Erie Tales
Tales of The Apocalypse /
Resurrection Mary
Published by
the great lakes association of horror writers
at Smashwords
Edited by
Bob Strauss
Nicole Castle Kelly
Collection and editorial content
Copyright Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers 2011
This anthology is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and scenarios are the products of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Collection and editorial content
Copyright Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers 2011
Cover art copyright Don England 2011
Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers logo by Dave Harvey, Copyright Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers 2007
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication can be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission from the authors of the work and from the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors within and the organization that supports them
ACROSS THE POND copyright 2011 Christopher Nadeau
CALIENTE copyright 2011 MontiLee Stormer
I’VE GOT A SECRET copyright 20101 Peggy Christie
RAGNAROK AROUND THE CLOCK copyright 2011 Michael Cieslak
OOPS copyright 2011 Peggy Christie
POEMS: BURNT, THE END, ANCIENT WAR copyright 2011 Peggy Christie
FORGOTTEN copyright 2011 John Pirog
THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR copyright 2011 James Park
THE HIKE copyright 2010 Hall Jameson
Tales of the Apocalypse
And on the Eighth Day He … Oops
Tales of Resurrection Mary
The Best of Ghostlight 2010/2011
Introduction
Early this year we settled on stories of the Apocalypse. Christopher Nadeau, MontiLee Stormer, Peggy Christie and Michael Cieslak give us a peek of the end of the World as they see it.
When we participated in a Guinness World Record Attempt, we wrote stories that went hand in hand with the drink we created (a lemonade called Bloody Run). We couldn’t possibly leave those unseen by your deserving eyes, so we’ve included them in this edition. Our favorite Wandering Hitchhiker is presented in living text by John Pirog, Peggy Christie, and MontiLee Stormer
We cannot forget our Editor’s Picks from Ghostlight Magazine, who then become members and therefore eligible for inclusion in our anthology. Their stories aren’t in line with the theme, but trust me when I say it doesn’t matter. Welcome to the fold James Park and Hall Jameson. They round out our anthology nicely and we look forward to the stories they come up with for our Anthology in 2012.
This has been an amazing year for our group and we’re’ proud to present the best of our tales in this, our fourth Edition,
As always, we appreciate your patronage of Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers, and by extension our charities, the Dominican and Siena Literacy Centers. We have no Kudos in this edition, but this editor would like to thank her fellow members for another year of support, laughs, camaraderie and words. Also thanks to Bob Strauss and Nicole Castle-Kelley for their editing of this edition. I am never not impressed by the professionalism of my friends and they make being a writer in this genre a little less lonely.
So, give me your hand, and don’t close your eyes too tight. We’ve got nine stories ahead with ups and downs, endings and beginnings.
Are you ready? It’s time for the end of the World …
MontiLee Stormer
Head Editor, Ghostlight
September, 2011
Tales of the Apocalypse
Across the Pond
I saw the old woman when I was eleven years old. Some of my friends and I were enjoying the summer break and chasing each other through the forest in some childish imitation of a slasher movie.
I was the horribly disfigured killer getting revenge for something that happened to him when he was my age. I could identify with those guys because my father went crazy when I was five.
I was so good at finding my friends I would often pretend to wander off into the forest to give them time to think they were safe before I pounced. This time I went all the way to Judson’s Pond, an area none of us were supposed to go near. I didn’t know I’d reached the Pond until I felt the ground grow soft beneath my feet. I sniffed and smelled moisture that hadn’t been there moments before.
I walked a bit further, wondering how close I was to the body of water I couldn’t see.
"How’d you get here?” a male voice demanded.
I spun around, gasping at the sight of the stooped-over elderly man mere inches from me. He looked physically weak but my eyes fell on the shovel he carried.
"You one of them deaf ones, boy?”
I shook my head. "I think I’m lost.”
The man spat something thick and brown from his nearly toothless mouth and fixed me with a quizzical stare. "You can’t think you’re lost, boy. You either is or ain’t!”
I glanced around the unfamiliar area. The old man appraised me for what felt like a full minute before nodding and leaning forward a bit.
"Tell me what you see,” he said.
I shrugged. "Trees and stuff . . . I don’t know.”
"Don’t yank my chain, boy! I know there’s trees! Hell, I pissed on one not five minutes ago! I’m askin’ what you SEE.”
I frowned and gazed about the area, trying to take in whatever this crazy old coot was talking about.
"I smell a pond,” I said.
The old man grinned and took in a deep sniff. "Dang right, you do. Dang right.”
