The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe and 13 Other Weird Tales

By April Grey

From the twisted imagination of April Grey comes Steampunk Zombies, Nefarious Chihuahuas,Pissed Off Fairies, Lothario Dolphins, and other bizarre characters.

Through horror, science fiction and fantasy, Ms. Grey unveils new visions of Life, Love and Death.

You'll never look at a cupcake the same way again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: April Grey
• Release date: Jun 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458128348

April Grey

April Grey lives in NYC with her husband and son. The first part of her adult life was spent working in the theatre as a director, literary manager and asso. artistic producer. She supported her theatre habit with work in law firms as a paralegal. The later part of her life was spent being a wife, mother, educator and writer.Her collection of short stories, The Fairy Cake Bake Shop and 13 Other Weird Tales can be found on Amazon. Her novel, Chasing the Trickster, by Eternal Press can be found there as well.

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The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe

And 13 Other Weird Tales

By April Grey

The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe and 13 Other Weird Tales

April Grey

Lafcadio Press

NYC

2011

www.aprilgreywrites.com

The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe and 13 Other Weird Tales

Compilation copyright 2011 by April Grey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book contains works of fiction. All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons – living or dead- is purely coincidental.

Copyright for Individual Stories and Publication History:

Problems of Communication Originally appeared in Amalgamae Magazine copyright 2005

Pookie Has Two Daddies Originally appeared in Brilliant 2007

Super Villains Originally appeared in Walking Bones Magazine

Russell Stover is Your Pal Originally appeared in Northern Haunts ed. Tim Deal 2008

Mother Mine Originally appeared in Dark Valentine Online 2011

When Alexander Died Originally appeared in Chaos Theory: Tales Askew 2009

Lace, Lavender Salts and Revenants Originally appeared in Flash Me Magazine 2009

The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe Originally appeared in The Edge of Propinquity 2009

Exile Originally appeared in Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry ed. by 2010

Objects of Desire Originally appeared in Everyday Fiction and The Best of Everyday Fiction II 2009

At the End of Day Originally appeared in Demonminds Halloween Anthology 2010

Hell is Lonely without You Originally appeared in Flash Me Magazine 2009

The Butterfly Dream Originally appeared in Everyday Weirdness 2009

What You Will Originally appeared in Everyday Weirdness 2010

Cover Art copyright Dirk Strangely 2011

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.

Acknowledgements

To all the terrific teacher s and fellow writers who I've met in so many workshops over the years. Thank you for all your help, encouragement and insight.

Dedicated To

My wonderful husband and son who put up with it all and still smile.

Table of Contents

Mothers Milk

Mother Mine (horror)

When Alexander Died (science fiction)

Lace, Lavender Salts and Revenants (steampunk)

Super Villains (comic horror)

Russell Stover is Your Pal (comic horror)

The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe (dark fantasy)

Pookie Has Two Daddies (comic horror)

Cronehood and Beyond

Exile (fantasy)

Objects of Desire (science fiction)

At the End of Day (dark fantasy)

Hell is Lonely without You (horror)

The Butterfly Dream (horror)

Problems of Communication (fantasy)

What You Will (comic horror)

Mother Mine

I wake to that smell in the air—the one that’s a cross between cheap perfume and the compost heap. She used the former to cover the smell of the latter. It only makes things worse.

Entering the kitchen, I see that the dishes have been washed. They sit in soapy puddles with a film drying on them. All the cereal cartons have been ripped open, including the inner wrap, in just such a way that they can never be closed again. The refrigerator is filled to overflowing with moldering food. A thin stream of soured milk leaks out on the floor.

Found me again, Mother, I murmur as I begin to clean the mess.

I know the hopelessness of attempting to keep order. It always starts in the kitchen and spreads to the rest of my apartment. Soon all my clothes are strewn around, raggedy, stained and smelling of mildew. The furniture becomes threadbare and broken. And then my books.

While I am in the shower, the monologue begins: her career and accomplishments, her daughter’s greatness, and finally a self-pitying diatribe. She’ll go on for hours and weeks, blaming my father, me, and the world for her misery.

It’s my fourth apartment in six months. I’ve taken care in painting and decorating it. But now that she had found me, I’d have to move.

At night in bed, I feel her slip in between the sheets. She complains of how she is afraid of the dark, and since I refuse to leave a nightlight on, she’ll just have to sleep with me.

She tells me how lonely she is since her husband died. Thank God she has a daughter for company. I never reply, knowing that she won’t listen and will supply her own answers for me.

I may be irresponsible. A good daughter would have had her committed years ago. Both my father and I had known of mother’s mental decline, yet had done nothing. No—we had done something. We had worked ever harder to ignore her, tuning out those senseless rambling monologues; turning a blind eye to the sickness revealed in her unkempt rat’s nest of hair and in her ripped and stained clothing.

We had been embarrassed and ashamed of her, especially when we went out in public. But we gritted our teeth and bore it.

On his deathbed in the hospital, my father had made me promise to save myself. He said he was glad that he was dying. It seemed as if his body had finally caught up with his spirit. He’d be free now of the punches, pinches, and slaps that she’d given him to accent the verbal humiliation of the past four decades.

Go to California, anywhere, he said. But for God’s sake, get yourself away.

My mother had come back into the room before I’d had a chance to reply. I squeezed his hand and left, knowing I’d never see him again.

I tried to keep the promise to him, but her lawyer tracked me to Maine. He told me she’d had a stroke. The thought of her sick and helpless brought me back. I should have known she’d be lying. She’d lied to me since I was a child. I wanted to believe her, and I guess that she never knew what truth was anyway.

So I returned home, and it was worse than my nightmares remembered—the smell of cat’s urine and rotting food. Fleas hopping on and off my legs. I could barely walk through the rooms, so crammed as they were with newspapers and once-beautiful antiques now ruined beyond repair. There were small piles of rat turds in the corners of the kitchen, and between thefresh sheets which she’d put on the bed.

She told me that I was crazy. My mind had been poisoned by my father, my schools, and my friends. I supposed she was right. Who should I have believed—my mother or the rest of the world? She had given me life, hadn’t she?

On my first night home, the dream from my childhood returned. The swamp creature from the pond in the back of our house rose up and came for me. Its small crimson eyes and greenish-grey skin held such terror that I couldn’t run or hide. I was picked up like a toy, and taken down deep into the ooze where it lived.

On my second night home, I pushed her down the stairs, grabbed my things and left.

She says she loves me, tears trickling down from her red-rimmed eyes and staining her grayish skin.

I think it’s time to move again.

#

When Alexander Died

Stray breezes carried the sounds of the night to my ears. Someone was being beaten. Nerves jangling, I edged closer to the bonfire.

A short, thin man with a Mohawk and a big nose stood on a wooden box and spit out the punchline to his drunk and crazed audience. And then the Boogy Joogy said to the Quantum Force, ‘How’s ya Mama? Laughter erupted, assaulting me with fake bonhomie.

For an encore, later on there would be lynchings. I shifted my weight, plastering a smile on my face. This was how it would be from now on. Set back to the dark ages, when a month ago--no, don’t think about it, don’t break down. I sucked in some air. The smoke stung my nose and throat, bringing tears to my eyes anyway. Be like ice, that’s what it would take to survive.

June? Is that you?

I hunched over a bit and retreated into my hood. I took his hand and headed away from the crowd into the shadows. I looked around, had anyone heard him?

What kind of idiot are you? I asked.

Bentley swayed a bit, and breathed out at me. I had my answer, a hopped up one on Jim-Jim weed. I blinked back my tears. He’d been a good officer, and at least had refrained from using the military titles that would have gotten us killed.

It’s all over then? They’re gone. They left without...they scampered without... he swallowed hard. We are so screwed. He turned and puked on the still smoking rubble of a car. I used to be able to identify all the different makes and models. No more.

I walked away. I left him there to die. His choice. He had set himself on a path from which there was no return.

Slowly I worked my way over to the next campfire, keeping my face down and well hidden. But I now regretted leaving the last. Racist comedians were better than children being sold, for purposes best not thought about. I kept to the rear of the crowd.

I was searching for a sign, a clue. All I found was chaos and the keening of our race, abandoned like a mistress that had grown tiresome. I continued to move, staying in the shadows. Searching for hope that my mind told me didn’t exist.

Just then I felt it: a tickling at the base of my skull. I ran, nearly cutting myself on some barbed wire fallen down from a stockade.

I saw a shadow moving along the road in front of me--little more than a cloaked lump of darkness outlined by the light of another camp up ahead. I sprinted and leapt at it. It hit the ground and we rolled.

I pinned it beneath me. It was larger than me, but its muscle mass couldn’t cope with our gravity. Holding