Totally Cliché
Presented By Mormon Mommy Writers
Including Stories By Kasey Tross, Debra Erfert, Cathy Witbeck & More
Copyright © 2011 by Mormon Mommy Writers
Published by Mormon Mommy Writers
Smashwords Edition
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Cover design by Jenni James, http://authorjennijames.com/
Cover design © Jenni James 2011
Typesetting by Mormon Mommy Writers
Table of Contents
Alice in Clicheland by Kasey Tross
Scared Stiff by Debra Erfert
Mirage by Cathy Witbeck
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do by Sally Johnson
The Promise of War by J. A. Bennett
Plain Jane by Ann Hunter
Into the Tempest by Stephanie Nelson
One Foot in the Grave by Shanti Krishnamurty
Phantom of the Ball by Nikki Wilson
When the Cat’s Away by Megan Oliphant
A Fairy by Any Other Name by Cheri Chesley
Author Bios
Alice in Clicheland
Kasey Tross
Alice had been staring at the flashing cursor on the screen for at least an hour. She exhaled and slumped heavily into her chair. It seemed that no matter what she tried, everything she wanted to say was coming out in somebody else’s words. In fact, everybody else’s words! What was it my high school English teacher used to call clichés? Alice wondered. Oh yeah, ‘pedestrian’. Well, if clichés are pedestrian then I’m pushing the button at every crosswalk.
Really, Alice, she thought with frustration, is an original thought really so hard to manage?
She glanced at the clock. Close to midnight. Burning the midnight oil, Alice thought. She rolled her eyes at her seemingly persistent pedestrianism. Inspiration would have to wait until morning. She saved her work and shut down the computer.
She made her way down the hall to her bedroom, where her husband was already snoring softly in the bed. She quietly changed into her pajamas and slipped under the covers next to him. As she settled in, she heard a rumble of thunder. A flash of lightning followed soon after, and she heard the first drops of rain pelt the windows. As her eyes closed, she thought, It was a dark and stormy night…ugh. She pulled her pillow over her head in disgust, rolled over, and soon she was fast asleep.
Alice was awakened by a strange scratching sound. She sat up in bed, forcing her eyes open. The scratching continued. Listening carefully, she realized it seemed to be coming from her bedroom door.
Still half asleep, Alice opened the door quietly, trying not to disturb her sleeping husband, when a strange gray light enveloped her and the door suddenly disappeared. A cool breeze blew through her hair and she blinked rapidly, trying to adjust her eyes to the light. Once she could finally see clearly, she realized her home was gone. There was no bedroom, no sleeping husband, no cozy bed. Where only moments before her feet had been standing on soft carpeting, they were now balanced precariously on the precipice of a stony cliff above a white-capped sea.
Alice gasped and turned around again, grabbing hold of a boulder to keep from hurtling into the treacherous sea below. Looking up, she saw a giant mountain of rocks and boulders, and atop the mountain sat a massive stone castle.
The sky was a flat palette of matte gray, and as Alice clung to a damp boulder a chilly breeze left her shivering in her pajamas. If she stayed out on the cliff much longer she would freeze. Clearly, the only path to safety was straight up.
Alice began her trek cautiously, searching for handholds and footholds before putting skin to stone. She kept her head down, focused on not slipping, her muscles burning as she pulled herself up the rocky pile toward the castle. Every once in awhile the feel of a portion of rock giving way and the sound of clattering stones made her heart pound as she desperately grasped for safety. It was only when she felt sandy gravel under her hands instead of hard rock that she realized she had finally reached her goal. She pulled herself onto the narrow path surrounding the castle and collapsed, breathing heavily. Luckily, the exertion had warmed her body considerably and the cool sea breeze actually felt refreshing.
As Alice paused there a moment to catch her breath a hand suddenly appeared in front of her face. She gasped and looked up to see that the hand was at the end of an arm, extended toward her.
“May I?” a deep male voice asked.