I nodded and forced a smile; now that I’d given him what he wanted . . .
"Wanna know why you can’t see it yet, boy?”
I blinked. "How come?”
The old man giggled, dropped his shovel onto the wet ground. "’Cause I ain’t let you!”
At this point, it occurred to me he might be crazier than my father. Dad still battled his voices and urges and sometimes emerged victorious. This old man had succumbed to his a long time ago. I glanced around him, trying to figure out how fast to run to avoid his gnarled hands
"Takes a real special sort to make it all the way down here, boy.” The old man stooped over and picked up his shovel. I’d lost my window of opportunity for escape. "Them that make the effort usually wind up . . . well, let’s just say they don’t end up too happy.”
I felt my eyes widen. This was the real slasher flick come to life. But instead of an invincible killer in a mask, it was going to be a loony old man with a shovel. I fought the urge to cry.
"Well, don’t just stand there like somebody planted you, boy! You come all this way.”
I opened my mouth to question him and closed it as he moved closer. "Now, you be sure to hold my hand as we go or you might fall in and never come back out.”
I obeyed and we headed deeper into the forest, directly for Judson’s Pond.
~~~***~~~
Before I tell you what I saw, I should bring you up to speed on the way of things these days. Times have changed and the world has turned strange, unsettling. I’m not sure where to start but I’ll do my best.
We weren’t invaded or visited by aliens and we didn’t discover new life out in space. In fact, space programs are non-existent; nobody feels gung-ho about finding anything else that might be as bad as or even worse than what we’ve got here.
We call them "newcomers. They arrived about twenty years ago, covered in a viscous liquid and speaking some bizarre foreign language that was unlike anything spoken on this planet.
Frankly, they scared the living shit out of anybody who saw them when they started showing up.
One woman in England was stepping into the shower when a newcomer seemed to emerge from her running shower head, crying and grabbing the shower curtain before stumbling and falling to the tub floor. A man in Rhode Island driving home during a horrible thunderstorm had to swerve his vehicle into a road sign when a newcomer popped out of thin air right in front of him. School children on a field trip to a swimming pool in Windsor, Canada ran screaming from the pool as not one but five newcomers suddenly appeared in the water, flailing and screaming in their odd, high-pitched language.
This type of thing happened all over the world for six months before it petered out. In most First World countries, they were quarantined and studied. In Third World countries, they were often killed on sight.
The newcomers didn’t seem violent. There were a few isolated incidents of physical confrontation, but for the most part they just stood around looking frightened and shocked.
When they first arrive, they look like pink mannequins that haven’t fully formed. Their faces are without lines or blemishes or even features if you don’t count the hooded eyes and tiny mouths. To many of us, they look like full-grown fetuses. But that’s nothing compared to how they look when they get older.
~~~***~~~
The old man led me by the hand deeper and deeper into the forest, the ground giving way beneath our shoes as we went. I ignored his annoying whistling and tried not to fall or stumble. The last thing I needed was to give this weirdo the idea I was too much of a burden to keep around.
"Almost there, boy, almost there,” he said in a sing-song fashion.
"My mom always told me not to go to Judson’s Pond,” I said.
The old man stopped for a moment and cocked an eyebrow in my direction. "She ever tell you why?”
I shrugged. "She said it was dangerous.”
"But did she ever tell you why it was dangerous?”
I frowned. I’m not sure she knew why. Maybe she was just passing along information the same way folks in church do without really understanding why they believe in what the preacher’s saying.
The old man grinned. "It’s only dangerous if you don’t make it, boy. Look at me! I made it and I’m just fine!”
All those childhood lessons about not saying anything at all if I didn’t have something nice to say entered my brain at the same time, a rising cacophony of propriety drowning out any and all dissent.
The old man pulled me along like a disobedient puppy, my feet momentarily leaving the floor. He told me to stop stalling because I’d "miss it” if I didn’t hurry. I had no idea how someone could miss a pond, as they tended to be stationary until they dried up. Before I could give voice to this question, however, we’d reached Judson’s Pond.
~~~***~~~
I saw my first fully grown newcomer the day I graduated junior college. It was working maintenance in the meeting hall where we had our reception. I gasped when I saw it, taking a few steps back, much to the amusement of my classmates.
"First time?” Dave Marsters said.
I nodded. "Is that what they . . .”
"That’s right,” Jessica Speakman said. "In all their hideous glory.”
"Jesus.”
Dave said, "I doubt Jesus had anything to do with it.”
