Do you have children and allow them to play in the leaves on a crisp Autumn evening before dinner? After reading "When It Leaves", you may rethink letting them do that.
Playing in the leaves is something all children do; twins Steven and K.C are no different. One autumn evening the five year olds ask to go out and play until dinner is ready. What happens that night will haunt Steven for the next twenty years. Now with a daughter of his own, Steven is left to struggle with the painful, guilt ridden choice of keeping his daughter safe or help the brother he lost, long ago, the one person Steven always thought he would do anything, to have back.
Excerpt
“K.C., I wanna go,” Steven turned towards K.C. to try to convince his brother to stop with the idea of being buried, when he saw something that made him stop talking mid-sentence and halt his footsteps. Where K.C. was lying on the ground, the leaves began to swirl in a large spiral. They lifted into the air, picking up in speed and quantity. The buzzing noise became louder, the high pitch was starting to hurt Steven’s ears. He watched spell bound as the vegetation lifted higher and higher, forming what looked like a tornado made of leaves to the five year old. The dead, autumn foliage that was covering K.C. seemed to come to life at the base of the leafy twister. The swirling mass was spinning so fast, just watching it was making him dizzy. Steven wanted to run but was frozen with fear, unable to move or scream for help.
Then he saw something that would give him nightmares for years to come. The leaves that had been covering K.C. were sucked up into the rapidly spinning leafy tornado, until the ground below was bare. Steven’s eyes were wide with terror. He opened his mouth and screamed but the buzzing was so loud, his voice seemed silent in the night. He stood there releasing scream after scream, watching the tornadic leaves spin faster and faster. His heart was racing, his head was spinning and he was starting to feel sick to his stomach. Yet Steven was oblivious to what his body was trying to tell him—to warn him. His focus was on one thing and one thing only, the ground below the twister was empty. K.C. was gone…vanished…disappeared.
Professional Reviews
Great Great Great
I will be looking for more from this author! This was a unique and quite different. The author puts you into the story and every parents nightmare! It was scary on many different levels. Great evening read!
Perfect story for an Autumn night!
Autumn is an eerie time of the year, with the year winding down, Halloween, falling leaves... who would have the thought that the last could be the most sinister? A pair of twins go outside to play in the leaves, and only one comes back!
This story follows Steven as he tries to go on with his life after losing his twin brother. Many years later, he still lives in the same house with his mother. They have been joined by Steven's wife and young daughter. Like all young children, Steven's daughter Skye wants to go out and play in the falling leaves. But, Steven knows what happened really to his long lost brother, and does not want the same fate to befall his daughter. When Skye wanders outside one night in search of a toy, history begins to repeat itself, and Steven is in danger of losing his daughter, too.
This was an eerie, well-written short story, and is highly recommended!
Great story!
This is one of those stories that once you start, you can't put it down until your finished. A unique tale that will have you wanting more from this talented author. Seemingly innocently playing in the autumn leaves, Stephen and K.C. experience a spine tingling event that changes all of their lives forever. I can say you won't catch me playing in the leaves ever again!
Happy Halloween. A volume of Horrible Haunts & Twisted Tales taken from the horror books La Belle Rouge has written every October for a decade and a half. If you have read her works in the horror genre, you know the invitation is for you to enjoy thr
