Twisted Reveries II: Twisted Reveries, #2

By Inklings Publishing and Meg Hafdahl

Suspense author, Meg Hafdahl, delivers another collection of spine-tingling stories in this second volume of the Twisted Reveries series. Inspired by the first book's Willoughby and Moira Kettlesburg stories, Meg takes us on a journey into the mid-western town of Willoughby where forgetting is a way of life. Delve into its macabre history and origins. Explore the strange and unsettling events that plague Willoughby's unsuspecting citizens in this new collection of thirteen horrifically outstanding tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inklings Publishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781944428143

Inklings Publishing

Inklings Publishing is a small press organized under a traditional publisher model.  Our goal is to create opportunities for authors to publish work, attend writing workshops and retreats at minimal expense to them, and build dynamic writing careers. We publish the books we would love to read!

Book preview

Twisted Reveries II

Tales from Willoughby

Other Works by Meg Hafdahl

Twisted Reveries

Her Dark Inheritance

Book 1 of The Willoughby Chronicles

The Pit featured in

Eclectically Criminal

Reviews for Twisted Reveries

The author has a vivid imagination, but there’s always some underlying structure, a reason, a tie-in between the macabre events that are happening and the history of the person involved in the events. It’s not as though everything happens willy-nilly. There are reasons at work. That sense of structure, so essential, she creates successfully. John W.

A beautiful blend of suspense, horror, and humor, like a blend of Dean Koontz and Edgar Allen Poe. Tobias K.

I’m not particularly drawn to tales of the macabre, so I was particularly DELIGHTED to have found this experience so utterly enjoyable. The author is so effective in creating a reader who becomes engaged and focused and excited to read on. To me, that is the epitome of a good writer. Kathy W.

I loved the book. I appreciated a female voice in horror and it reflected in the characters. The stories included had a good balance of mystery and horror that kept me on the edge of my seat many times. Kelly F.

Reviews for Twisted Reveries II

These stories remind me of the Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock. I am left hungry to know what really makes Willoughby tick. Alexandra R.

Willoughby is one town I definitely wouldn’t want to visit. Great collection. Even better than the first! Tobias K.

I’m fascinated by the connection between the stories. I love that we see some of the same denizens of the town in multiple stories. The collection leaves me wishing to know more about this strange and evil town. William T.

Meg delivers another powerful tale. I’m intrigued by Doris Woodhouse and wonder why she can see things others don’t. Why she can remember when the others cannot. Makes me want to know more. Kelly F.

Twisted Reveries II

Tales from Willoughby

Meg Hafdahl

Twisted Reveries II: Tales from Willoughby

Copyright © 2016 by Meg Hafdahl.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Inklings Publishing at [e-mail].

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it may have been stolen property and reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher. In such cases, neither the author nor the publisher received any payment for the stripped book.

The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized e-books and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of author rights is appreciated.

Edited by Fern Brady

Cover Art by Verstandt

Formatting by D Tinker Editing

ISBN: 978-1-944428-13-6 Print Book

ISBN: 978-1-944428-14-3 E-Book

by Inklings Publishing

http://inklingspublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

First U.S. Edition

20  19  18  17  16  1  2  3  4  5

For Luke:

I guess you were right

about that one thing . . 

Contents

Acknowledgments

Maps of Willoughby xii

Valerie Amundson

Zoey Shephard

Jasper Dewitt

Penny Carlson

Moira Kettlesburg

Leon Small

Adelaide Hunter

Paul & Lydia Sandstone

Kasey Maki

Edwin Monroe

Doris Woodhouse

Fred Willoughby

Willoughby

About the Author

Acknowledgments

You won’t—I hope you won’t completely forget me.

—Kate Chopin

There is a real place, a small town in Minnesota, where, as a child, I believed time stood still.

Thank you, Fern, for making me better. Thank you, Mom, for the map; it’s perfect. Thank you, Dad, for the puppy and childcare. To my friends, thank you for the support. Verstandt, awesome work. Boys, don’t forget to be children. Luke, don’t forget any of it. I won’t.

Valerie Amundson

1996

Everything had turned to shit. Valerie was shocked, really, how quickly it had all unwound in her hands. Vicky had said a few nights before, as she wobbled on the bar stool, that Valerie was forty-six, way too old to be playing games. She said Valerie was going to lose it all if she kept it up. How odd that her drunken big sister had said something true, and perhaps even wise.

Now, Valerie was far from her favorite bar and her clucking sister. She was hurdling down a darkened country highway toward her home; the place where she and Larry had made a simple life for themselves. The place where they watched TV together with matching dinner trays and puttered around in the garden on Sunday afternoons. Larry appreciated their small, uncomplicated life. He never asked for more than a working lawn mower and a cooler full of cold beer. He didn’t want more.