I hated myself for being so close-minded but it was difficult to disagree with Dave. The newcomer looked like a burn victim, its face filled with scars and melted features. It tried to avoid my gaze as I stared but eventually it looked up from dumping a garbage can and managed a pathetic smile.
I threw up.
~~~***~~~
The old man placed a filthy finger over my mouth before I could say anything, his previously jovial mood now tense and annoyed.
"Don’t you say nothin’, boy,” he whispered. "Not a dang-blamed word. Can’t you see she’s thinkin’?”
I saw the silhouette of an old woman in a rocking chair sitting a little too close to Judson’s Pond. I craned my neck a bit and heard what sounded like humming but no tune I recognized. Sounded like a bunch of unconnected sounds randomly appearing in her voice box and vanishing as quickly as they’d arrived.
"Never speak until she’s done thinkin’.” The old man’s tone was reverent, a tad frightened, as if he feared what might happen if I didn’t obey.
He needn’t have worried; I was too freaked out to do anything but what I was told. I stood and watched the old lady rock back and forth and hum her tuneless song for God knows how long. Once she’d stopped, I turned and gave the old man an expectant look.
"Mother, we done got us another one,” the old man said.
"Already?” the old lady said. "My, it’s been a good month.”
"It sure enough has,” the old man said.
"The boy can approach.”
The old man propelled me forward. I landed on my left knee, the repulsive feeling of mud and probably feces greeting the impact. I got to my feet and took a few steps forward.
"Let me look on you, boy,” the old lady said. "Come on, now.”
I walked until I was close enough to be seen but still unable to see her.
"Such a handsome lad,” she said. "I can smell your freshness from here.”
"Go ahead now, boy,” the old man said from where I’d last seen him. "Go ahead and let her get a sense of you.”
I ran.
~~~***~~~
Rich people started hiring newcomers for menial tasks in droves. Only one problem: it wasn’t legal. Newcomers were granted certain protective rights under the law but being able to work wasn’t one of them. They were allowed to live in specially designated zones with their own kind. They had the right to practice their own religious beliefs which, apparently, consisted of getting together in large groups and moaning into the night sky until they passed out so that God was the last thing they acknowledged before sleep claimed them. They also had the right to maintain their own language and customs.
The segregation of newcomers lasted nearly a decade before the ACLU fought to get them integrated into society, albeit on a limited scale. Now newcomers could own homes (in specially designated areas) and move about freely as long as they kept the government apprised of their movements.
Activist groups fought tooth and nail to keep them from taking jobs from honest, hardworking Americans. But the amount of people using cheap newcomer labor was overwhelming and soon it became nothing more than an unenforced law on the books.
Then the newcomers that lived in other countries started showing up and everything went to hell.
~~~***~~~
I didn’t get far. The old man grabbed me by the back of the shirt collar and yanked me off my feet. I went limp and allowed him to bring me back to the old lady in the rocking chair. She was once again rocking and humming that bizarre tune and we had to stand and wait until she was done.
"So disrespectful, you young people of today,” she said. "When a grown-up tells you to come closer, you do as she says."
~~~***~~~
I cleared my throat. "Grown-ups hurt kids nowadays.”
"Kids hurt grown-ups too, boy,” the old man said through gritted teeth."Always have,” the old lady said. "Always have."
I wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with me, him, or both of us and didn’t care. I just wanted to go home.
~~~***~~~
"I don’t know what you want from me,” I said, using my scared little kid voice.
"Ain’t for you to know, boy!’ The old man slapped me in the back of my head.
"Let him be, Titus,” the old lady said. "It’s a different time.”
The old man took a step back. I stepped forward as if my legs and feet were no longer fully mine to control. Whatever influence the old lady had, it was some powerful stuff.
"You should be proud you made it this far,” she said.
"What does that mean?”
"It means you get to go back the way you came.”
I frowned. "I don’t remember which way I came in.”
The old lady, still shrouded in shadow, chuckled. "Not the way you took to get here. I mean you get to still be you.”
My frown deepened. "I don’t understand.”
"Boy’s awful thick, ain’t he?” Titus said.
The old lady ignored him. "Them that don’t make it this far go back…changed.”
I swallowed hard. "What about those who make it?”
The old lady leaned forward out of the darkness and smiled, her drawn, gray face a rictus of pure delight. "They get to see.”
Titus grabbed me from behind and threw me into Judson’s Pond.
