A Workshop Assignment to write a short story, max 1500 words and use in it: a house, a fallen tree, a drunken truck driver.
Jim Barnes hiccuped, throwing the rickety old farm truck swerving on the road. Grabbing hold of the steering wheel again, he squinted, trying to get a better view of the highway. He could have done without the last four beers, or was it five, he had gulped down at the Hilltop Bar.
It was hard, too dark, to see the road. In his jumbled state, the high beam switch seemed impossible to find. Darn country road had no street lights; everything was pitch black except for the truck headlights.
A sudden bam jolted his head back and then forward again as the truck came to a halt. He'd hit something.
With a shaking hand, he opened the truck door and fell to the ground, after missing the step entirely. Getting up off his knees, he stumbled more than walked to the front of the vehicle.
There he found the truck wedged into a fallen tree.
"Oh no!" he murmured. "Now what am I going to do?" Snow flakes misted through the night air, wetting his black fuzzy beard, as frigid winds blew. Too dark and too late to walk for help, he didn't relish the idea of spending the night in his truck. A light down the road caught his eye, the only sign of life in a world of pitch darkness. Crawling back to the truck, he pulled a flashlight from behind the driver's seat and began his trek.
Shortly, staggering up the steps to what appeared to be an old toll house, he pounded on the door.
"Anybody there!" he yelled, having no idea if anyone lived within or what time of the night it was.
The door opened without a sound and a tiny woman appeared. "Come in," she murmured. Her gray hair was tied back in a pert little bun, and her old-fashioned dress was long enough to swish against the hardwood floors as she walked. She led him into an office area just inside the door. "You want a room?" she asked.
"I didn't realize this was a hotel."
"Yes, we collect tolls out front, but we are also a hotel for travelers...of a sort."
"Is that so, Granny! Well, okay, I'll take a room."
In slow motion, the woman's hand inched over to a hook on the grimy wall, eased a key off of it, and floated like through thick, still air back to Jim, handing him the shiny trinket. "It's Room 6, top of the stairs on the left. Help yourself."
With that remark, she turned and walked away, opening a nearby closed door and disappearing behind it.
Jim found the room to be stark, but bearable. Wood floors with no carpets, the crudest of beds with sheets, a pillow, and one thin dirty gray blanket. It was better than being exposed to the elements outside. Thanks to all the drinking he'd done that night, sleep came quickly and easily.
A voice awakened him. It was later; he had no idea how much later, when the heavy voice spoke, sending him bolting up in bed.
"What are you doing in my bed?" A huge man towered above Jim, staring at him in outrage. He wore a white night shirt that reached to the floor. His angry face was drained almost as white as the shirt. The pale face made his furious brown eyes stand out in his countenance.
"Your bed? I rented this room for the night!" Jim replied, pulling the covers up around his neck.
"This is my bed! I died in it, and it is mine forevermore! Mine for eternity!"
"Whaaat?"
"Mine for eternity! Mine for eternity!" the fellow roared over and over, each time louder than the previous, until finally Jim covered his ears in agony and closed his eyes, wishing he were anywhere but that room.
Suddenly a blast of light brought on silence. Opening his eyes, Jim scanned the room, but the terrible man was gone.
Scratching his grisly beard, Jim wasn't sure what to think. Was the man real? How could he have died in the bed and still be around to tell of it. Jim swooned as an icy fear filled his chest. Was the man a ghost?
"Now wait a minute, Jim," he murmured. "You've done a lot of drinking tonight. It was probably just a dream! Sure, it was a dream!"
He took a deep breath and pondered. Next, grabbing the pillow and blanket, he jumped off the bed and plopped to the floor. If this was the fellow's bed, let him have it. "It may have been a dream, but I may as well be careful," he mumbled. He spent the night sleeping on the cold, hard wood.
In the morning, he left early. The sooner he got out of that place, the better. Granny wasn't around, so he never paid for the room. He ran through the fresh snow to get help for his truck, finding a general store with gas pumps out front.
"Can you tow my truck here and see if you can get it running enough for me to get home?" he asked. "I ran into a tree up by the old toll house."
"You mean up by where the old toll house used to be, right?"
"Huh?"
"The old toll house--it hasn't been there for 100 years. That place is nothing but a pasture now."
"What?"
"Yeah, don't you know local legend? A woman killed her husband in the old toll house and then burned the place down. They say she stabbed him in his bed. Legend has it her spirit is still not at rest and haunts the place, her husband's ghost, too."
Jim never went back to the toll house, taking a train home instead. He gave up drinking, too.
The Butcher's Boy
- 2011 Readers Favorite Award Silver Medal Winner in Horror - Fiction
A Paranormal/Chiller by Michael Robb
Thirty-one years ago, Buxly the Butcher went to trial for killing h
The fortunate inherit riches, prestige, positive notoriety. Those not so lucky bear legacies filled with poverty, infamy or, worse yet, the unhinged insanity and murderous urges of their ancestors.