For a while, in the beginning, Valerie believed she was just like him. That they were well-matched in their desires. And then she grew to resent him, or at least she thought it was resentment, but what really burned like acid through her heart was jealousy. She was envious of her husband because he woke up every morning content with his alcoholic wife and his small, cluttered garage, and even his brainless job at the fastener plant.

So she had done something wicked and cruel. Her body ached with self-hatred. How could she be so selfish? She wanted something more, but she had actually created the opposite effect. She had lessened the goodness in her life. She had disappointed Larry.

WHAT THE . . . ? VAL, WHAT THE HELL? His pained surprise echoed in her ears.

She had played with fire. Vicky had warned her, but she couldn’t stop. It had been as inevitable as the bottle of Southern Comfort now between her knees. Life had tripped her, and she had fallen flat on her face. It hadn’t been any big, dramatic event. It had just been her own nagging need to be different, to have a secret, to do something more than stir Kool-Aid with a slotted spoon and paint her toenails while waiting to grow old and die.

Larry. His name was a whispering wind, twirling through the shadowy trees that engulfed the highway. Valerie took a swig of the blazing, brown liquid. She luxuriated in the pleasant warmth it created in her chest.

This, she said to no one. Is going to be painful. She clicked on the full beam of the headlights.

After Larry had run from the motel, with the vein in his forehead inflamed and the rims of his eyes bright red, she had waited. She had sat naked in the coiled sheets, smoking the rest of her cigarettes and picking the dirt from underneath her fingernails.

She had stared at the Aztec pattern on the old, thin comforter and then up at the ratty lamp, trying to remember why exactly she had let herself get to such a desperate place, both mentally and literally.

Caleb had waited with her, unsure whether to laugh or to pat her shoulder. Finally, he had said, What are you going to do?

Go home. Valerie got up and collected her dress from the floor. She had found her panties, hanging theatrically on the bedpost, and slipped on her Keds.

Now, she was driving. It would be sell, overturning the moment he’d crashed through the door and found them. She regretted he had seen them that way. It would have been better if they were finished, chatting about movies and eating scrambled eggs on paper plates.

Oh well. Valerie sighed. A semi-truck rumbled past her. She was in no hurry. Not because she didn’t care; she cared very much. But only because she didn’t think she could look at Larry with red eyes and snot running down his lip. He had sobbed when his mother had died, and when Buck, his kitten, had been torn apart by a fox. Now, she was the cause of his anguish. That was a dizzyingly unwelcomed thought.

She rubbed at her temple and then took another sip from the bottle. The headlights of her Nissan illuminated a green sign:

Willoughby/Cross Lake 12 miles

Fergus Falls 45 miles

Nearly an hour to practice her apologies. Valerie clicked on the radio, delaying thinking of what words she could possibly say to make things right.

. . . is in full swing, looks like folks, there’s a frost in the air and we just don’t care! It’s not winter until the fat lady falls on the ice, that’s what I say! So let’s think warm thoughts, my babies. Here’s a tune that’ll warm your soul.

Valerie turned up the volume as Diana Ross sang of summertime. A single, unexpected tear forged a path down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

Night swirled around her. A chill crawled up her bare legs and she turned on the car’s heat for the first time in a long while.

Valerie’s heart ached. Why did she have to ruin everything? What sort of malfunction was she imbued with? Her chest was a hollow drum, begging for the fire from the bottle between her cold knees.

She swiped at a sharp pain above her right ear, and then took another lingering drink of the alcohol. If a police car trundled up beside her and saw her beverage of choice she would be happy to be pulled over and handcuffed. That would give her time to think, to convince herself that what she had done to Larry was just a blip on their love radar, a small mistake with no lasting consequences.

But she could see his face in the black night stretching out before her. How that vein had popped, and worse, how his usually pert moustache had drooped in disappointment.

Diana Ross drifted away, replaced by pumping techno. Valerie quickly spun the volume knob to silent, but the throbbing beat remained in her ears. She squinted as a strange sensation churned through her body. She couldn’t place it exactly, or describe it, but she felt very odd. Her limbs were wobbly and her head fizzled like a shaken soda pop.

A ragged flash of violet light blazed across her vision. Willoughby/Cross Lake Exit Now. An arrow pointed to the right. Valerie pumped on her brakes and skidded onto County Road 10. She kept her Nissan on the road and sped up toward the small town she knew must be hiding past the thick border of trees.

I’ll just stop for a garage. She ground her fingers into the steering wheel. I mean, I’ll garage for a month. Valerie was sure her words didn’t sound the way they should.

Panic squeezed at her throat. The Southern Comfort rolled from between her legs and poured out on to her sneakers before toppling onto the floor mat with a soft thud. The neck of the bottle lodged itself underneath the brake.

Muh! She kicked at the bottle. The car swerved but she righted it. A pervading sense of doom overtook her and she was sure a dark film, like a cheap curtain, was coming down over both of her eyes. She managed to push the bottle up onto the console with one foot.

A green orb seemed to dangle on the windshield. Valerie froze, her sneaker hovering above the gas pedal. Purple flashes of lightening streaked across the night sky. The dazzling lights obstructed her view of the road but they were so uniquely beautiful.

Garage. She mumbled. She pressed on the gas, trying to catch the sparkling, swirling lights.

Then an overwhelming force vibrated through her. There was a crunching smack of metal as she was thrown forward. The steering wheel smacked into the flab of her belly. As she flew, her teeth slapped together. A surge of pain erupted on the top of her head as it punched through the windshield. Shards of broken glass raked at her cheeks and her bare arms as she tumbled. She landed on her stomach, atop the searing hot hood of her Nissan.

Pain bloomed everywhere, dull in her bones but screaming on her flesh. Blood dribbled down into her mouth. The metallic taste grounded her in reality. She was still alive.

Valerie tried to open her eyes but her lids wouldn’t budge. They felt as though they had been pasted shut by an overzealous preschooler. She concentrated, urging both lids to open. But there was only deep, complete blackness. Valerie carefully rolled onto her back. Her left wrist was numb and mushy. The fingers of her left hand tingled. She raised her right hand up to her face. She ran it gently over numerous bleeding slices and then up to her eyes. She probed the corner of her eye and then the other. They were open. Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see the bright coral nail polish.

A new, intense panic threatened to scoop out her brain. She was sure this was a horrific nightmare from which she would wake at any moment. She poked the center of her eye and her lid instinctively closed. She could feel the fire licking the sides of her car, and she could feel the pain in her head, lessening, but still there.

She could see nothing. Valerie waved her shredded arms, trying to feel exactly where she had landed. Something gravel-like cut into the back of her neck. She realized it must be small bits of glass. She carefully spread her legs to avoid the broken shards she felt poking into her thighs. She scooted her butt down a few inches, realizing, with a hysterical titter, that she must look like a woman in stirrups waiting for the cold, wrenching speculum. She scooted toward the broken windshield, fearing that a piece of glass could impale her from any angle, but also in a hurry to be far from the heat emanating from the engine.

Now that she was inexplicably blind, the muscles in her ears tensed and she was sure she could hear every click and growl of her car beneath her. It sounded angry, sputtering in what must be mud or thick grass as it was still in drive. She knew it could explode. She’d seen a car on fire before, on I-94, on the outskirts of St. Cloud.

Valerie used her right hand to slide herself sideways off the hood. Her jelly legs caught her at first but she listed forward and fell. It was a strange sensation, falling while blind. Her hands grasped at the grass before she could process what was happening. Then her nose hit the ground and her entire face screamed in pain. She was sure every inch of her was scraped, as though all her skin had been ripped off and she was just made of exposed muscle.

Maybe, she thought, maybe once I get away from my burning Nissan, I’ll be able to see. I probably have smoke in my eyes. Just smoke. The farther I get, the better I’ll see.

She set her left hand down to begin her scurrying crawl, but, as it made contact with the soft dirt, Valerie could hear the scraping, crunching sound of broken bones. Both of her ears pulsed. She tucked her injured hand to her chest and crawled with the other, away from the heat and the deafening crackle of the growing fire.

Valerie moved quickly, although her mind begged her to slow, to listen for dangers in the grass. Her knees ached as she worked her way across what felt like a muddy ditch. As she got away from the wreckage, she put her left hand out in front of her to feel for obstructions.

I shouldn’t be alone. She coughed into the night. Although a strange sentiment, the words sounded correct. The letters were placed in the right order and it made sense.

I shouldn’t be alone. Valerie repeated, her heart thumping in such a ragged, hysterical beat that her ears ached with the sound.

Her fingers frantically searched for a curb, or the base of a road sign, some indication of civilization. She had been nearing some place called Willoughby. Surely there was something close by, a shop or a restaurant. She sniffed the air for motor oil as she zigzagged through the grass, panting like a lost dog.

If only Larry was with her. He would scoop her up in his muscular arms and carry her to the hospital, just as he had, a few months ago, when she had seen the same strange lights while they dined at Applebee’s.

Oh. Valerie stopped, sitting back on her feet. She rubbed at her broken wrist.

She had seen the green orb before, and the purple, otherworldly lightening, too. She had put a French fry in her mouth and then she had been overtaken with a strange, shaky feeling. And those lights had flickered overtop Larry’s moustache.

He had saved her, picking her up off the restaurant floor and carrying her to the ER. The doctor had said that she should get her head scanned or something. He wanted her to lay still in some machine that made clicking noises so they could see if there was something growing on her brain, like a tumor or some such horror. But she had felt better by then and so she had found her clothes and snuck out, Larry grumbling and telling her she was being irresponsible.

Oh, just the thought of him, distressed at her escape from the ER, made her stomach sick. She had really ruined everything. He was beyond furious now. He would probably be happy to see her as she was, blind, bloody and searching for help. And, she knew, she should have listened to Larry and gotten a car phones installed, or even one of those cellular phones you could keep in your glovebox.

A strong waft of her spilled alcohol rose up from her soaked sneakers, waking Valerie from her memories. There had to be someone. A car had to pass by, although she wasn’t sure they would see her. She might not have crawled in the right direction. But there had to be a farm nearby, and the fire would surely catch someone’s attention.

Valerie cleared her throat and yelled, HELP! HELP! HELP, PLEASE!

Her choked voice seemed to be absorbed into the trees around her. And she knew there were large trees, she could smell their sticky sap and feel their pine needles on her bare legs. In fact, it was a miracle that she hadn’t hit one during her crawl. The top of her head throbbed and she ran her finger, gently, across what felt like raw beef. If she knocked into a tree that would probably be the final injury her body could withstand.

For the first time, as she sat there in the absolute darkness of her new reality, Valerie appreciated that the man on the radio had been right, winter was slowly creeping up on her. Her lips were numb from the invading cold, and her toes, encased in her soggy Keds, stung with the icy air.

Funny that she had worn her favorite dress, now definitely ruined. And Caleb had probably not even noticed the soft pastel flowers or the lace edged collar. He had pulled it up over her head as soon as she had come through the door, before she could even ask for a drink.

Valerie ran her fingers over the material, feeling holes where sharp glass had ripped through over her breasts. She wondered if tears could come out of her dead eyes. She started to try. But then her body stiffened. A sound tickled at her ears, so subtle that she was sure she would have missed it if her eyes were in working order. It sounded like something moving, quickly at first, and then slowly, atop the dead pine needles.

Hello? If only she could see; if only she could just snap herself out of the blackness. HELLO? I’m hurt. Please, I’m hurt and something’s wrong with me. I can’t see.

The slightest pressure next to her, the tiniest sniffle of something, some animal, some creature, brought on a new wave of panic.

Help. Valerie reached out at the cool air around her. Is someone there?

I shouldn’t be alone. Not now, not at night.

She bit her lip, trying to hold in her gulping breaths. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of something oily, unmistakably animal. But it was no animal she could recognize.

Oh my God. Please? If there’s someone . . . ?

Valerie raised up on her knees and swung her arms in a circle. She hoped to scare whatever was lurking in the woods. She wanted to believe it was a Golden Retriever, its owner close behind. Or something harmless like a lazy possum. Though, she could sense its weight, and in a way, its height. Although it didn’t make any sense, it seemed to have the presence of something both animal and human.

Buck, the kitten, came to her mind, gutted and picked clean, and Valerie knew this creature panting and snuffling so close, wanted to do the same to her. It wanted to eat her up and taste her injured head.

Her ears perked up once more. She dropped her hands and listened. The sound of a vehicle rumbled by slowly, crunching on gravel. The animal retreated, its stinking smell evaporating into the woods. This meant she was close to the road. She would just have to crawl a bit more in her blindness.

As she swiveled in the grass toward the oncoming sound, the gravity of her situation clenched at her chest. She was blind. It had not been smoke. There was something wrong with her brain, perhaps something that the doctors would have seen in that scanner. She thought of Larry, arms crossed, telling her not to take off her sagging hospital gown. Her stubbornness had made her leave. Now she was blind.

HELLO! HELP! She screamed. The fear of a drooling, hungry animal dissipated. There was nothing that could frighten her more than the new veil of blackness she was living in. I CAN’T SEE! I’M HURT!

Valerie scrambled toward the road, frantic but still careful not to become roadkill. She could smell the gas exhaust and feel the presence of some sort of vehicle.

Please. She stopped. I shouldn’t be alone, I know, but help me.

A car door creaked open. Ma’am? A man’s voice.

Oh, God, yes, please, I’ve had an accident. Valerie thumbed at the fire behind her. At least, she thought it was behind her; she was getting turned around.

You crashed your car? I see it there. The grit in his voice made her think he was middle aged, and a smoker, perhaps.

Valerie nodded. Her body buzzed with all the small cuts and

broken bones. She could feel it