Crossing Over

By Minta Monroe

Three scary stories by Minta Monroe

A Deathbed Promise:  Mum knows best, all the way to eternity.

Birdcages:  What magnificent birds.  Their songs sound almost human.

Blown:  In perfect physical condition…forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. M. Kreg Publishing
• Release date: Nov 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540115874

Book preview

A Deathbed Promise

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Mum sat in her urn on the passenger seat beside Jolene. 

This was a hell of a way to travel, Jolene grumbled to herself all the way down from the goldfields to the coast in the company’s Suburban, but she couldn’t very well ignore a deathbed promise. 

The car dipped into potholes and swooshed around bends.  Windshield wipers scraped away droplets of mist, and the low beams bounced back in her eyes off of fog.  The fog felt alive the way it rolled, dancing with waves that pounded away at the edge of the road.  Surf crashed to her right and mountains snaked to her left. 

The road wasn’t supposed to be here, not according to the maps, yet here it was, just as Mum had said it would be.  Mum had always made things happen.  She’d always rearranged everyone else’s lives to suit her fancy.  Now look who was in the driver’s seat. 

Jolene smiled. 

She turned up the heat, but warm air blowing from the vent couldn’t dispel the chill that hovered over Mum’s urn.  She hadn’t passed another car since she’d turned off the main highway exactly fifty-one point three kilometers back.  Here was where, according to Mum, Jolene should first spot the island — on a clear day. 

But it was neither clear nor day. 

Then a light flickered in the distance through a window of fog. 

Woo-hoo! Jolene sang.  Release would soon be hers. 

The light shone stronger, steadier, coming from somewhere out to sea.  Its beam illuminated a hollowed-out curve in the mountain that formed a turnout, barely wide enough to accommodate this petrol-guzzling beast.  Mum had said it would be here.  Jolene steered the car into the space, turned off the engine, and killed the lights.  The ocean roared at her in darkness.  Its pulsing rhythm sounded like sobs. 

A dark hand of fog smothered the light in the distance. 

The long hours of driving caught up to her, weighing down her eyelids, and the wind rocked the vehicle and sang through tiny cracks where the windows or doors didn’t shut tightly enough.  Her vision adjusted to the dark, revealing things moving outside — sailing clumps of sea foam and crawling, coiling ropes of fog.  She wondered, as she