Death's Embrace

By Mary Ann Mitchell

Many times I’ve been asked about how I come up with ideas for my short stories and novels. There are many inspirations, from night time dreams to daydreams. Remembrances of childhood experiences are the best ways for me to take myself into a fantasy world of terror, silliness, pain, and joy. As children, our perceptions are far removed from the adult mundane world where everything has but one use or meaning.
In this collection of short stories I’ve touched on many of my fantasies and memories both from childhood and from maturity. Sometimes as I get older I feel that I am regaining some of the blessed imagination that we lose when our lives become full of household chores, making money, and meeting the demands of friends and loved ones. Or maybe I’m truly going bonkers!
I hope you truly enjoy the weird, the impossible, the fantasy, and the madness contained in each tale. This is not a book meant for those who find it impossible to let go of reality for a short time. It is for those who still believe in losing themselves with the fairies, goblins, witches, and the other secrets that dwell in the back of our minds. Give yourselves over to the thrills and scary, dark shadows inside the bedrooms of our minds.
A collection of the weird, the impossible, the childhood terrors almost forgotten, and the misfits that live in spooky dark nights when we find ourselves alone.
Fifteen stories meant for those who can still believe the impossible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Ann Mitchell
• Release date: Apr 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301404902

Mary Ann Mitchell

Mary Ann Mitchell has published 11 books. Her first book, Drawn to the Grave, was a final nomination for the Bram Stoker Award and won the International Horror Guild Award. She held officer positions with the Horror Writers Association and with the Northern California Sisters in Crime organization. She is now making her books available as e-books.

Book preview

Death’s Embrace

Mary Ann Mitchell

http://www.maryann-mitchell.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by Mary Ann Mitchell at Smashwords.

Copyright © 2012 by Mary Ann Mitchell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Death’s Embrace

Blameless

Homeless

Reduced to Scraps

The Last Lover

The Drip

Lycanthropus Erectus

The Policy of the House

Bubble Trouble

The Oak Chair

Romance and the Vampire

Howie Has Crabs

Celestial Bodies

Are We in Heaven Yet?

The Little Girl Who Lived in the Bronx

Introduction

Many times I’ve been asked about how I come up with ideas for my short stories and novels. There are many inspirations, from night time dreams to daydreams. Remembrances of childhood experiences are the best ways for me to take myself into a fantasy world of terror, silliness, pain, and joy. As children, our perceptions are far removed from the adult mundane world where everything has but one use or meaning.

In this collection of short stories I’ve touched on many of my fantasies and memories both from childhood and from maturity. Sometimes as I get older I feel that I am regaining some of the blessed imagination that we lose when our lives become full of household chores, making money, and meeting the demands of friends and loved ones. Or maybe I’m truly going bonkers!

I hope you truly enjoy the weird, the impossible, the fantasy, and the madness contained in each tale. This is not a book meant for those who find it impossible to let go of reality for a short time. It is for those who still believe in losing themselves with the fairies, goblins, witches, and the other secrets that dwell in the back of our minds. Give yourselves over to the thrills and scary, dark shadows inside the bedrooms of our minds.

A collection of the weird, the impossible, the childhood terrors almost forgotten, and the misfits that live in spooky dark nights when we find ourselves alone.

Death’s Embrace

Lucy stared straight ahead. She saw the barren limbs of the elms, which were not more than thirty feet from her.

Father has missed the summer, the fall, and now it is winter, she thought.

He had died in the spring. A painful cancer .had eaten away his bulk until only a spindly corpse had lain upon his bed. She remembered the whiteness of her father’s skin after he’d died. At his bedside, Lucy had touched the deep lines that had cut grooves on his face in the months before his death. His face had felt ragged and had been without the peace that she had hoped to see. She had held his hand until she had felt the chill creeping into his body.

Lucy shook her head, trying to rid her mind of the vision of death. She looked down at the tombstone and ran her gloved hand across its smooth outline.

Bye, daddy, she murmured.

Her hand fell from the tombstone to her side, and she turned to walk down the gravel path toward the filigreed gates that stood open. As she walked between the gates she reached out and grabbed each, pulling them shut behind her. The clink of metal reminded her that her father was locked into a world he had feared and had tried to rebel against.

Daddy doesn’t want to be dead, she whispered. Tears fell from her blue eyes across her smooth young skin. One salty tear stung a blistered lip as it descended. Her thin body shivered as a gust of wind hit her. Lucy got into her Saab and drove the twenty-five miles to her home.

The trips to the cemetery were made once a month, partly to revere her father and partly to assuage the guilt she felt. At thirteen she had refused to live with her father when her parents had divorced. Too much awe and terror had prevented her from sharing anything with her old man. She had also refused to reside at the family home when she learned of his illness. Now both the family home and her father were gone, the house levelled by the new owners, and her father below earth.

Between visits to her father’s grave site, Lucy plowed through her daily activities. She worked in the District Attorney’s office during the day and thought about studying her law books at night. She would be taking the law boards a second time, but her mind seemed no more capable now of absorbing the information than it had when she had taken the test two months after her father’s death.

Her dates with Clyde were sparse–her choice. They had been seeing each other for two years now. The hint of wedding bells had rung out throughout their conversations. Not anymore. What time they spent together now was silent. Dinners were brutal. Walks home useless.

Lucy?

Lucy had just picked up the telephone receiver and recognized the voice.

Hi, Sally.

I’m glad I caught you. You’ve been very hard to reach lately.

Been studying. Lucy glanced over at her business law book and flicked a finger across some dust on its cover.

I ran into Clyde today...

Here it comes, thought Lucy.

I suggested that you and he come over to my house this Saturday. I met this luscious guy I want to show off to you.

Lucy then spun into the usual questions about the new beau, ignoring the invitation. Sally babbled and Lucy injected a few questions to fake interest. Eventually, Sally was silent and Lucy was wishing Sally ‘best of luck’ as she said her goodbye.

But wait! What about Saturday?

Sorry. I’d love to meet him, but this Saturday is out.

Well, when are you free?

After the exam, Sally. After the exam.

Both women cradled their receivers while knowing something was wrong. They had been friends since grammar school. They had always been at each other’s beck and call. But now Lucy was busy, for she was going to visit with her father again. Maybe talk out some of the problems, figuratively of course, she reminded herself.

Early Saturday morning there was a light drizzle, but by the time Lucy reached the cemetery, the sun was out and it was becoming a mild day.

Her high heels dug into the pebbles of the path, scratching the dark leather.

Will I ever learn? she commented out loud as she reached down to remove her shoes.

She saw a dark form slide behind the mausoleum at her right. She wondered whether she was intruding upon someone’s meditation. Her stocking feet painfully made their way to her father. She shifted from the path to the earth and wished that she could pray. Instead she viewed her childhood as a silent kaleidoscope of forms, shapes, and colors.

Is he your daddy?

Lucy turned to her right and saw an elderly man bundled in black cloth. His eyes were a yellow-brown that seemed to glow. The face was gaunt and sharp, a network of lines flowing out from his beak of a nose. His lips were a pale purple, which barely moved as he spoke.

Is he your daddy?

Yes.

Daddy doesn’t like it down there. His eyes lowered to look at the plot.

I don’t suppose anyone would.

The elderly man looked back at Lucy and smiled ever so slightly. His front teeth protruded in a gnarled array.

But your daddy’s lonely, child.

The cemetery was small and had no full-time caretaker. She was isolated with this mischievous elderly man.

If you don’t mind, I’ve come to be alone with thoughts of my father.

Oh! He thinks of you all the time. ‘My little LULU,’ he wails.

Her father had called her that when she was very young. But as an adult he had always used Lucy. How could this elderly man know her name? Had he been a friend of her father? Lucy just wanted whoever he was to go away and stop torturing her.

Please, I’m sorry if I disturbed you when I came in, but I would like to be alone right now.

Such a sweet child. He reached for her face, and she saw his mottled hand with nails so long that they curved down toward his palm. A webbing connected the long, bony fingers, which froze in space as she backed away from him.

Talk to your daddy, child. And most of all listen.

Lucy ran around the black shape and toward the gates. Once inside her car she heaved out her sobs. Suddenly there was a scratching noise on the left side of her car. She brushed her tears away with the sleeve of her coat and then glared out at a tree branch, which was glancing the side of her car in time with the wind. Listen to what, she wondered as she turned on the ignition.

Two days later Lucy called into work sick so that she could go back to the cemetery. That elderly man can’t be there everyday, she insisted to herself.

Before opening the cemetery gate, she peered between