final word in her throat. She opened her mouth wide and prepared to scream it out-

[supportforindieauthors]

The Lifeguard by Jenna Moquin

Shonda wrapped her arms around her waist and shivered as the sky darkened. When the clouds came in, Andy had texted she should close the pool early, and she’d made the announcement from her lifeguard chair. 

“But it’s just clouds!” Mrs. Moulaison had protested. 

“Sorry, Mrs. M—Andy said to close up. You know how he is.” 

Shonda shrugged and gave Mrs. Moulaison an apologetic smile. She didn’t want to upset the woman whose family owned half the town, but she had to follow her boss’s orders. 

She glanced at the bulletin board above the check-in desk, and the “Missing” flyer caught her eye. Margaret "Maggie" Townsend had been missing for weeks, and the edges of the flyer were frayed, discolored. 

When most people saw the flyer they’d do one of two things: avert their eyes, and, Shonda assumed, make themselves think about something besides the poor girl and what might’ve become of her. Others would look directly into the face of Margaret “Maggie,” sigh and cluck their tongues, and say what a shame it was. How pretty she was. They’d speak of her in past tense, as if the verdict was already in, and she was no longer of this world. Shonda was part of the first camp, trying not to look at the flyer as she thought about other stuff, like the summer school classes she had to take because she failed English this year. 

She stashed her copy of Wuthering Heights with her notes in her locker. She pulled on her hoodie and got everyone out of the pool with a few short whistle blows while the first tentative raindrops fell from the sky. 

Mrs. Moulaison griped as she gathered her things, and said she’d speak to Andy personally about how cautious he was over a few harmless raindrops. Shonda smiled and nodded. If anyone could get the rules changed in this town, it would be the Moulaisons. That name was plastered on almost everything in McDonough Park from the bed and breakfast to the auto shop, with several apartment complexes in between. And now that her father-in-law had passed away, Mrs. Moulaison’s standing in town had risen even higher. 

After everyone left, Shonda went inside to the locker room. There was an eerie emptiness heightened by the cold grayness the day had become that gave her goosebumps. The picture of Margaret “Maggie” on the flyer made Shonda pause, and instead of averting her eyes, she looked at the girl’s eyes in the photo. They were dark, and very round, penetrating, intense for such a young girl. 

The day she went missing was the last day of school, and it had been raining just like today. She was in the same class as Shonda’s sister Luci, and although they weren’t really friends, they were friendly enough to smile and say “Hi!” every day and “Have a fun weekend!” on Fridays. 

“She was just walking home from school…and then she never made it home!” Luci had wailed the day she went missing. She was so upset she cried in their mother’s arms and slept in her room that night. Shonda recalled Luci clutching her pink bear Rufus, although she’d said that twelve was too old for stuffed animals. 

The police didn’t have any suspects, or leads. No strangers seen in town, no relatives wanting custody, unlike Shonda and Luci, whose father went back and forth from deadbeat dad to self-righteous recovering-alcoholic dad. Lately he’d been threatening their mother for full custody, which didn’t seem likely to happen. 

Shonda sighed and looked at the rain, and the wet gray color it made the concrete surrounding the pool where the children ran everyday despite whistles and shouts of “No running!” from her and her fellow lifeguards. 

It was mid-July, about six weeks of summer left. Classes would start right after Labor Day, which was early this year, on September 2nd. Shonda’s last day at the pool would be a week before school started, which gave her just enough time to buy some back-to-school outfits and supplies. 

This was her senior year, and she’d have to start looking at colleges in the fall. She didn’t want to think about life after high school just yet. Eighteen didn’t sound like an adult age, though she would turn that magic number just after Christmas. She didn’t think she was going to become an adult just because she would be one legally. As much as she enjoyed feeling like a grownup earning her own paycheck at the pool, she liked being in this middle state of not having too many responsibilities but also being somewhat independent where she could drive her mother’s Subaru to the movies by herself, but didn’t have to pay the car insurance. 

There was a noise behind her. It sounded like someone with wet feet slapping against the floor as they walked. Shonda turned. The locker room was empty. 

She locked the back entrance, and took the large golf umbrella Andy kept by the door. She rushed out into the rain to lock the gate, and saw movement near the pool. 

“Hello? The pool is closed!” Shonda called out. 

She looked toward the diving board, where she could’ve sworn she saw a dark shape shifting, but no one was there. She shrugged and locked the gate, figuring it was a dark flash from the rainstorm, and rushed back inside. 

Her bag was underneath the check-in desk, and her car keys fell out when she grabbed it. The clanging sound they made startled her. Shonda reached down to pick them up, and when she stood up someone appeared in front of her. 

The rotted green skin and sunken cheeks on the girl standing there made Shonda hold back a retch. She looked like she’d crawled out from her own grave. The resemblance of the green-skinned girl and the girl in the “Missing” flyer was unmistakable. She had the same eyes from the photograph. 

