What If? #1: What If?, #1

By Erika M Szabo, Alan Zacher, R.A."Doc" Correa and 3 more

Intriguing, bone-chilling, heartwarming, and thought-provoking short stories by various genre authors.

Lost in the Woods by Erika M Szabo

A young police officer enters the woods to find a missing woman, but it takes all her mental strength to deal with what she finds.

She Waits by Lorraine Carey

During a class field trip to a historical site in the Caribbean, a curious student encounters a lonely ghost who does not want her to leave.

The Treasures of Grandma's Attic by Erika M Szabo

Sixteenth birthdays are special, but something they find in Grandma's attic will make sure they'll never forget this party.

Church of the Sentient System Ascendant by R.A, "Doc" Correa

A civil servant who is deeply devoted to his faith. By accident, he learns the truth about his religion, and the malevolent A.I. behind it.

Genie in the Sporran by Erika M Szabo

A device cloaked as an everyday item makes all your wishes come true. But Blair and Rhona find out the hard way that everything has a price.

I Scarecrow by Alan Zacher

A troubled man is cursed by a gypsy woman, and the scarecrow he built makes his wishes come true. All is good, but he might get more than he bargained for.

Don't Look Out the Window by S.S. Bazinet

Growing up in a house with a cursed window, Hank has to find the courage to look out its glass panes, even if it kills him.

The Spirit of The Rattlesnake by S. M. Revolinski

In the spring of 1889, civilization with railroads and cattle ranches moved into Wyoming. However, the Indian Spirit was not finished. Into this, Alice Potter begins her trek.

Will You Wait for Me? By Erika M Szabo and Lorraine Carey

Fate gave her one year of happy marriage, but although losing her husband and unborn child devastated Gladys, she'd find a way to live a full life. Will they meet again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Golden Box Books Publishing
• Release date: Sep 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223482314

Erika M Szabo

Erika became an avid reader at a very early age, thanks to her dad who introduced her to many great books. Erika writes alternate history, romantic fantasy, magical realism novels as well as fun, educational, and bilingual books for children ages 4-12 about acceptance, friendship, family, and moral values such as accepting people with disabilities, dealing with bullies, and not judging others before getting to know them.

Book preview

What if?

A inkwell with a feather Description automatically generated

Intriguing, bone-chilling, heartwarming, and thought-provoking short stories by various genre authors.

***

Lost in the Woods by Erika M Szabo

A young police officer enters the woods to find a missing woman, but it takes all her mental strength to deal with what she finds.

She Waits by Lorraine Carey

During a class field trip to a historical site in the Caribbean, a curious student encounters a lonely ghost who does not want her to leave.

The Treasures of Grandma’s Attic by Erika M Szabo

Sixteenth birthdays are special, but something they find in Grandma’s attic will make sure they’ll never forget this party.

Church of the Sentient System Ascendant by R.A, Doc Correa

A civil servant who is deeply devoted to his faith. By accident, he learns the truth about his religion, and the malevolent A.I. behind it.

Genie in the Sporran by Erika M Szabo

A device cloaked as an everyday item makes all your wishes come true. But Blair and Rhona find out the hard way that everything has a price.

I Scarecrow by Alan Zacher

A troubled man is cursed by a gypsy woman, and the scarecrow he built makes his wishes come true. All is good, but he might get more than he bargained for.

Don’t Look Out the Window by S.S. Bazinet

Growing up in a house with a cursed window, Hank has to find the courage to look out its glass panes, even if it kills him.

The Spirit of The Rattlesnake by S. M. Revolinski

In the spring of 1889, civilization with railroads and cattle ranches moved into Wyoming. However, the Indian Spirit was not finished. Into this, Alice Potter begins her trek.

Will You Wait for Me? By Erika M Szabo and Lorraine Carey

Fate gave her one year of happy marriage, but although losing her husband and unborn child devastated Gladys, she'd find a way to live a full life. Will they meet again?

Lost In the Woods

Paranormal thriller

An owl reading a book Description automatically generated

By Erika M Szabo

The headlights of the police vehicle cut through the gloom, creating ripples of shadow and light through the trees. Officer Angela Devon, a tall, athletic woman in her late twenties pulled up behind the silver car. With the headlights off, it was parked on the side of the winding road that ran through the middle of the dense forest.

This is Officer Devon, pulling up at the location now, she spoke into her radio, peering through the windshield. There is a car here, and according to the GPS locator, the call came from two hundred yards away in the woods. She said, hoping it was just a prank call made by bored teenagers, but until she knew for sure, she wouldn’t leave. Not if there was even the slightest possibility that someone was in trouble.

Copy that, the dispatcher’s voice crackled through the receiver, followed by a short burst of static. I’ll be on standby if you need backup. Over.

Angela cut the engine and turned off the headlights. She leaned back against the headrest with a sigh. Without the headlights on, the forest seemed to be closing in on her in the eerie light of the full moon, darkness spilling out through the branches.

She grabbed the flashlight from the glove compartment, switched it on, and then pushed open the driver’s side door and climbed out slamming the car door closed behind her. The large bluish-white beam flooded the trees in front of her, creating ghostly shadows in her peripheral vision.

She really did not want to be there, but she was the only officer on duty who had been able to answer the call. Her partner’s wife went into labor, and nobody was available to take his place for the night shift. In their small town, way up in the mountains, and a small department with only a handful of officers, it wasn’t unusual for the officers to answer calls alone. 

Let’s just get this over with, Angela muttered under her breath.

The 911 call that had come in had been an odd one, to say the least. A woman crying for help, saying she was being followed by someone she couldn’t see. In the background, the operator could hear footsteps thudding in the distance, and heavy breathing, but that was all. The phone went silent before she could give a location, but they had managed to trace the area where the call had been made. In the forest by a country road a few miles from town, the caller identified herself as Bella Mason, a twenty-four-year-old clerk at the local hotel. Why would a young woman be out here alone, in the middle of the night? Perhaps meeting someone in secret, Angela thought, and only hoped she’d lost her phone, and whoever found it made the prank call, rather than being anything serious. 

Hefting her flashlight into the other hand, she made sure she had her radio, taser, and Glock within reach and stepped into the forest.

Given that the location had been out of town, and it had taken twenty minutes to get there, Angela had no idea where the woman might be. She was only one person, and she wouldn’t be able to search the entire forest on her own, but she would do her best to follow any tracks that she could find. She wouldn’t leave until she was confident nothing bad had taken place.

Twigs and underbrush crunched under her feet as she moved between the trees, shining her flashlight in a wide arc. Bugs flitted around her, attracted by the glow, but she paid them no mind, other than occasionally brushing a mosquito off her cheek. Despite the cool night, it was humid beneath the canopy of trees, and a bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, making the collar of her uniform stick to her skin.

The woman on the phone had raggedly gasped out ‘Bella Mason’ when the operator had asked for her name, so that’s what Angela began to call out, her voice echoing through the forest.

Bella Mason! I’m a police officer responding to your 911 call. 

She winced when the sound bounced between the trees, the echo growing strange and distorted. She didn’t like the thought of attracting the attention of anyone—or anything—that might be hiding in the shadows, but there was no other way she could go about it. She had to hope that Bella heard her somehow and could give Angela a clue as to where she was.

Seriously though, what was she doing out here in the middle of the night?

Bella! Bella, are you out here? She continued to call out as she traversed through the trees, brushing branches and silky moth wings out of her face. Bella! It’s the police. I’m here to help.

Nearing the approximate spot where the call came from, the deeper into the forest she went, the quieter it got. She could no longer hear the sound of small rodents and insects scurrying in the undergrowth, or nightbirds ruffling their feathers high up in the trees. Even the wind had fallen still, no longer rustling the leaves. There was only her own labored breathing, and the soft crunch of her boots against the fallen twigs on the ground.

It was almost like walking in the graveyard at night. Everything was so still, so quiet. Angela felt nervous about disturbing the silence, but she quickly shook that thought away. She was there to answer a distress call, which meant she had a job to do. 

She cleared her throat and wiped away the perspiration that beaded her forehead. Bella! If you can hear me, please answer.

As the echo faded into silence, Angela thought she heard the faint sound of footsteps behind her. Soft, spongy, like someone walking barefoot in the sand.

She turned, swinging her flashlight in the direction of the noise. Bella? Is that you?

She saw a fleeting shadow by a wide tree from the corner of her eye, and Angela felt a shiver of fear twisting her stomach. If it was Bella, she would have answered. Had I merely imagined it? Who’s there? She croaked out the words, and suddenly, her mouth and throat felt dry. She swallowed hard and felt the flashlight slipping from the sweat that was accumulating in her palms. 

Get a grip, there’s nobody out here but me and perhaps Bella, if it’s not a prank. And don’t be a scaredy cat. Your eyes just played a trick on you with that shadow.

When it was clear there was nobody there, Angela turned around and continued walking, though now the darkness and fluctuation of light from her flashlight was making her disoriented, and she couldn’t remember which way the road was.

Don’t get lost now, she muttered and debated calling for backup but decided against it. The station was short-staffed as it was, and she didn’t want to rob the town of help if a real emergency occurred. She could handle this on her own.

She paused for a minute and took a few deep breaths to compose herself. She probably should have come up with a plan before charging blindly into the forest, but she didn’t normally have to deal with calls like this without her partner, and she felt a little out of her depth. 

Trying to think rationally, she asked herself the question: If Bella thought she was being followed, what would she do?

Running was the first answer. If she could find a place somewhere safe, then she would probably hide. But where was there to hide in a forest like this?

Angela looked around, shining her flashlight over the ground. If she ran, there would be traces. Footprints. The ground was spongy and damp, and when Angela looked behind her, she could see evidence of her own boots treading through the soil. If Bella had run through here, there would be footprints left behind. She just had to find them. She was so wrapped up in her trail of thought that she barely noticed she was no longer alone.

The air around her grew very, very still, and despite the humidity beneath the canopy, goosebumps broke out along the back of her neck, the hairs on her arms standing up.

She froze, her heart thudding in her chest. 

Lifting the flashlight, she slowly panned it through the trees.

For a split of a second, she saw something. A shadow, standing half-hidden behind one of the tree trunks, but as soon as the light hit the spot, the shadowy figure disappeared. Angela might have thought she’d imagined it, if she hadn’t seen the movement of the leaves and branches, as though someone had been standing there and running away.

Bella? She called out and gave chase before she could think things through.

Ahead of her, she thought she could hear the rustle of the branches in the dark as if someone was moving through the trees, but she couldn’t be sure.

It was only while giving chase that the thought occurred to her: what if it wasn’t Bella?

Her heart pounded in her chest, breaths turning ragged as she continued to run through the trees, giving no thought to which direction she was going. A few times she thought she’d lost the figure, but then she would see it again; a shadow, moving out of the corner of her eye. If it really was Bella, why was she running? Did she think that Angela was the same person who had been following her before?

Bella! Angela gasped, her lungs burning as she gulped in a lungful of humid air. Bella, wait! I’m a police officer. I’m here to help.

Her shouts went unanswered, ricocheting between the trees, making her dizzy. She ran until she had to stop, half-collapsing against a tree, panting heavily. She was generally quite fit, but the terrain was uneven and difficult to traverse in the dark. The smell of the damp forest and breathing the warm, humid air drained her energy faster than normal. 

Why hadn’t this person, whoever might be, stopped when she’d called out to them? Angela sagged against the tree, the flashlight lilting in her hands and pointing down to the ground and carefully scanned the area where she’d seen the movements of the branches and heard the rustling sounds. As she caught her breath, she considered exactly what she had not seen. There were no footprints on the ground in the direction where the shadow disappeared. Anyone running through the woods would leave footprints just like she did. Then again there was nothing but a faint shadow she’d thought she saw, and the light breeze might have swept through between the trees moving the branches and leaves.

Or perhaps, it was the person that Bella had claimed to be stalking her, or someone or something that didn’t leave footprints.

Angela’s blood froze in her veins when she heard a soft whisper coming from behind a dense bush, One is all I want!

She could only see the fleeting shadow again, but this time, she saw it a little longer. It seemed to be a ghostly figure floating above the ground before it disappeared again behind a tree.

This is crazy! Although it would explain why there are no footprints on the ground but come on! Things like that only happen in horror movies. Be rational, Angela! She muttered and reached for her radio, cursing her own stupidity. She’d gotten herself lost, and she was chasing a shadow in the middle of the forest that whispered to her. There was no way she could do this alone.

She clicked the button to reach dispatch. This is Officer Devon. Do you read me? Over.

She waited for a reply, but the radio was silent. She tried again. A short burst of static, but nothing more.

That didn’t make sense. Even in the forest, the radio should still work. If Bella had been able to make a call from out there, then the radio should still have a signal too. 

Cursing softly, Angela put the radio back in her belt and decided to try again later. For now, she either needed to find her way back out of the forest or continue trying to follow the mysterious figure. At least, she was armed. If there was a living person out there, she