Nightmare Land

By Joseph Hicks

Nightmare Land is a fictional account of a young boy's adventures in a mysterious realm where he meets bizarre characters, has terrifying encounters, and witnesses strange sights, all while trying to get back to his own familiar world. Nightmare Land has many of the same personalities and locations as our own realm, but always with a scary twist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Hicks
• Release date: Feb 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463742716

Joseph Hicks

Joseph Hicks was born in Torrance in 1967. He graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 1990 with a BA in English, and a minor in History. He has worked as a Los Angeles based background casting director since 1997. He currently resides in the South Bay in Southern California.

Book preview

NIGHTMARE LAND

By Joseph Hicks

Copyright 2019 Joseph John Hicks

KDP 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 Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

I - Introduction

II - Walking Home from School

III - The Rummage Sale

IV - Devil Dan

V - What I Saw Through the French Door

VI - On the Train Tracks

VII - Hanging Around

VIII - What Took Place on the Schoolyard

IX - The Flying Dutchman

X - The Cave and What Was in It

XI - Left Behind

XII - The Open Window

XIII - Soup and Jell-O

XIV - The Museum and What I Saw There

XV - The Carnival

XVI - Through the Arcade

The End

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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I

Introduction

The following is an account of my adventures in what I call Nightmare Land. Some were less scary than others, but they all left me in various states of shock or horror. To me, my trip to Nightmare Land was very real, but others would probably say that they were just nightmares. But then again, perhaps it was another dimension, parallel to our own. I could touch and smell things there, and interestingly, I could even read things there—something you’re not supposed to be able to do in dreams. Let me tell you about it…

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II

Walking Home from School

It all started when I was a boy of about nine years of age. It was the last day of school and I sat fidgeting impatiently in my desk chair waiting for the bell to ring. My teacher, Mrs. Faulkner, was reading a book to the class, but I wasn’t paying any attention to the words coming out of her mouth. All that I could think about was summer vacation and all of the fun I would have with my two older brothers, my younger brother, Bill, and the other neighborhood kids. My brothers and I pretty much ran the neighborhood.

We would terrorize the other kids with our Viking Club and Devil Men (using long sticks and white capes made from bed sheets); The Brothers Skrill, (inspired by the Wonder Woman television series), and we’d even hold court and put some of the kids on trial for various infractions, such as accepting food from our mother, because food meant love and love was finite. We would punish them with such things as the Chinese Water Torture, or 4th of July smoke bombs under the house where they had been trapped, but it was all in good fun, even though they (and, I recall, even a parent or two), would be driven to tears on more than one occasion.

We even had many of the younger kids believing that man-eating monkeys lived in the towering eucalyptus trees, which were abundantly scattered around the city, creating extensive canopies. Our parents were both too busy to reel us in, although I do remember their once holding a short family meeting to demand that we abandon The Skrill cult. I always suspected that it was Henry Fortuna’s mother who prompted it, because he would often stay with us since she was a single working mother. Once, we taunted and roasted him as a cow when we thought that he had been hogging the swing a little too long, even though this occurred sometime before The Brothers Skrill was formed.

I was jolted out of my daydream by the bell. The next thing that happened was very odd, but at the same time extremely exciting because of what it meant: Mrs. Faulkner was standing in the middle of the room and waving her arms while shouting, Go! Go! Go! Her long brown hair was swaying from side to side, and her somewhat fanatical nature made me think a little of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, screaming at her winged monkeys to Fly! Fly! Fly! She had wanted to finish the book she had been reading to us for several months, some story about a pony, but we all wanted to go home. I think that hurt her feelings. All I remember was