“Umm, yeah, thanks,” Alice grasped the hand and stood. She noticed that he was very tall with dark brown hair. He was actually somewhat handsome, she noted. Ha. Tall, dark and handsome. Figures.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aman, and this is my home,” he said, with a slight French accent, gesturing broadly to the walled fortress behind him. “Or, in other words,” he continued, “Aman’s home is his castle.” He chuckled at his little joke.
Alice grimaced.
“My full name is Aman Cliché,” he continued with a slight twinkle in his eye, “and I do so love to have authors come visit me here. Welcome! Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be going,” he concluded with a wave of his hand. He walked past Alice toward the other side of the castle.
“But, wait!” Alice called after him. “How do I get home?” Aman stopped and turned around to face her.
“You want to go home? Of course. You are free to go home whenever you like. There is a door, just on the other side of the castle, nestled in some rocks just like these. The world you come from is waiting just on the other side of it. I would give you the key to unlock it, but you see Trina, the shopkeeper, is currently using it as a sort of a bell for her wild goose. Find the goose, find your key! Good luck.”
“You’re sending me on a-“ she could barely bring herself to say the words, “A wild goose chase?”
Now Aman laughed heartily. “Well, I suppose it could be no other way at Castle Cliché, now could it?” He laughed again. “If I were you, I would get going. It looks like rain. And at Castle Cliché, when it rains-“ he paused and looked at Alice expectantly.
“It pours?” Alice said grudgingly. Aman grinned and laughed again.
“Indeed it does! Indeed it does.” With that, Aman disappeared around a corner.
“He could have at least shown me the way in,” Alice grumbled as she started up the path along the rough stone wall of the castle. She was almost to the castle’s corner parapet when she noticed a doorway.
It was half-hidden by a gigantic boulder, but there was just enough room for her to squeeze in between the boulder and the wall behind it to get through the doorway. As she did so, she groaned as she realized, Great. I’m between a rock and a hard place. But then, how else would I get into Castle Cliché? She barely squeezed the rest of the way through and nearly fell through the doorway onto the cool stone floor inside.
What Alice saw inside reminded her, oddly enough, of a shopping mall. There were skylights above to let in natural light and the corridor had shops on either side with potted plants placed strategically about. But there were only two shops.
Looking inside the display windows of the shop on the right, Alice saw it was like a department store, but with nearly everything one could imagine on display for purchase. There were televisions, hairbrushes, hot dogs rotating in a machine, an entire section of farming implements, a trampoline…wait, was that a live unicorn with a price tag hanging off its horn? Alice squinted in disbelief. $27,000. Good to know, she thought.
Alice looked up at the sign over the door of the cavernous store. In large, glowing yellow letters it read,
EVERYTHING*
And in smaller text just below,
*Look behind you.
Alice turned around until she was facing the other store. The sign over the store read, simply, “KITCHEN SINKS.”
Alice couldn’t help laughing just a little. She turned back around and headed for Everything.
As soon as Alice stepped through the store’s wide doorway a grinning salesgirl in a teal vest appeared in front of her. She was tiny, probably not even five feet tall, Alice guessed, and she had auburn hair pulled back into a high bouncy ponytail. Her nametag read, “Trina”. Before Alice could speak, Trina chirped, “Hello, and welcome to Everything! How may I help you?”
Alice was taken aback by her oozing enthusiasm. Alice couldn’t blame her, though. She imagined that Everything probably didn’t get too many customers.
“Hi,” Alice said. “I spoke with Aman just a little while ago and he said that you might know something about a goose? With a key that I might need?”
Trina’s face clouded with worry. “Oh nooo! Was that YOUR key? I am sooooo sorry!” she exclaimed. “It was just- look, I just got this job. I used to work at the china shop, but then the bull- and then there was the candy store but that darn goat…Anyway, the last thing I wanted to do once I started here was to get all loosey goosey!” Trina began giggling at her own joke.
Alice looked at her questioningly, encouraging her to continue.
