“What? Visitors at this hour? This will never do?” Henrietta said looking through the lace curtains at the car in her drive.
A couple of young men wearing dark suits with nametags stepped from the vehicle. The passenger reached into the car to retrieve a book and some papers.
The pair rang the bell and waited with angelic, smiling faces.
“Maybe, this will be more pleasant than I thought,” she said licking her lips and winking at her familiar.
Padre
He thought he saw her upon the stair
But when he looked back she wasn’t there
“An illusion,” he thought, “A trick of the light”
After all it was at night
But the next day – in the rear view mirror
“Was that her again?” getting nearer
How could it be – that there was this presence?
He had been so careful
To hide the evidence
He headed back to where the body lay
The grave was untouched covered in clay
But the visions continued
She appeared repeatedly
He had to to know – had to go and see
So with shovel in hand
He turned the soil
The smell alone made him recoil
But the evidence was clear,
His guilt to attest
Just as the police arrived
And made the arrest
Padre
I watched helplessly from behind the two-way glass
As the interview room filled with eerie gas
Detective Margaret Smith on her last duty day
Interviewing a suspect from far away
The Perp grew tentacles and at Smith did lunge
Breaking the cuffs – the room into mist did plunge
The last thing I remember was her pleading face
Before being devoured by a creator from outer space
Padre
It was nearly All Hallows, and Bella knew what that meant. She hated this time of the year; really hated it. It wasn’t that her job wasn’t hard enough the rest of the year, but the autumn always brought in a flood of new cases. Bella was a private investigator specialising in missing persons cases. For most PIs that means finding individuals that had skipped out on their rents, or deadbeat dad’s. Well, Bella tracked dead dads. There was no beat to it. She was usually hired by families or estates where the disappearance was, how shall we say, unusual. Most turned out to be standard foul play – love triangles and the like – but some, her bread and butter cases, involved vampires. She had already discovered three different “families” of the creatures in the three counties area, plus that one werewolf case, but Halloween just ramped things up. People though nothing about zombies, werewolves, and vamps on the streets. It made leads that much harder, plus they (the undead) usually did their “recruiting” among the unsuspecting party-goers of October.
Well, this year was going to be a doozy. She just didn’t know it yet.
Padre
A whistle
A shrill sound upon the breeze
An incessant sound
That makes me ill at ease
Where does it come from?
Whatever might it mean?
Is it all just in my head?
Or is there something untoward
As yet by me unseen?
Padre
Upon a stairway on a shadowy night
I chanced touch the railing making me recoil in fright
As an eerie chill filled my soul
Padre
Weekend Writing Prompt #210 – Eerie in 24 words
See also Upon A Stair from my Gothic Series
Do not wander in the wood
For few from there return
The very trees there seem to move
Even when there is no breeze
Let your journey another path take
Let caution your planning seize
Do not wander in the wood
Do not its mysteries learn
And above all – do take care
To avoid the towering trees
Padre
“That’s so weird,” Amber said as she did a slow spin taking in all of her surroundings.
“What’s weird? Where?” Tracy queried.
“Here – and this puddle’s what’s weird,” Amber replied.
“What are you going on about?”
“Just look at the refection in the puddle. The building in it isn’t anywhere near here.”
Tracy looked into the puddle and then looked around in the same intense manner Amber had.
“No! No way!” Tracy exclaimed.
The pair then knelt next to the puddle and peered in. There before them was a bustling market square with people in Victorian dress carrying out their business.
Tracy hesitantly placed her fingers into the shallow puddle that seemed no more than an inch deep but was able to sink her hand in to her elbow.
Jerking her arm rapidly from the puddle, she shook it and involuntarily shivered.
“No! This isn’t happening,” she said. “I could feel a breeze.”
Padre
With blood-shot green eyes of envy
He down the unlit passage strode
Leaving his wife and her lover
Alone in his wedding bed abode
He had entered but a moment ago
To see the sight – his blood to make cold
And in a fit of jealousy
Bludgeoned away their breath
As his anger and pain did explode
For today’s Poetics, I would like you to write a Gothic poem and explore the question: “Which according to you are the deepest, darkest and most concealed of human emotions?”
Jealousy
Sister and brother, Deana and Don continued down the long drove. They had been told there was a rave at an abandoned house at the end of the tree-lined lane.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Deana challenged.
“It’s right were it is supposed to be,” he replied holding up the hand drawn map his friend Kevin had made for him. “We came off Forest Street, and turned onto the third left.”
“Well it has been going on forever,” she complained. “Look, we have been on this stupid lane for twenty minutes,” she said checking her watch. “Ring Kevin now, and double check.”
“There’s no signal,” Don said.
Deana took out her phone as well. “I don’t have one either,” she said with obvious frustration.
“Uh oh. I don’t like this,” Don said. “Isn’t that the orange peel you dropped ten minutes ago?” he said pointing.
“Can’t be,” Deana replied uncertainly. “We’ve been walking straight ahead and their haven’t any turnings.”
It’s been ten years since they were last seen. They would be 26 and 27 now.
Padre
Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner
Sorry, but I am still in Gothic – Halloween mode.
Padre's Ramblings 