~~~***~~~
The first time I saw violence committed against a newcomer, I was on my way home from the worst job I ever held. Thanks to the massive influx of cheap labor, corporations lowered what they were willing to pay for better jobs. Everybody was bitter in those days and newcomers often felt the brunt of it.
At first, only those newcomers who didn’t speak any English were targeted but eventually it became commonly held belief that no newcomers were Americans. New laws granting police the ability to randomly stop them and demand documentation just seemed to fuel the fires of hatred and bigotry.
The unfortunate newcomer dressed in a landscaping company’s uniform I saw getting stomped into the ground had made the decision to get something to eat at a local deli. By the time I’d rounded the corner, four guys in baseball caps and black jackets had surrounded him.
"Where the hell you think you’re going, burnhead?” their leader said.
The newcomer’s hooded eyes darted left and right, looking for help or escape. Eventually, they found me and lingered.
"Don’t you have nothing to say?” another one of them said. "Don’t you speakey the English, asshole?”
The newcomer said nothing.
"Godammit!” the leader said. "I told you I could spot one of the foreign ones a mile away.”
"Let’s send his ass back into the water he came from,” a third man added.
In a flurry of movement, the four of them lunged at the newcomer, punching and kicking him until his horrible, high-pitched screams were silenced. Once he was down and unmoving, they lifted him and carried him to their waiting pickup truck.
I kept walking.
~~~***~~~
Being submerged In Judson’s Pond was like being teleported to some far away world where I could only see inches in front of me and was somehow able to breathe underwater. I could see the deflected rays of sunlight above and tried kicking hard enough to aim for the surface. Something held me back. I tried to look down and see if something had wrapped itself around my ankles.
Whatever kept me from moving also dragged me down further. I kicked and flailed my arms. I opened my mouth to scream and my vision was filled with bubbles.
I felt my feet land on something solid. I forced my head to tilt downward and noticed a total lack of movement on the pond’s surface. I crouched, tried propelling myself upward, only to move a few inches and then land back on the hard surface.
I looked up and could just barely make out the top of the water. There was no sunlight visible but somehow it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see.
I heard myself say, "I wanna go home. Can I please go home now?”
The surface opened up and swallowed me.
~~~***~~~
The first case of Newcomer’s Disease took place in the Third World, in this case Brazil. The Brazilians had just begun tolerating their newcomer population when a little girl from a village just outside Rio was brought to her family doctor shivering and covered from head to upper thigh in leaking, pus-filled blisters. The small town doctor had no idea what was wrong with her. The battery of tests he ran combined with useless antibiotics and antivirals accomplished nothing.
The little girl was sent to a major hospital in Rio where she became a living experiment. Her destitute family had no ability to stop the tests, especially once she was declared infectious.
Here’s where things get a little odd: no case of so-called "Newcomer’s Disease” has ever officially been reported as having been passed from one individual to the next. In fact, those few who have contracted it not only failed to infect anyone in their immediate vicinity, they were never heard from again.
I’m not one to embrace conspiracy theories. I don’t believe JFK was shot by more than one guy. I believe we landed on the moon. I have yet to see conclusive evidence of a cover-up at Roswell. But a supposedly infectious disease that never seems to infect anyone near the infected is suspicious.
Despite many dissenting voices, including medical professionals who debated the official story, Newcomer’s Disease became the latest media sensation and government targeted "epidemic” in North America.
~~~***~~~
My next conscious memory was of waking up on my side in a murky, cavern-type structure. I shot up to a sitting position and winced from the pain of forcing sedentary muscles into action. How long had I been out?
I got to my feet and gazed about the place, covering my nostrils with the top of my index fingers as a pungent aroma hit them. From somewhere far off, the maddening sound of dripping water maintained a steady beat.
"What the hell?” I said, rewarded with my own words echoed back at me.
"Ain’t no cussin’ in this place, boy.”
I whirled around, unsurprised to see crazy old Titus standing before me. "How did you get here?”
Titus hauled his hand back and slapped me. "I won’t be questioned by no child!”
I placed my hand to my cheek, willed myself not to cry, hating myself for my failure and the tiny drop of urine that came out when the old man struck me. I glanced down at his withered crotch and felt a rage surging in me unlike any I’d ever experienced. Before he could react, I let out a feral snarl and ran straight for him, head-butting him in the soft spot.
The old man stumbled backward, both hands grabbing himself, a look of complete and utter surprise on his wrinkled face. His howl of pain, it sounded as if fifty animals of various types had all decided to cry out at once. The sound echoed throughout the cavern, forcing me to place my hands over my ears until it abated moments later.