Haunted

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Toni’s house was haunted.

The smell of acrid smoke assaulted her as soon as she entered the kitchen. A moment of panic, quickly replaced by anger. The ghost had struck again.

“Karl!” she called out. “Why did you run the coffee maker?”

A translucent figure drifted in from the living room. “I turn on the coffee maker every morning,” he said with a dismissive shrug.

“Yes, but did you notice there was no coffee or water in it?”

A roll of the eyes. “I’ve lived in this house for thirty years. You really expect me to change my routine after all that time? It’s not my fault you don’t know how to make coffee properly.”

“But you don’t live here anymore,” Toni retorted, gesturing to his hovering form. “And you can’t even drink the coffee.”

“And you can’t prepare it responsibly, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

Toni rubbed her temples. The headache she had woken up with had intensified dramatically. “I’m leaving,” she announced. “Apparently I need to stop by Starbucks on my way to work.”

“While you’re there,” the ghost grunted, “You should look into picking up a new coffee maker. This one doesn’t work anymore.”

Toni screamed.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Screaming

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Jones could hear the screaming as soon as she stepped out of the squad car. She directed a grim nod to her partner and approached the house.

Nancy could barely hear the pounding at the door. The second or maybe third time that a fist beat against her front door, she finally managed to break through the haze, stagger over and open it.

Noise tumbled out of the open door and with it, a woman: frantic, desperate, wide red-ringed eyes. “Thank God you’re here,” she cried.

“You’re the one who called?”

“You have to take him away.”

“Is there someone else here?” Jones asked, looking past her into the house.

“Please,” Nancy said. She held out the screaming infant. “I haven’t slept for three days. You have to save me.”

The officer’s jaw clenched. She glanced back at the squad car. “Collins—”

Another officer appeared. He strode over with a calm gate and a gentle smile. “May I?” With her permission, he flipped the baby onto his belly, draped him over an arm and started patting his back. In a matter of moments, the sobs had turned to small sniffling breaths.

“But . . . how?”

“You have a nice day ma’am.”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Wall

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The door shut. She waited, counting his steps as he descended the apartment stairs. Finally, she spoke to the empty room.  “He didn’t really see anything. He just said the spot on the wall looked like a face.”

Silence. That seemed like a good sign. So why did she feel so cold? 

“I’m sorry,” she offered,  just for good measure. “I know I’m not supposed to let anyone know about you. But it was an accident.”

The wall creaked and quivered. The spot with the brownish stains bulged like a growing bubble. It pulsed and shuddered,  shadows caving in as a hollow-eyed face pushed its way into the room. A noise that was almost a voice shuddered out the word, “Lies…”

“No,” she insisted. “No, no, no, no, no,  please don’t think that. I didn’t tell him anything.”

Wood cracking, insect skittering, air moving in empty places: “Punishment…”

A shape like a hand began pressing through the wall. “Not again. I swear, he doesn’t know anything.”

“Blood….”

It was cold. She could see her breath. “Y-you want… you don’t mean…”

There was a knock on the door. 

A gasp, a murmur, a sob: “Please.”

The wall began to crack.  

“Blood…”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Stage

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75

She had to take slow, careful steps to reach the center of the stage, but her pain disappeared as the applause reached a crescendo. This was why she kept performing; not for the applause, but for the audience. For a chance to create something meaningful.

50

A trophy, gleaming gold. Lights shining in her eyes. Faces turned toward her expectantly. “Thank you,” she began. They would think she meant for the award. How could she let them know it was for so much more.

35

The audience had been thin and the performance had been exhausting. Bad reviews had scared people off, and they had never managed to turn it around. Each night she asked herself if it was worth going on, not just with this show, but with the whole damn career.

When she left the dressing room that night, a wide-eyed girl lingered in the theatre lobby. “It’s you,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you”

25

She stood in Times Square, dizzy and delirious, staring up at a her name on a marquis.

20

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“It won’t be easy.”
“I know. But maybe it will mean something.”

Listen

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“Wait,” she said, panting, “stop for a second.”

“Huh, wha—” he said, growing still above her. “What’s wrong?”

“Is that . . .”

“I know,” he said bashfully. “I was trying something I read—”

“Not you,” she said. “Quiet.” Then after a moment’s consideration, she whispered, “but you should definitely keep going with that in a minute.”

“Okay, great!” he whispered back. “But then why—”

“Goat.”

“What?”
She paused a moment longer, then nodded confidently. “It’s definitely a goat.”

He looked beneath the sheets, “It’s a . . . I don’t . . .”

“Just listen.”

And how could he refuse that playful smile or the twinkle in her eyes, especially when she was naked beneath him. So he listened. He waited. He heard the pounding of his veins and the quiet music he had put on earlier, but nothing else. “What am I—” And then he heard it, an unmistakable bleating.

“Goat,” she repeated. “We gotta check it out.”

“But . . . now?”

They disentangled, gathered the blankets around them, and peaked through the blinds above the headboard. Sure enough, standing in the apartment parking lot was a brown LaMancha goat staring directly at their window.

“I don’t like that,” he whispered.

“Do you still want to . . .”

The goat bleated.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Effervescence

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Effervescence came rushing past her, airy and prismatic.