“Right, well,” Trina went on, “I used the keys. But it’s worked great so far- she hasn’t gotten lost once! It works so well that I even did the same thing to the gander!” She grinned conspiratorially at Alice, “Because you know-“ she began.
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I know,” Alice sighed.
“Yes! Oh, don’t you just love Castle Cliché? Are you sure you really want to go home so soon?” Trina asked, looking a little sad.
“Yes,” said Alice. “Trust me, I think I’ve had about enough of Castle Cliché.”
“To each his- or her- own!” Trina said cheerily.
“So, about the goose…?”
“Oh yes, I do love a wild goose chase! One wild goose, coming right up! Follow me, please!”
Trina started bouncing through the crowded maze of a store. As Alice struggled to keep up, she noticed paint, toothbrushes, a steering wheel, a bale of hay, stacks of paper in various colors, and roller skates, among other things. Before long they were in a corner of the store where animal cages were stacked on top of one another.
“Let’s see…gander, gerbil, goat…goose! Here we are!” Trina exclaimed, triumphantly pulling out a wooden crate with a white feathery animal flapping about inside. As it struggled, Alice could hear it making a slight jingling noise.
“Great!” Alice said. “Let’s get that key, shall we?”
“Sure thing!” Trina said. “Just be careful, that goose is-“ but before she could finish, Alice had already unlatched the door and suddenly the goose came flapping and honking out of the cage, the keys on its neck jingling madly. Alice was so startled she fell over backwards, and as she did, the goose took off, flapping, honking and jingling through Everything.
“-wild.” Trina finished, looking down at Alice with pity. “Are you okay?”
“Ohh,” Alice moaned, struggling to stand up. Trina leaned down to help her.
“Well, Trina, looks like this really will be a wild goose chase,” Alice said weakly as she checked to make sure she wasn’t bleeding.
Trina smiled sympathetically. “No pain, no gain!” She chirped.
Alice rolled her eyes and started for the front of the store.
“Wait!” Trina called. “The goose went that way.” She pointed to the back of the store. “The gander sometimes wanders in that part of the castle. And you know, birds of a feather flock together!”
She just couldn’t resist, could she? Alice thought.
“If you go to the back there’s a stairwell. She probably got out from there,” Trina added helpfully.
“Thanks,” Alice called halfheartedly, hurrying toward the back of the store.
She picked her way through the maze of random goods (fishing line, maracas, and floral foam) until she saw an opening in the wall that led to a staircase going up.
As Alice bounded up the steps she heard a faint jingling coming from above her. She quickened her pace, and when she reached the landing she paused to catch her breath. She listened. Silence.
At the top of the landing was a doorway, and Alice stepped through it.
She found herself in a large room with a tile floor. Light from tall windows shone across its smooth surface and Alice noticed that each tile was etched with a number in its center. As she glanced around, she realized that the numbers were sequential, starting with the number one near the doorway. Maybe this is where Aman and Trina come to count their clichés, Alice wondered sardonically. She started toward another open door across the room when a movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to pause. In the far corner, near tile #872, was small cloth bag she hadn’t noticed before. Alice stared closely at it, but it was still.
She stepped closer. It moved again.
Alice stepped back and blinked. Then she heard it.
“Mee-owww!”
Was that a cat?
Alice sidestepped over to the bag and nudged it with her toe. It was soft and warm and “meowed” again.
She knelt down and found the drawstring that was holding the bag closed. She untied it, and loosened the opening until it was wide enough for a gray cat with black stripes to tentatively step out and rub, purring, against her leg.
“Ahh,” Alice said. “Looks like I’ve let the cat out of the bag.”
Without warning, the door across the room slammed shut and locked with a distinct click. Alice jumped up and ran to it, wiggling the handle just to be sure, but her efforts were useless.
Alice threw up her hands in frustration. “Great, now what?” She turned and looked around the room. The cat was busy cleaning itself. She started back toward the door she had used when she came in. When she reached it, she found it was shut and locked as well. Alice turned around, leaned her back against the door and slid to the floor.
She was tired. She was frustrated. She felt like she was in the same position she’d been in when she arrived. She was back to square one. Wait, back to square one…
“Back to square one!” Alice shouted, jumping to her feet. The cat skittered into a corner, frightened by Alice’s sudden outburst. Alice quickly searched the floor tiles for the square with the number “1” etched into it. She jumped onto it with both feet. The door across the room swung open wide.
“Yes!” Alice yelled. She ran to the open door. “Castle Cliché, I may figure you out yet!”
She trotted through the opening and found herself at the top of a long corridor that sloped steeply downward. She stopped for a moment, listening. The faint sound of jingling keys was coming from below.
Alice began jogging down the sloping corridor toward the sound when suddenly a shadowy shape darted in front of her. With no time to react she tripped over the furry bundle and tumbled down the stony incline until she finally rolled to a stop where the floor leveled out below. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the gray cat sprinting off into the shadows.
Alice moaned and stood. “Stupid cat,” she grumbled.
As she dusted herself off and made sure her limbs still functioned, she noticed a sign on the wall. An arrow pointed up the way she had come.
MEMORY LANE
Alice sighed and rubbed her sore hip as she turned around to survey her surroundings. Memory Lane had deposited her in some kind of a lobby. Potted plants accented the otherwise sparse room, and a large ornate door in one wall indicated a possible exit. Alice began to limp toward it when she heard the jingling again, this time coming from behind one of the potted bushes in the corner.
Without warning a goose flew squawking and honking from behind the bush. Alice’s first instinct was to duck and cover, but she realized this was her best chance to recover the key, so she dove toward the goose, tackling it to the ground.
It was a mess of feathers and more frantic goose noises, but Alice finally managed to half sit on the goose and pin it between her knees. She held onto its neck with her hands and struggled to unclip the collar that held the keys. Holding the keys in her hand and struggling to unfasten the collar, she heard something that made her pause.
Something was still jingling. Like a set of keys. From behind the bush.
Alice stopped what she was doing and listened. In an instant, the gray cat shot out from behind the bush and darted up Memory Lane. A second goose suddenly flapped its wings from inside the bush. When the goose raised its head Alice could just barely see its collar: keys were dangling from its neck.
But it wasn’t alone. A third goose flapped and waddled around the other side of the bush, jingling away with the keys around its neck.
Alice’s shoulders slumped as she fought to hold the captured goose still. This was too much. She was so close and yet…which goose was it? Alice knew she couldn’t possibly catch all three birds. Even one was more than she could handle. She took a breath.
Think, Alice, think. This is Castle Cliché. You let the cat out of the bag, you went back to square one and then you took a (she had to stop herself from inserting an expletive here) trip down Memory lane. What’s next? You’ve got a goose, there are two more in the bush…
Birds of a feather, bird in my hands, birds in the bush… “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!” She shouted. She looked back down at the goose she had pinned between her legs as her brain processed this new cliché.
“THIS is my key!” She confidently exclaimed, eagerly unfastening the collar and jumping off the poor goose. She stood triumphantly, holding the keys as the goose waddled frantically toward its friends, who were already fleeing down another dark hall.
Alice wasted no time heading for the door. She stumbled through the doorway into the bright gray light of day. Carved into the stone of the hillside on this side of the castle were steps leading down to the water’s edge where rough waves lapped the shore. Alice knew taking the steps would be the easiest way to scan the hillside for the hidden door.
She spotted what she was looking for: two doors just off the path.
The door on the left, the farthest from the path, was open. Strangely, though, it led nowhere. It almost looked as if someone had merely built a doorframe into the rock but had never bothered to dig out a tunnel to anywhere.
