Axefall Echoes

By S J Cavanagh

From the prize winners to the freshly cut, this anthology collects seven stories of dark fiction by S J Cavanagh. Read the sample to see where he can take you in just a couple of pages, in "Finding The Words"!

From a man haunted by his daughter's death to a callous artist, from the commuter train platform to the deep forest, Cavanagh chops at the roots of everyday life, and lets the dark flow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S J Cavanagh
• Release date: Jun 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476453002

S J Cavanagh

Sydney based writer whose works spans the comic to the horrific, sci-fi to thrillers.

Book preview

Axefall Echoes

By Steven Cavanagh

Copyright 2012 Steven Cavanagh

Smashwords Edition

http://sjcavanagh.blogspot.com

Table of Contents.

Finding the words.

Axefall Echoes.

World of hurt.

The Biting of Nails.

Street Smarts

Moving Dad.

Finding the words.

My relatives took most of the afternoon to mutter awkward platitudes and drive off, dusty plumes jetting them down the valley toward city and comfort. When the sun slunk over the horizon, it left me alone with my little girl's grave.

It had been dug just down from the porch, where Bella once played with her toys in the shade of the willow. The tree hunched over the grave, sharing my grief as the twilight changed shifts with the moon.

The richness of damp earth reached my nose. The backhoe operator had lost his way coming out from town, so the grave had not yet been filled. It still lay as it had during the funeral. Wide strips of fake too-green grass edged the chrome frame that had lowered the coffin. In the dim light, the grave gaped like a doorway into the ground.

I stood in the night. A possum scratched across the roof of the house.

When I'd reached the hospital, hammering heart insisting on a mistake, my mind painted a picture of this moment. In it, I stood shaking my fist at God and declaring proof of his nonexistence. Now I had new eyes. How could this life be all there was? How could science’s wisdom claim my girl was only a meaningless replicator of DNA?

Bella would have started school next year. She wanted to be a dancer. Hell, she was already, everyone said that. How could all that bubbling life and potential just go nowhere, cease to exist because a delivery driver loved booze more than responsibility?

I felt I had to say something, but couldn’t find the words. What farewell could I say, to the one who should eventually have buried me? I stood silent, jaw working like a toothless old man, until I heard the sliding.

A slow leafy slssh cut the air, like someone dragging branches up a path. When I realised it came from the ground, my fists turned to marble. My Bella's grave would not be defiled by a clumsy possum.

I ran to find a light. I'd reached the porch when I identified the noise: the sound of wreaths sliding off the coffin lid.

A little candle-white figure stood beside the grave. A girl.

My grief curdled to rage at the sick joke, but then she stepped forward. Nobody could duplicate that walk. It was distracted, almost bored, like she wandered a toyless shop while waiting for me to stop talking to grownups.

My girl, with red Shirley Temple curls and the flower girl dress from her uncle's wedding.

Bell-bell? I choked. She didn't answer, just kept moving toward me in that listless gait.

I felt torn in half. My body surged forward to my princess, yet away from this nightmare of her. Fear won out-my nerves had taken enough that day-and I fled back through the front door.

The light inside blinded me. I reached the end of the hall before stumbling to the lino. The