Shonda shook her head and backed up, and the heavy lock hanging from another locker dug into her back. The girl stepped closer, her movements jerky as if she were in pain. Her feet, covered in dirt and moss, slapped against the floor. She held out her scraggly hands as dark water dripped off them. 

Shonda didn’t know whether to help the girl, or run for her life. She froze while the girl reached out and grasped her arm, her green fingers colder than ice and almost glowing against Shonda’s brown skin. 

The girl leaned forward with her teeth bared. Shonda screamed and tore her arm away. She ran. Her keys jangled in her hands and she stashed them in her pocket. The wet feet slapped behind her, slow but heavy.   

She reached Andy’s office in the back, and locked the door behind her. Breathing heavily she crouched behind the desk and peeked out from the side, keeping her eyes on the slat between the floor and the bottom of the door. She waited to see a scraggly shadow of feet appear through the slat. She listened for the sounds of wet footsteps, but all she heard was the pounding of her own heart, and the harsh breath coming from her throat. 

She didn’t see any foot shadows. She didn’t hear any wet slapping sounds. Shonda began to breathe evenly when her phone vibrated and dinged, loudly, with a text. 

Shonda sucked in a breath and her heartbeat quickened. She glanced at her phone. 

>>Can u pick me up at the library ?

It was a text from Luci. Shonda checked the bottom of the door. Still nothing appeared there. No movement. Her heartbeat settled down and she stepped out from behind the desk. Having her sister on the other end of the phone, even just texting, made her feel a bit safer. She could focus on something real, a task to be done, and not dwell on what had just happened to her. Her mind wasn’t yet ready to deal with making something real that shouldn’t be real. She tapped out a text to Luci. 

>Ok b there soon 

>>Thx!!! ☺ 

Shonda opened the door to Andy’s office, looked to her left and then right. The hall was empty. She tiptoed out, clutching her phone to her chest. She felt the outline of the key fob in her pocket, and ran down the hall keeping her eyes peeled. She didn’t see the green-skinned girl, but there was a muddy footprint on the floor, near her locker. 

She rushed out into the rain. She glanced around the pool grounds with her hand cupped over her eyes. A clap of thunder rumbled when she reached her mother’s Subaru. She unlocked it and threw herself into the driver’s seat, shivering so badly her teeth chattered. 

She looked through the window, and peered around the edge of the pool. It was empty. Shonda breathed evenly and started the car. She flipped on the windshield wipers and drove the half mile to the library. 

Luci stood under the awning holding a pile of Harry Potter books. She ran to the car and Shonda opened the door from the inside. 

“Thanks, Shon!” Luci said and fastened her seatbelt. 

“No problem. You’re lucky the pool closed early,” Shonda said.

“I knew it would be closed from the rain. Andy closes the pool if a bird poops from the sky.” 

Shonda nodded. Luci looked at her. 

“Was he there today, or did you have to close up by yourself?” Luci asked. 

“He had to do some work over at the graveyard,” Shonda said with a sigh. “He’s the groundskeeper there, too.” 

“Are you okay? You look…kinda freaked out.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You don’t look fine.”

“Thanks,” Shonda snapped. She flipped down the sun visor to glance at herself in the mirror. Her face was ashen and her eyes were so wide she could see white all around her pupils. 

“Shon, what happened?”

Shonda took a deep breath and told her sister what she’d seen at the pool. How frightened she was crouching behind the desk. The muddy footprint by her locker. 

“She looked like one of those zombies from the movie we watched last week,” Shonda said. 

“Come on, you were just imagining it. You saw someone leaving the pool, and the noises you heard were from the rainstorm. And you said you were looking at Maggie’s flyer, that’s probably why her face was in your mind. I’m pretty sure you didn’t see a zombie girl!” 

Luci chuckled. Shonda managed to crack a smile. She knew her sister was right. But she also knew what she saw. 

“What about the muddy footprint?” Shonda said. 

“Probably from someone rushing through the locker room.”  

Shonda nodded, but she couldn’t ignore a nagging thought, that the area surrounding the pool was concrete—how would someone’s feet get muddy? 

She pulled into their driveway, and they rushed inside the house as thunder rumbled. Luci plopped her books on the table by the door. 

“Mom said we can order takeout since she’s working late. Let’s get Chinese food!” 

Later on, while the sisters enjoyed egg rolls and fried rice, Luci asked how summer school was going. Shonda shrugged. 

“Are you ready for the Wuthering Heights test next week?” Luci asked. 

Shonda’s eyes widened. “Oh no! I can’t believe I forgot my notes!”

“Where are they?”

“I left them in my locker at the pool.” 

“I’ll go back with you to get them.” 

“Really?” 

Luci nodded. “And I’ll prove it was just your imagination when we don’t see any zombies at the pool.”

Luci smirked. It was moments like this when Shonda wondered who the true older sister was. 

The rain slowed down to a drizzle while they drove to the pool. Shonda kept thinking she saw the missing girl, flitting through the edges of the trees that lined the sidewalk. But when she blinked, she’d see nothing out of normal place. Nothing but swaying images, breezes through the brain caused by paranoia. 

They pulled up to the pool, and Shonda parked. She took out her set of keys to unlock the gate. 

“You ready?” she asked Luci, who nodded. 

They got out of the car and walked toward the fence surrounding the pool. The chirps of crickets in the grass greeted them and the silhouette of the streetlamps glowed onto the ground. A quiet night, but a hesitant one. The kind of atmosphere that breeds just after a thunderstorm. 

Shonda’s eyes darted left and right as she hurried along the fence with Luci behind her. She got to the gate and unlocked it, and they went inside to the locker room. 

Shonda’s locker was the third one on the right. She twirled her combination, Luci’s birthday, and the door opened. Resting atop her fanny pack with first-aid supplies and spare whistle was her copy of Wuthering Heights, with pages of notes sticking out making a bookmark.

Something moved and shuffled behind her. Shonda gasped and whipped around, her book in her hand. 

Luci screamed. 

Standing before her was Mr. Gregory, the chemistry teacher who died of a heart attack last spring. His cheeks were sagging, his eyes hollowed out. He was so decomposed most of his skin was missing. He reached out toward Luci, her face frozen in a scream, as green slime oozed off his wrists. 

Shonda grabbed Luci and tugged her arm as they ran down the hall to Andy’s office. She took one look behind just before they reached the door, and saw them. 

There were a dozen of them. The missing girl in front and behind her was Mr. Gregory. And next to him was Mrs. Moulaison’s late father-in-law, his skin waxy green and decaying with rotted hollows. 

They inched closer, the shuffling sounds of their feet magnified, intensified as if every creature standing there had just climbed out from their wet graves, wanting to taste the air. Their desperate arms reached out while their rotted feet inched closer, shortening the distance between them, and life. 

Shonda pushed open the door to Andy’s office and shuffled Luci inside. She slammed the door behind them. She could hear wet muddy footsteps pacing around the door. Thick, throaty warbles in the air. She was so scared she could barely breathe. 

They crouched behind Andy’s desk, and hugged each other. Shonda squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed it was just a dream. That any moment she’d wake up in her bed, her mother soothing her from a nightmare, and offering her a gross cup of warm milk.

“I c-can’t believe it,” Luci whispered. “Did we just see…were those really…zombies?” 

“I don’t know,” Shonda whispered. 

“That girl in front…was Maggie, wasn’t she?” Luci was shivering. Shonda rubbed her shoulders. 

“W-what are we going to do?” Luci asked. 

Shonda glanced at the window behind Andy’s desk. She stood and went over to it, her sneakers squeaking against the floor. 

“Come on,” she whispered. “We’re on the ground level. We can just climb out.” 

Shonda unlocked the window and eased it open. She looked out and checked the surrounding bushes. No movement. She went back to the desk and wheeled out the chair. 

“Step up here,” she whispered to Luci. 

Shonda held the chair steady as her sister climbed out through the window. From the other side of the door, she could hear rushed, wet shuffling sounds. The doorknob started to twist and jiggle. She couldn’t remember if she’d locked the door. She didn’t wait to find out and climbed onto the chair while it teetered on its wheels. 

As Shonda pulled herself over the window pane and landed on the lawn outside, the door to Andy’s office eased open. She looked through the window, her pulse racing faster than ever. Mr. Gregory came through the door, followed by the rest of the creatures. 

“Let’s go!” Shonda turned and pulled Luci, but she didn’t move. 

“Andy?” Luci’s voice trembled. 

Shonda looked up at her six-foot-four boss Andy, who stood there aiming a shotgun at them. 

“Get down!” Andy shouted. 

Shonda tugged her sister to the ground and covered her. The ear-splitting sound of the shotgun firing was rattling. She looked up and saw part of Mr. Gregory’s head gone while his zombie body dangled half out of the window. 

“Come on!” Andy pulled the girls up from the ground. “My truck’s parked over here.” 

He ushered them into his pickup truck idling near the curb. Shonda kept her arm around her sister, who was trembling so hard her teeth were chattering. 

“What are you two doing here?” Andy said as he stashed his shotgun behind the driver’s seat. 

“I left notes in my locker for my test next week,” Shonda said, her voice shaky. 

“Stay away whenever it rains…they always show up here when it rains, especially after a thunderstorm. That’s why I always close the pool as soon as clouds appear.” 

“Do they only come out in the summer?” Luci asked. 

“Yup,” Andy said. “It’s like a zombie summer vacation.” 

As they pulled into the road, Shonda saw one of the creatures walking in the middle of the street. She pointed it out to Andy, who ran over it with his truck as they drove away.

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