The door closest to the path was closed and locked. Alice’s hand still grasped the keys she had wrangled off the goose’s neck. One was clearly too small and so she eagerly shoved the other one into the door’s keyhole. The brass knob turned easily under her hand. She pulled, but the door didn’t budge. She pushed against the door and turned the handle further, but still nothing. She pushed and pulled, she wiggled the handle. She beat against it with the palm of her hand until it stung. Nothing worked.
Alice slumped against a boulder, breathing heavily. She glared at the door, silently cursing this strange world she had been thrust into. It was a place that was so foreign, yet oddly familiar. Infuriating, yet also predictable. She reflected on the other obstacles she had faced during this day at Castle Cliché (had it been only a day?), each challenge a riddle easily answered with, of all things, a trite turn of phrase.
Suddenly, Alice knew. She looked back at the doors. A small smile spread across her face.
Silently, Alice walked to the open door. She stopped, and said quietly, “When one door closes-“ Alice reached out and shut the door firmly. The door on the right opened with a creak, as if someone had gently pushed it from the inside. “-another door opens!” Alice cried gleefully. She flung the second door open wide and stepped through it into the warm darkness.
The warm darkness was Alice’s bedroom. She sat up in bed with a start, looking around to make sure she was home. She breathed a sigh of relief. Castle Cliché had been nothing but a dream.
“Did the storm wake you up?” her husband asked groggily. The thunder rumbled outside.
“No,” Alice replied. “It was just a bad dream.”
“Oh yeah?” He said. “What was it about?”
Alice looked at him. “Cliches,” she said.
Her husband started laughing heartily. “What is it they say about clichés?” He asked. “Oh yeah- ‘avoid them like the plague.’” His own joke started him on another round of chuckling, but he stopped suddenly when he saw Alice’s sober face.
“You have no idea,” she said flatly.
Scared Stiff
Debra Erfert
Lightning flickered through the department store’s skylights, a heartbeat later thunder crackled and tumbled into the distance. My dressing room’s lights blinked off.
It was a dark and stormy night.
At least that was what my mom told me about August 12th, 1995, the evening I was born, exactly 16 years ago today. The dinky southwest border town in Arizona had a power outage that night due to a monsoon ripping though the desert. The fierce winds tore down fronds from towering palm trees and smashed them against windows like scared animals demanding to get out of the rain. From what she told me, it was a real nail-biter. I guess that was why I’m not afraid of, well, anything.
I grew up watching horror movies late at night—with all the lights out, reading the creepiest Dean Koontz novels, and hitting every haunted house in town on Halloween. I dared gooseflesh to pop on my skin. The closest I got to the prickly sensation was stepping out of an air-conditioned car and being hit by a blast of hundred-twenty plus degree heat during summer—that kind of temperature change could make the sturdiest girl breakout in those tiny bumps.
“Sammy, are you okay in there? You’re not scared, are you?”
My poor sister’s voice wavered. She hated storms. And being surrounded by one while shopping in a Phoenix mall somehow intensified her emotions. Not mine. “No, I’m—” The lights clicked on, flickered off, and then came on again. “—I’m good, Katems. Thanks.”
Standing in front of the dressing room mirror I carefully set the dark gray felt hat on my head and studied my reflection. After pushing my short hair behind one ear and adjusting the brim lower toward my left eye, I grinned enough for the single dimple to peek out of my cheek. Not two dimples like normal people, but one. In a weird way it balanced my face. It took me three months of saving my babysitting money and worming my way onto my sister’s shopping expedition with her boyfriend, Ryan, to finally get my prized Fedora—the first step to becoming a real undercover cop. I bought the hat without looking at the price. It was my birthday present to me. Come to find out it was on sale. How lucky could I get?
Kate had vanished. Well, vanished might not be the right word. My big sister rarely strayed farther than the nearest shoe store. With my hat securely in a bag, I looked for her from the entrance of the Famous Footwear. She wasn’t hard to spot. Her bright hair looked like fireworks under the florescent lights. The fiery red spirals cascading down her back and clear skin once made me believe I’d been adopted, but in actuality I took after my dad’s side of the family in just about every way. His dreary brown hair washed out his hazel eyes, and if he stood sideways, his tall body almost disappeared into the background—just like me.
It took my dad ten years of working through the ranks at the police department before he became a detective, where he had to share the small office with two other men. I’m not that patient. I’d finished “How To Become A Private Detective” twice already, and I was on my way to being a real P.I.
* * * * * * * * *
Thunder crackled loud enough to wake the dead moments after the lightening struck in cascading bolts on the horizon again. I saw Kate jump. To be honest, the lightening strikes had been landing nearer as the evening closed in around us. The heavy, rain-laden clouds made the nighttime darker than August should be.
Touching the hatbox sitting next to me, I watched the monsoon approach out the front windshield. The thunder kept pace with the sucking sounds my sister produced. Kate sounded scared. The highway was wet, but at the moment it wasn’t raining, and Ryan had his car going the speed limit. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes listening to the mostly okay music they had playing on the radio, until he changed the channel.
“What’d they say?” Kate asked.
“I’ll turn it up,” Ryan said. The radio went louder and the sound of a woman’s voice filled the Mustang.
“. . . considered extremely dangerous. Do not attempt to detain him. If you have any information on the whereabouts of Jerry Lee Gleeson, please call 911 immediately. . .”
“What?” I sat up and leaned forward, trying to hear the report better.
“Be quiet,” Ryan said sharply. “Listen!” He turned the volume up higher. I leaned over the seat and closed my mouth. The broadcaster spoke so fast I almost couldn’t understand her words.
“That was Warden Tamera Valdez from the Lewis Detention Facility near Buckeye. Jerry Lee Gleeson was sentenced to death in 1999 for the cold-blooded murders of thirteen male hitchhikers he had picked up on Highway 19 between Nogales and Tucson over a two-year period. Again,” the woman’s voice said, “Gleeson is 6 foot tall, has blonde hair, and has a predominant six inch scar running down the left side of his face. He escaped from the Lewis Prison during an area power outage thirty minutes ago. Do not stop for any hitchhikers on Highway 85. If you see a man matching Gleeson’s description, don’t try to detain him, but call 911 immediately. This is Cassandra Coleman, reporting for KSPR radio, Phoenix.”
Ryan turned the sound down lower when the music came back on.
“We’re on Highway 85,” Kate whispered.
“I know,” he said.
“So?” I touched the door and made sure the lock was down. “He’s not our problem. We’re in a car. He’s on foot . . . if he didn’t have a car waiting for him.”
“Oh, Miss Conspiracy Theory has it all worked out—” Kate screeched when thunder boomed. The percussion of the lightening folding in on itself rocked the car—or it was my sister hitting her head on the ceiling when she jumped.
“It’s possible.” Lightening flashed in conjunction with another chorus of thunder. I let it rumble into silence while I thought about what the reporter said. “How far away is the prison, Ryan?”
“Uh—” He looked around. “It’s up ahead about another . . . five miles or so.” He glanced over the seat at me and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
My sister’s boyfriend stood 6 foot 5 inches tall. He already was in football practice for his second year at college. I’d much rather have him as a friend than an enemy. “Oh, I feel so safe.” I slumped back in the seat, folding my arms over my ribs. Sarcasm was my way of dealing with a guy as good-looking as Ryan. He had two very deep dimples when he smiled.
Mist clouded the windshield and Ryan turned on the wipers, sweeping the fine droplets away. My mind drifted to an old, mold scented paperback I’d read a couple of weeks ago. It’d been published in the late forties, but even though it had terrible writing, the subject matter intrigued me. The first line read: “It was a dark and stormy night.” Looking out my window into the depthless, blackness of the desert, I couldn’t see how it could be any darker. White jagged lightening struck the sand less than a mile away, making the night definitely stormy. And to top it off, a serial murderer had escaped his prison and was right now hiding in the desert we were driving through.
Yeah, I was having a great birthday, no sarcasm intended.