It burst.

Martina stopped short on the park sidewalk, uncertain whether she had even seen the bubble. She was just about to give up and continue on her way when another of the delicate spheres drifted past.

Silly little things, Martina thought to herself. She looked in the direction from which it had come, over a low, grassy hill. As she did, she saw several more bubbles drift over the top of the hill, though they popped before reaching. Silly old woman. She left the path and began climbing the small slope.

Over and down into a small cluster of trees. Bubbles were thick there, radiant with captured sunset and reflected green. She descended,. The bubbles rushed to meet her, then burst like kisses on her hand, like tears on her cheek, like whispered wishes.

“Hello Mom.”

She had stumbled out of the cloud of bubbles beside a young woman who had her same eyes.

Martina smiled. “I thought I’d find you if I just followed the—”

The bubble burst.

“Oh, but you’re . . . does that mean I’m . . . ?”

A somber nod. “I’m sorry.”

“No, darling,” Martina answered, eyes glistening with captured sunset, “I’m ready.”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Reserved

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Jane rushed down the apartment steps, tense and flustered. “I don’t want to hear it,” she announced without even looking toward the man from apartment G.

Heavily lidded eyes glanced at her sidelong. An eyebrow rose with exaggerated slowness. “So you do know that it’s my month,” he said dryly.

Lights flashed as Jane unlocked her car. “It was an emergency,” she explained.

Ned’s expression and voice remained flat as he lingered outside. “There’s a schedule for a reason,” he remarked

She flung her purse into the car. “I know, I know. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s what you said last time,” he called out as his neighbor dove into the shelter of her car. With the door firmly shut and Ned’s lazy admonitions muffled, Jane let out a tense sigh. She started her car, glanced in the rearview mirror, and then—

“Ned!”

“Yes?” Was that a grin on his dour features?

“What the hell is this?” she asked gesturing at the Saab parked directly behind her car.

“Chaos, Jane,” he said. “That’s what you get when you abandon the system.”

Though both residents apologized for what happened next, neither was ever allowed to use the reserved parking space again.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Terra

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I used to marvel at the way stars passed. Then galaxies began to fade into the distance. The universe, vast as it is, can still become tedium when I have to watch it pass alone.

I keep moving. I try to keep my promise

There are moments of brilliance of course. Not all wonder has been lost. Stars burst and are reborn. Nebulae swirl. Color and light. Void. Dust, debris, and emptiness.

Sometimes the darkness seems endless. Distant pinpricks of light offer little comfort, no matter what worlds may orbit around them. Still I move forward – until I reach new lands. Ground beneath my feet, air to breathe, a sky. A place where I can plant the seeds and try to keep my promise.

For all that I have seen, a sky can still be a vast and wondrous thing. In such moments of solidity, I can find myself. I can even begin to find meaning. I forget which stars I have visited, which galaxies I have abandoned. I see only a sea of new constellations that yet have no names. As life takes root, I write our story in the stars. I let myself remember.

I let myself hope.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Roar

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I know this beach. The thought strikes suddenly, and I pause my steps to look about. Don’t I?

“Something wrong?” you ask.

The waves sweep in, tumble over themselves and slip away. I try to find a landmark. Sea-foam surges; pebbles scramble around our feet, then fall still. I can’t find anything I can recognize or latch onto.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just déjà vu.”

We keep moving.

The wind whistles, rumbles, howls. It dances, it dies, it whips and thrashes. You move close enough that we bump and jostle each other as we walk. Waves come and go. Rolling, churning, crashing. My hand finds yours.

Then I remember.

Sand shifts. Waves throw detritus at the land and drag away whatever they can grab. Wind blasts away stick and stone and piles up slow, lumbering hills of grit. People build, abandon, tear down, start again.

I have been here before, I realize, Just not with you.

It roars in my ears. The endless advance and retreat, the constant change, always and never the same.

Our footsteps have already vanished behind us, and I feel the waves pulling sand from beneath my feet.

I grip your hand as tightly as I can.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Tea

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He approached the fire cautiously, homemade spear outstretched. You never knew who you might come across in the bombed out streets. “Who’s there?” he called.

The bony figure was hunched over the dancing yellow flames suddenly unfolded itself, straightening up into the shape of a woman who turned to face him. “Tea?” she offered.

. . . . . . . .

“I thought it was the end.”

“Must have been quite embarrassing to realize your mistake,” she replied. They sat on opposite sides of the fire. She stirred sugar into her cup while he stared blankly into the fire.

“We all did,” he said. “Apocalypse. That’s what everyone said.”

“Frightfully overused word.” She took a careful sip and sighted contentedly. “Not a very helpful one either.”

“Not like it matters,” he grunted. “Nothing matters now. Everything’s gone.”

She shrugged. “You’re not gone. More importantly, I’m not gone. Though the tea soon will be, so you better drink some before I finish off the whole pot.”

His gaze drifted to the cast iron pot. “What’s the point?”

“Same as it was before, I imagine.”

Slowly, dully, he poured steaming liquid into his cup. He smelled chamomile, mint, orange blossoms, lemon grass. He breathed in, then out. He breathed.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox