The Hanged Girl – Two

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Helen

 

 

 

Image credit: Nilo

Image credit: Nilo

It’s good to be thrown in at the deep end, Lisa told herself silently, that way you learn to swim so much more quickly.

The cause of her reverie was being left alone to mind the shop by her far more experienced colleague only on the second day of her new job. Stacey, the more experienced bookstore sales girl was also more seasoned when it came to town affairs it seemed, of the romantic kind. She dazzled Lisa with a monologue of herculean length about her latest ‘great love’ and how she just ‘had to see him today to make sure he wasn’t playing up with that bitch Teresa’ and how that could only possibly be achieved by ‘ sneaking out at lunchtime and going down to her gang’s favourite cafe in Middle Street’.

Lunchtime being, of course, the most likely time for the illicit rendezvous in Stacey’s mind. The innocence – or perhaps roe properly naiveté – of that was mildly beguiling to Lisa, so much so that she unfortunately found herself agreeing to mind the shop alone over the busiest period of the day. Lunchtime was when all the office and other workers emerged to shop and therefore when they were most likely to come in and actually buy something. And expect service, expect a salesperson who truly knew what she was doing, or where the various types of books could be found.

Lisa watched the door nervously, traitorously wishing every passerby would do exactly that – pass by. And her darker will seemed to be working quite well. It was a bright, sunny day and perhaps that is not the ideal day for book shopping. For whatever reason it was quieter than the day before, at least so far, and she was grateful for that. Yesterday she had shadowed Stacey like a little lost lamb, watching her guide buyers to books, extol their virtues, encourage sales, then ring them up on the cash register and fold them in bags to be taken away. For a silly girl she was quite accomplished at that, making Lisa feel, at twice her age at last, like a ridiculous novice.

She could castigate herself quite efficiently some other time. For the moment other needs were more pressing and she feverishly reminded herself of the various book categories and where they were placed in the store – popular fiction near the front, also with new release books; crime and true crime to the left; romance and historical fiction to the right. Down the back there were biographies, non fiction and some self-help and spiritual fare. Literature, proper literature, being less popular than popular, was also down near the back, a hallowed area near the hallway that led to the back office. Lisa was not sure what that said about the state of literature these days, or the state of education, and the latter made her worry briefly for Mandy. What did they teach these days in school?

As her mind wandered to such disturbing thoughts an even more disturbing thing occurred. The tinkling bell at the doorway which announced someone coming in chimed lightly and far too happily for Lisa’s taste. She looked sharply to the door, dreading a shopper who might want to do anything more than browse.

Please just be looking, she thought, considering how clumsy she felt with the cash register and sales processes. Stacey’s induction had left a lot to be desired and the bookstore owner, Gavin, did not bother himself with such matters and rarely even deigned to visit his store himself. For a bookstore owner he seemed singularly uninterested in books. But then something made Lisa suspect he was interested in very little in actual fact, for interest would require energy, and he seemed to have so little of that overall.

Coming in from the bright sunlight at first the figure seemed like a dark shadow to her. As her eyes adjusted she found herself staring at a man who was returning her gaze with some amusement. She blushed, just like a school girl, and he laughed lightly, walking straight up to the counter, filling her with awe and dread.

The man, who looked like he was around her age or slightly older, was very tall, with dark hair and very dark eyes – brown so deep they were almost black, but she noticed light specks of gold in the irises to help distinguish them from the pupils. She found herself slightly mesmerised. She’d never seen eyes quite like those before.

If the man felt this was intrusive he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was used to his own impact. He held out a strong-looking hand to her in a familiar gesture of welcome. She took it automatically and shook, ever polite.

‘I think we are neighbours,’ he said, ‘I saw you as I passed the shop and had to come in to see if I was right.’

A brief memory of the man in the garden flowed through her and she made instant calculations. Yes, the build was the same. But she asked, ‘Where do you live?”

‘No 6 Mercy Lane,’ he replied, “And yes, I know, it’s that house. I’ve heard all about it. The realtor was obsessed with it when she sold me the place. It was almost like she wanted to cruel the sale for herself.’

He laughed to himself and then continued, ‘And you are No 4 I think, you and your daughter?”

‘That’s right,’ Lisa replied, her suspicions confirmed, and not sure whether she was happy about this or not. This man was unsettling, but perhaps it was just the threat he might actually want to buy something that was vexing her.

Or perhaps it is just that he is too handsome….kind of in that way her former husband had been too handsome.

‘So does it worry you to have such close proximity to infamy?’ he asked, amused still by some internal reverie.

‘The house, or you?” She found herself flirting slightly, surprising herself.

He chuckled, “Possibly both, but I meant the house.’

‘Well then, no. I’m not superstitious.’ Lisa replied.

‘Aren’t you?” he asked, ‘How very sensible of you. For me, I love a mystery and a bit of history. It was part of the attraction in some ghoulish way.’

She shivered. “Well, well,’ she said.

‘But only a small part,’ he said, ‘the house and land are very fine, and former inhabitants are only that. Former. I’ve lived in places with even more colourful history. I find it tends to stay in the past.’

‘That’s comforting,’ Lisa replied, “You wouldn’t want it to repeat. Not something like that.’

‘No indeed, life is always about progress, about the next step in the journey, the past is past, what point is there in it anymore?’ he agreed, then started to turn to go. Good, he was only popping in to say hello, not to buy. ‘In any case, it will be nice to be neighbours. You and your daughter must come over to dinner some time. I’m actually quite a good cook.’

‘How could we refuse then?’ Lisa asked, finding herself noticing the strength of his build and the softness of his voice, even despite herself.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed, ‘How could you?’

He turned on his heel and she thought she could hear him chuckle again under his breath. A moment later he turned back, shaking his head.

‘Oh, I should have introduced myself,’ he said, ‘How rude of me. My name is Damien Peterson.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Lisa replied, ‘I’m Lisa, Lisa Reynolds.’

‘And a pleasure to meet you too, Lisa,’ he said, nodding as though to affirm his claim. He turned again, and seconds later he was gone, and she was once more blessedly alone in the shop.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Flavour of Spite – Two

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: pzAxe

Image credit: pzAxe

In my first decade I lived in America, not the cold and ancient climes of London as I do now. My mother, Imogen’s sister Gwen, married a man named Ross who Imogen dismissively termed a ‘liberal’ as though in that one word everything paltry and plain could be described. Of what I remember of my parents Imogen may have been right in this. I recall Ross, my father, as a man with a perpetually quivering lip, a kind of high and almost effeminate speaking voice, and many vocal opinions on vapid topics.

Ross’ knowledge was always from books, and always books that he only half read. He adorned the bookshelves more for show I believe, to demonstrate to any visitor – of which there were increasingly few over the years – how well read and urbane he was. I doubt an original thought ever crossed his mind, and if one did it would have died of loneliness.

After a few short years, when you’d heard every purloined viewpoint or piece of knowledge many times over, you started to realise he was a paper-mache type of man. He was made up of the flotsam and jetsam of popular culture, literature and half understood philosophies. What had seemed knowledgeable and broad in scope revealed itself to be cosmetic at best.

It got him a degree in a prestigious university it seems. But forgive me if I comment, just about anything will these days, don’t you think? The intellectual rot probably started setting in during his years I suspect.

You will think me harsh perhaps, but I recall my mother seeming to be dis-enchanted with him early in the marriage. My birth came quickly, and by the time I had enough years to actually notice such dynamics, they rarely spoke without some form of invective. It seemed that Ross squandered family money and made little of it. He had many schemes and plans and dreams, but little follow through. The slightest criticism or complaint at his endeavours and he would give up in a rage. His great sense of self and liberation that had drawn my mother to him initially, like a form of dark, cancerous charisma, in the end proved to be but hubris and hot air.

His flavour might have been a lukewarm lime jelly I believe, insubstantial on the tongue and gone in a slippery moment. My mother had her own flavour of resentment and loss of innocence, though how she could have been innocent given what became of her sister – and why – I cannot begin to fathom. Perhaps she was wilfully blind also and she endured, reaching outside for something that could never be what it seemed. In any case, it was a disaster, a bonding made in hell. The silences of the house were monumental, drawn out affairs, a kind of competition of will between two stubborn and frankly rather stupid adults.

The fire might have been a purifying force, in a way, burning it all out.

After they died in the conflagration Imogen swooped in to ‘rescue me’ from America. She would talk to me about how Gwen had brought this on herself by marrying outside our kind. Imogen was obsessed with family lineage, and I must confess her analysis of the family dynamic of my earlier years seemed sound. I have often found the most mean-spirited analyses of life are also the most accurate. It is a sad but seemingly immutable fact. And it is a sign of strength to look that in the face, and not sugar coat the truth.

Being a man of flavour, of course, I eschew sugar-coating anything. You must bite into the essence of life in its purest form to know the world.

London suits me better than America, of that I am sure. I was a bookish child and a loner. Imogen was right about that too. Few of my school-friends were really ‘friends’ and none like me. London’s cold settled into my bones with preternatural ease, but I was yet uneasy. Imogen would say we were better suited to Germany, and specifically Berlin.

But Berlin’s glory days are over, she would say, lost back in the mid years of the last millennium. I agreed with her, but not with her vapid hero-worship of the fallen Fuehrer. He failed, after all, a pretender to a greater throne. He should have stuck to art, it was his truer calling.

Like him I can draw a little, I can paint. I have many un-developed talents I do not seek to flourish. I found a home in food and taste through the small kindnesses of the kitchen afforded me after the terrors of my conditioning and programming from my terrible aunt. If a young body is stretched on a rudimentary rack for long enough, the solace of a cupcake afterwards is beyond measure.

But the rack and the other devices, which I have now mastered myself, made me stronger and wiser. They leavened me like bread, or refined me like steel.

I do not crave world domination like Imogen’s idol. I want the world in an entirely different manner. I want to consume it, swallow it whole.

Starting with the girl, because she is perfect, and perfection is always the best place to start.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Hanged Girl – One

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Darren Baker

Image credit: Darren Baker

By late afternoon the muscles along Lisa’s back were starting to ache from the exertion. There were only so many boxes you could unpack before it caught up with you. She’d been working like a machine determined to have unpacked at least the basic necessities before nightfall, and somewhere along the way the definition of ‘necessity’ had expanded to mean practically everything. As she stretched her arms above and behind her to loosen the tension she laughed inwardly at her own obsessive and relentless nature.

‘Enough is never enough,’ she muttered, under her breath, a personal motto, one of many.

‘What’s that?” her daughter Mandy asked as she passed by the bathroom, carrying her own bounty to her bedroom to unpack.

Lisa looked up with mild irritation, more at herself than her daughter, as she hadn’t meant to speak aloud. Sometimes she did just that, though, at inconvenient moments and sometimes at embarrassing ones. Although she had her daughter, her loneliness since her marriage break up was such that she often found herself talking as though there was someone to listen, and of course, there so rarely was.

‘Nothing,’ she responded, shaking her head, ‘Just aching a bit from the work. How is your room going?”

Mandy frowned slightly. She knew her mother asked because they were polar opposites on most things, and this need to get things done quickly was but the tip of the iceberg. When unpacking for a home move Lisa would be like a robot, relentless, box by box, making decisions on where things would be placed rapidly and with little real consideration. There would always be time to re-arrange later, for the moment it was just an imperative to get rid of the boxes and get it done.

In comparison, Mandy could dwell over items found in boxes which displayed items long forgotten, and sit for many moments contemplating the memories that such discoveries evoked. And she often put away little – Lisa knew if she ventured down the hallway to Mandy’s room now little use would yet have been made of the extensive built-in robes the room afforded. Everything would be strewn around the floor awaiting an eventual home.

Lisa did not want to be annoyed by her daughter. Deep down she realised it was a character trait that was just different from hers, not better or worse. It may well prove to be the trait that transformed into some kind of talent or special intelligence. Mandy had patience, where Lisa had little. Perhaps that was just the balance of things.

‘Slowly,” Mandy admitted into the silence, “But I’m getting there. Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”

A wonderful idea! Lisa needed an excuse for a break, or her body did at any rate, and tea was something even the ponderous teenager could not do slowly. It seemed the perfect antidote for the potential argument that hung in the hot, still afternoon air.

‘Yes please,’ Lisa said, “That would be lovely.’

Mandy smiled and bobbed her head, her dark straight hair lapping her shoulders. The dark hair was the last remaining remnant of a period of goth obsession for her daughter. Happily she no longer wore the over-emphasised moon like makeup, nor listened to the same dirgy, dark music. She’d outgrown that quickly, but even Lisa had to admit the darker hair colour suited her pale skin more than the light red of her natural colouring. So the dark hair had stayed and sanity and taste had returned.

Little mercies were better than none – another of Lisa’s mottos.

After a few moments the tea had not materialised. Lisa found herself unable to stop unpacking another box. A vague irritation at her own need coalesced into internal questioning of her daughter. What could possibly be taking her so long? Then she heard the sound of a kettle coming close to the boil and settled fora moment.

More moments passed without the sound of the water being fed to the teapot. Lisa stopped her unpacking to consider. Had she even found the teapot when she was unpacking in the kitchen earlier? Could Mandy be seeking it out now? And if so, had she missed one of the boxes marked ‘kitchen’ or had the removalists put it in the wrong room, destroying her perfect order as they do often did in their haste to just unload and be gone?

Nothing professional in professional anymore, she mused.

‘Hey mum!’ Mandy called out from the kitchen, and Lisa expected any moment to be asked about the teapot whereabouts. “You know that house just down the road from here, the supposedly empty one, like for years?”

Lisa hadn’t expected that. She’d heard about the house and the hill and the unfortunate girl of many, many years ago. The real estate agent had told her – full disclosure she called it, as though what happened in a neighbour’s house really mattered to the property values of the other houses surrounding it. Well, perhaps it did, perhaps the urban myths and tragedy did permeate real estate values that much. Thankfully she was renting, so it wasn’t really her concern. And given that, perhaps the agent just liked to gossip and that was all.
‘Yes,’ Lisa called back and stopped herself from asking where the tea was. They were both tired and the arguments that arose from her daughter’s tendency to procrastinate were too common and too inflammable for such an afternoon. Lisa wanted to finalise most of the unpacking and have a quiet dinner with her daughter, without such mother-daughter stress.

‘I don’t think it’s empty anymore!” Mandy continued, ‘I can see a man in the backyard, doing some gardening!’

The curiosity made Lisa leave the bathroom and join her daughter in the kitchen. She was leaning out the kitchen window, and Lisa was shorter than her daughter – girl got her height from her father, lucky thing – so she really had to stretch up on her tip toes to see what Mandy was seeing. But as she did so she realised the stretch was perfect for her back, so sometimes the universe was kind.

Sure enough there was a man hard at work trimming rose bushes along the side of the big house. It was a fair way down the street from them, sitting like a lone sentinel with the eerie hill at the zenith of its backyard. No other houses had been built inbetween, on either side. It was as though the community felt the house needed distance from other dwellings. Or it could be, given its size and general majesty, that it had once been the home of wealth and community power, and its isolation was a choice of former owners rather than an aversion from others.

In any case they could just see the man, and pondered his presence in silence. Lisa was thinking that it was good to see someone in this community that obviously wasn’t superstitious after all. Mandy was wondering if the man had a son around her age. Both peered in happy contemplation, confident their spying would go unseen.

But then the man stood, turned, and looked directly back at them, almost as though he had sensed their contemplation from afar. It had a strange, disturbing affect, like unfamiliar power. From this distance his expression was unreadable, but they were both instantly in no doubt he had indeed sensed and seen them. Whether by surprise or some deeper instinct, both jumped back, in fright, like guilty schoolchildren. For a moment they looked at each other in a kind of horrified surprise, and then both laughed at the absurdity of their reactions.

‘Mustn’t get spooked by the neighbours,’ Lisa said finally, as their laughter settled, and she spontaneously hugged her daughter, who returned the hug. And for both this was with some surprise, because such affection was unusual between them, and neither really knew why.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Hanged Girl | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Flavour of Spite – One

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Africa Studio

Image credit: Africa Studio

The first time I saw her I wondered what her flavour would be. I was tempted to think crème brulee, for the hard, brittle shell and sweet softness within. Her pretty face was crumpled in a frown and she was barking out some demand to her co-workers as she emerged – Persephone from Hades at the birth of summer – this pastry chef in training from the kitchen in my favourite patisserie.

She stood for a brief few moments near the counter, talking rapidly to one server near the till. I couldn’t make out the debate beyond realising it has something to do with an order for some ingredients that had failed to arrive with the morning deliveries. The hopeless young man just looked at her, bewildered and stupid, and I had the strongest urge to walk up to him and belt some sense into him, but I refrained. Over the delicious wafting scent of my coffee I watched, and instead of drinking my beverage, I drank her in.

She was slim, dressed in a white smock, dirtied somewhat from the kitchen labour. Her flaxen, perfect hair fell in tendrils from an ill-fitting bun. One moment she wiped an errant strand away from her eyes with distracted irritation, and some flour from her hands made an even paler streak on her ivory skin. Aunt Imogen, curse her soul, would have called her the perfect Aryan princess, but she would have been right.

My god, Imogen might actually have approved! The thought chilled me for a moment, but I let it pass, because for a brief second she seemed to register my attention and looked directly at me, the brightest blue eyes looking straight into mine. But just as suddenly she dismissed me and the moment and it stung mildly. I doubt I even really registered with her. I put my coffee cup down and sat back. She was still haranguing the poor server and I changed my mind about her flavour. She was mint slice, perhaps, a rich inviting chocolate with a cool within. And then she was gone, lost back to the kitchen, and I wondered.

Her flavour might be different, of course. It might be uniquely hers and an amalgam of her inherent soul properties. I’d first learned to think of people as flavours from perpetually ancient and now thankfully passed over Aunt Imogen, may she rest without peace in the most poisonous nest of vipers imaginable in the lower circles of hell….

In those years she raised me after my parents’ unfortunate demise I learned about the flavours of life. She was obsessed with food, with gastronomy, the culinary arts. And I can thank her for my excellent taste and my skill in the kitchen. I can even thank her for what she taught me of our sacred heritage and for giving my life some purpose through that. But that is all. I can’t think of a flavour for her in any food, no matter how repellent. Her cruelty and her crimes, her control and her craft – all these things she has passed to me, a far more worthy recipient than she would ever have been. But she gave these lessons in kind, and there was nothing kind about that.

So that’s when I realised what Aunt Imogen’s flavour had to be – this petty, picking, parsimonious predator. She was the flavour of spite.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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Beaten

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Jeff Wasserman

Image credit: Jeff Wasserman

I gaze in this mirror but can’t see my face
Something quite other has taken its place
Where once there was sunshine the sky is dull grey
Now that my soul has been beaten away

I whispered a question, the answer’s a curse
Whatever the cure it only gets worse
My life but a ruin, my heart in decay
Now that my soul has been beaten away

The darkness beneath a shadowy door
Reminds of the hopes I was once yearning for
Devils beguile all my fears to allay
Now that my soul has been beaten away

Can’t look in the mirror, I don’t have the eyes
The gaze of the fallen is just dull surprise
Too late come the warnings and all that they say
Now that my soul has been beaten away

I see my redemption is too far delayed
Now that my soul has been beaten away

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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Welcome to the Darker Realms!

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Sandra Cunningham

Image credit: Sandra Cunningham

Welcome to all, whether you have come here from my sister blog to this my poetry blog ( at http://www.helenvalentina.com ) or through some other circumstance.

Today is the launch day of The Darker Realms, a blog dedicated to all things dark, scary, horrific and unsettling – the things that don’t just go bump in the night! The things with teeth – literal and metaphorical. The things we deny but secretly know are just round the corner…

January 1 2015 seemed a fitting day to launch this new aspect of my writing. Though in truth it is not really new. I cut my reading, and my early writing, teeth on horror novels and short stories with the darker sensibilities. And in 2014 I wrote a trilogy in the horror vein returning to this theme after writing other novels and stories in different genres.  Hopefully 2015 will see this begin to be published!

This felt like nothing other than a homecoming, so I hope for those of you who like this type of writing this may be a home away from home for you also from time to time. I’d be delighted if you visited here and grateful for any comments or contributions you may wish to provide. I’d also love to collaborate with any artists or photographers out there who work in the darker realms too. If you are interested check out my contact details on the About page. 🙂

For now, welcome again, a very happy new year to you all! I hope 2015 is brilliant for each and every one of you!

And with that, check out today for the first instalment of the one of my serial horror stories. I hope you like it! 🙂  I plan to publish episodes for these serial stories every other day, so do pop in again and check them out, and see what happens next!!  🙂

Cheers

Helen V

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The Hanged Girl – Prelude

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Helen

 

Image credit: Gwoeii

Image credit: Gwoeii

Little Lottie
In love with the devil
Baying at the moon
Little Lottie
Bride of night
Sweet Sixteen in June
Little Lottie’s
Fragile lifespan
Ending far too soon

With all the bravado of the young they climbed up the hill towards the tree, singing the local nursery rhyme as though it were a talisman. Jacob, ever the clown, changed the words on the second attempt to something far cruder and Nathan pushed him, sending him tumbling down the hill to the bottom again.

“Hey!” Jacob called as he fell.

“Serves you right,” said Celia, the self-appointed leader of the trio, doing her bit for the power of girls in the company of adolescent men.

Nathan laughed and they continued to the top of the hill, hearing their fallen friend scrambling behind them.

Once they were all together again they stood solemn for a moment, turning to look at the horizon behind them. Far in the distance twilight trembled before its descent and retreat to the blackness of night. Clouds scattered the skyline, threatening to hide many of the evening stars. Far below the homestead was dark, and empty as it had been for years.

None of the teenagers knew when the house had last been inhabited. In their living memory they could not recall a new owner and they tended to believe that it had remained empty since the tragedy of little Carlotta, she of the nursery song, over fifty years previously. The scandal and the tragedy and the ongoing mystery had fuelled many a campfire ghost story even to this day.

Jacob was in a mood for retribution. He whispered darkly in Celia’s ear, “Can you feel her here, hanging upside down, hanging from the tree?”

“Don’t be a child!” Celia replied, to hide her own fears as they crept up upon her, using the most insulting retort it is possible to say to an adolescent boy.

Jacob was miffed and unrepentant. He reached for a low hanging branch of the tree and ran its pointy end up her back.

“Now do you feel her?” he asked, his voice deliberately sibilant.

She jumped despite herself, turning round, and seeing the branch in the boy’s hands.

“You little prick!” she accused. Jacob laughed and her fury and his amusement caught them still for a moment, each wondering what the next move would be.

“Hey guys!” Nathan said, his voice quivering slightly.

“Don’t even start!” Celia warned, still looking directly at Jacob. The two had fallen into a staring contest and neither were in the mood to lose.

“No, guys, really!” Nathan said more insistent.

“What is it?” Celia demanded through gritted teeth, still not breaking eye contact, and inwardly telling herself she should have known better than to come here with these youngsters. Maybe if she had come with Jonathan, the older boy in year 12, it would have been an entirely other and more satisfying experience….

‘’A light went on in the house!” Nathan cried, his voice betraying the dismay at something the whole town would have thought of as an impossibility. The Hanged Girl’s house as it was called had remained dark forever it seemed. The thought of a new owner was beyond anyone’s imagination unless, of course, they were in a mood to entertain the many ghost stories about the house and little Lottie at the tree. But he didn’t believe them, no-one did really, so who or what had turned the light on in the house?

Jacob and Celia gave up their battle and turned to look. Sure enough, down the hill and in the middle distance, the big house stood silent and dark as ever, save for a light in the attic area at the very top. The brightness and incongruity of the light even being there and its high-placed position made the cursed house look rather like a lighthouse beacon. But a beacon to what?

Just as they were starting to process this unexpected turn of events, they heard the backdoor at the bottom of the house open and close and they could discern a large, shadowy figure emerging into the half-light. It looked like a man, not a little girl ghost or even the wraith that Lottie’s equally tragic mother might have formed, but nevertheless the figure instilled a form of chill and disquiet that was entirely new to the teenagers.

“Hello?” a male voice half called, half bellowed out wards them.

“It’s the devil!” Nathan cried, ever the most imaginative and sensitive of the trio. But for the moment the others were more inclined to agree than deride. In the half-light, with an unanticipated extra to their little journey, they felt vulnerable to all manner of darkness in the night.

As one again they scrambled over the top of the hill and down to the boundaries of the property to escape. As they ran Celia was sure she heard the footsteps of the man hurriedly following, but when they finally navigated the fence below and reached the apparent safety of the road nearby, she chanced a look behind her and saw nothing.

Nothing but the tree at the top of the hill, swaying in a wind that had suddenly picked up as they ran, the noise of its branches and leaves sounding very much like a devil chasing them in the night.

(c) Helen M Valentina  2015  All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Hanged Girl | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment