Dark Ebb: Grim Tales: Dark Ebb, #1

By Laurel McHargue

Winner of the 2020 CIPA EVVY Bronze Award for Horror! With original artwork by Laurel McHargue . . .

A mysterious gift, tap shoes in a halfway house, alien orbs . . . and what's in the basement? Laurel McHargue's stories range from somber to surreal with splashes of dark humor as she explores life's many dangers and the twisted, transformative power of love.

"Dark Ebb: Grim Tales" features fictional short stories with macabre situations, dark humor, bizarre and surreal occurrences, horror, Greek gods, ghosts, and other supernatural elements, as well as romance gone awry and poignant stories with intricate family dynamics. Subscribe to Laurel's podcast "Alligator Preserves" to listen to narrated episodes of these stories and musings on life, real and imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laurel McHargue
• Release date: Apr 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201539757

Laurel McHargue

Award-winning author Laurel McHargue, a West Point grad, was raised near Boston and somehow found her way to the breathtaking elevation of Colorado's Rocky Mountains--where she lives and laughs and publishes and podcasts and raises ducks. She writes about life, real and imagined, and hosts the podcast 'Alligator Preserves.' Contact her for interviews, book signings, and speaking engagements. Her publications include: Peace by Piece: 10 Lessons from a Jigsaw Puzzle! Co-written with Nadine Collier (LPC), a fresh exploration of timeless life lessons. 2021 CIPA EVVY Bronze Award AND 2021 Colorado Authors' League (CAL) Award Finalist! DARK EBB: GRIM TALES. A collection of 19 short stories with elements of horror, scifi, tragic love, and dark humor. 2020 CIPA EVVY Bronze Award for horror. Crow-Magnum. A short story about crime-solving twins assisted by supernatural crows. Waterwight Breathe: Book III of the Waterwight Series (final book). A YA fantasy adventure, 2019 CIPA EVVY Merit Award for YA Fiction. Waterwight Flux: Book II of the Waterwight Series. A YA fantasy adventure, 2018 CIPA EVVY Merit Award for Juvenile Fiction. Waterwight: Book I of the Waterwight Series. This YA fantasy adventure earned a Silver CIPA EVVY Award in 2016 for Fiction/Fantasy, a Bronze CIPA EVVY Award in 2017 for Fairy Tales/Folklore, and a Merit CIPA EVVY Award in 2017 for Audiobook. Hunt for Red Meat (love stories). Humorous, relationship-focused essays spanning three years of hunting the wily elk in Colorado with her husband. The Hare, Raising Truth. This Grimm's Fairy Tales, Twilight Zone mashup is not for children! "Miss?" Based on her experience as a first-year teacher, "Miss?" is a loosely fictionalized novel. IndieReader Approved Award. Haikus Can Amuse: 366 Haiku Starters. A gift journal. Finish the 2nd and 3rd lines of a haiku when given the first line, and write down your inspiration! Hai CLASS ku. A 90-day spinoff of Haikus Can Amuse. Laurel's goal is to author as many books as possible in genres of every type. Visit Laurel's blog where she writes about life, real and imagined, at www.laurelmchargue.com 

Book preview

Dark Ebb

Grim Tales

Volume 1

Laurel McHargue

STRACK PRESS LLC  |  COLORADO

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Dark Ebb: Grim Tales

Volume 1

Published by Strack Press LLC

Salida, CO

Copyright © 2020 by Laurel McHargue.

All rights reserved by Laurel McHargue:

[e-mail]

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from Laurel McHargue, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

All images, logos, quotes, and trademarks included in this book are subject to use according to trademark and copyright laws of the United States of America.

FIRST EDITION 2020

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932603

McHargue, Laurel, Author

Dark Ebb: Grim Tales

Laurel McHargue

ISBN: 978-1-9458370-1-2

Artwork by Laurel McHargue

Cover Design by Mercedes Piñera

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEDICATION

To all who dream wickedly and marvelously—

To all who dream!

CONTENTS

a note from the author

Short stories are like decadent desserts; they’re consumed too quickly, perhaps, but they stick with you for a long time after.

For readers, a good short story will surprise and delight, intrigue and startle, horrify and mystify—in short, it will provide a memorable experience. It will elicit an Oh! or a Ha! or perhaps even an emotion requiring a tissue.

For writers of short stories, the experience is similar, with the added reward of having completed a project in far less time (one would imagine) than it takes to complete something like a novel.

While creating this short story collection, I worked myself through the gamut of emotions. Inspired by odd ideas and bizarre challenges from family, friends, and an occasional contest, my stories percolated for days or sometimes weeks before insisting I write them.

Short stories are like that, you know—Pushy.

Thank you for taking a chance on this, my debut short story collection. I hope you’ll find a favorite to share with a friend.

~ Laurel

1: As The Shivering Stops

FREEZING ISN’T THE WORST way to die. Once the shivering stops, vasodilation warms you. By then, your brain doesn’t give a shit and you drift off peacefully. An intense feeling of heat could provoke you to tear off clothes, but that’s not a concern.

You see, Ma Nature was cruel, gifting me with a brilliant mind encased in a paralyzed body.

And my birth mother was even more heartless. She handed me over to the scientists for a song.

For sixteen years they’ve used me for research, and now I’ve finally succeeded, though they don’t know it, in opening a portal.

Best mind game I’ve ever solved.

I’m there now, on the other side. The creatures have taken me into their stark frigidity—countless colossal crustaceans, massive armored lobsters, crabs, and other unknown sea life with snapping claws, swirling through this bizarre multiverse, scavenging . . . and still hungry.

They study me, an anomaly in their world as in mine. Their cold presence doesn’t frighten me. I’ve long-ago abandoned fear. And I sense they need me for more than the meat on my worthless bones.

Let us into your world and you will walk. The leader communicates by inserting his antennae gently into my ears. We will free you.

One blink will reopen the portal for them.

But I’ll never return to that even colder world of my unfortunate birth. There will be no more probing, no more pain, no more . . . yearning. I am done.

I blink for the last time.

Abominable shrieks bounce off sterile lab walls, echoing in my brain, just as the shivering stops.

2: The Threat

INEVER should have trusted her. Who was I, though, to tell Daddy that the woman who made him over-the-moon happy was someone who made me feel even deeper under it?

She moved in not long enough after Mom died.

And I can’t even remember how she died—Daddy said I didn’t need to know. I was five, and the only thing left in my memory now is a flash of my mother’s deep blue eyes and a soundtrack I play over and over in my head.

My beautiful baby girl.

I was her beautiful baby girl.

And then Sheila took over. Danced right into our lives and Daddy’s heart. And I have to say, she was the most perfectly gorgeous woman I’d even seen. The kind you see in magazines.

What a little cutie-pie! She pinched my cheek the first time Daddy brought her home. It hurt, and I didn’t like her, but I hadn’t seen Daddy smile in such a long time. I wanted him to smile again.

I got used to having her around. Like I said, she made Daddy happy, and he never seemed to notice the little ways she kept me in my place. The flicker of a sneer on her upper lip anytime Daddy would give me a compliment. The way she’d suggest I do something with my hair, my face, my posture. Always some little thing.

You don’t want them to make fun of her, I overheard her telling Daddy one night.

She’s a perfectly normal young teen, he defended me, though I didn’t know what from.

But it’s such an easy fix, and I have connections with the best in the world, she cooed. I imagined her sitting in his lap and stroking his cheek. She could be beautiful.

"She is beautiful, Sheila. Always has been. All this plastic surgery makes me nervous. Little kids even asking for it now. It just isn’t right."

It dawned on me that Sheila’s perfect beauty may have been purchased.

"But it is right, Sugar Bear. I hated when she called him that. You can’t deny that rich, tall, beautiful people are more successful than the average ones. You don’t want her to be at a disadvantage, now, do you?"

Well, of course not.

I could hear the struggle in his voice. She had a point. Even I knew she was right.

I only want what’s best for our girl. She was good. She was really good.

She even got me thinking. Sure, my nose was on the big side, but it had only recently started to bother me. I always liked my eyes—they reminded me of my mother’s, but I could never wear eye makeup because they were so deep. Heavy lids. Sheila put a name to my imperfection.

And she got my father to love her. Would I ever find a good man like him to marry me with my big nose and heavy lids? He married my mom, though, and she wasn’t flawless like Sheila. So maybe I’d be okay.

Over the course of the next year, she worked on me. Never when Daddy was around, though she seemed increasingly agitated anytime he’d pay attention to me. She’d buy me ‘beautiful people’ magazines and point out the models I could look like, if I’d only just . . .

She worked on him too, I could tell, because I’d see him looking at my nose when he’d talk to me, or around my eyes, not quite in them. He still told me I looked beautiful when I dressed up, and even sometimes when I didn’t—that really made Sheila’s lip twitch—but I sometimes wondered if his praise had just become habit.

My 16th birthday was coming up in a few months, and they called me into the kitchen one evening. Sheila looked positively giddy, but in the harsh overhead lighting, the smile on Daddy’s face looked strained.

We want to give you a very special gift for your birthday, Sheila gushed. You tell her, Sugar Bear.

This has to be your choice, he brushed my hair back from my cheek, understand?

Before he could tell me what gift I might choose, Sheila blurted, I have a doctor who’s agreed to do whatever you want, like we’ve been talking about! She pulled the most recent glam mag from her bag.

If you don’t want to—

Of course she wants to! Sheila cut him off again. Look at this nose, she already had the magazine tabbed, "and