The Dark Musings Collection: Collections

By Josh Hilden

THE DARK MUSINGS COLLECTION

(Collection)

 

The Dark Musings Collection contains six stories of horror and suspense, from serial killers to repressed traumas to the supernatural and finally to story of one mans angel and love that burns bright enough to shake Heaven it self. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: GWSP
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224212781

Josh Hilden

Josh is a native of the Metro Detroit region of Michigan and currently calls Dayton, Ohio home. He cut his writing teeth in the role-playing game (RPG) industry working for companies such as Palladium Books and Third Eye Games. Josh married his wife Karen in 1996. They have six children and two grandchildren. Josh writes in a variety of genres, but the majority of his books are in the realms of science fiction and horror.

Book preview

One Way Ticket

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1

Atlanta Georgia: August 3, 2008

It was hot outside with an overcast sky that was threatening to let loose in a torrent of water and electricity. Emily listened as the people milling about on the train station platform began moving toward the lines that were being formed for embarkation. The day was also unbelievably muggy and she could feel her long brown hair plastered to the back of her neck by the rivers of sweat that flowed beneath. She sighed, thinking how badly she did not want to be here, and moved to take her place in the line. Slowly the line crept forward.

Even on the best of days Detroit was a not her idea of a vacation destination, why on Earth she was heading there seemed like a mystery to her. Oh sure Thomas, her editor at the Atlanta Constitution Herald, had told her that the collapse of the Big Three and the death of the American Auto Industry was big news. But Emily knew that the reason she was being sent on this god awful assignment was because Thomas was convinced that since she was from Detroit she would have an easier time of it as opposed to Jamie Wilkes who had been born and raised in Charlotte North Carolina. It didn’t matter how many times that she tried to tell Thomas that she was from Detroit Metro, the City of Wayne to be specific, and had stayed away from Detroit proper as much as possible when she was growing up. He wasn’t having any of it.

Emily pulled the envelope containing her outbound and return trip tickets from her purse. She handed her Atlanta to Detroit ticket to the Porter a young, and in her opinion, handsome young Asian man standing at the doorway and returned the Detroit to Atlanta ticket that was still in the envelope to her purse. She flashed him a bright smile and she thought for the briefest of moments he returned it, but then he slammed his professional mask back down and looked to the elderly African American gentleman behind her and took his ticket, and so on. Emily had to suppress a chuckle she knew that even at 44 she was still a looker. She worked out five times a week, not including the three nights of Aikido classes she had taken every week since the age of 22, and her skin took a good tan unlike her sister Natalie who burned like a lobster all summer long. Oh well, she thought to herself as she looked back at the porter, Your loss kiddo. And she headed down the corridor and found her compartment.

Looking inside at the four seats, each pair facing each other, she let her shoulders sag in relief at the heavily air conditioned wind that struck her face as she opened the compartment door and entered. She put her purse and carryon bag in the overhead compartment and sat in one of the seats by the window, the cool leather felt good on her hot bare legs. Emily loved taking the train, she had been a fan of the mystery and murder stories from the late Victorian age that always seemed to contain at least one long train ride since she was a little girl.

Emily was just reaching into her shorts pocket when the compartment door opened and a woman and a young child stepped inside. Emily smiled at them as they entered the compartment the young child, she appeared to be a little girl, smiled back but the woman that Emily assumed was her mother didn’t even seem to look at her and they settled into the seats across from Emily.

Emily turned back to the window and a few minutes later their train began to move away from the platform, beginning the trip north back to Detroit.

A little less than an hour into the trip Emily was just beginning to doze off when the mother spoke a little too sharply to the little girl, You need to sit still Mindy. The mother said in a voice that seemed to resonate somewhere in the recesses of Emily’s mind.

I sorry mamma, the little girl, apparently named Mindy, said softly.

You are always sorry, the mother said in a tone that to Emily’s ears was full of forced calm. She made a quick glance in Emily’s direction with a look that seemed to shout, You’ll mind your own damn business if you know what is good for you honey.

Wow, Emily thought to herself, this lady could have given Aunt Sally a run in the cool bitch of the year contest. Why had she just thought that, she wondered? She hadn’t thought about Aunt Sally in a long time, maybe not since that time three years ago when she had gone out to see Natalie in California after she had gotten that job with National Parks Service. They had stayed up late that night, drinking just a little too much wine and reminiscing about days gone by. She supposed that thinking of stern faced Sally Paulson, a woman who never said an unnecessary word in her life yet could make you feel like Queen of the Free World with one of her rare smiles, still hurt too much.

But there really had not been that much to talk about when it had come to Aunt Sally and that one very long summer. Natalie had after all only been three to Emily’s eleven when they had to go stay with Aunt Sally in that scary old house off of Telegraph Road. That had been the summer that their father had found that job working in a lumber camp in the Upper Peninsula, normally when daddy had gotten work that required him to be away for a long time the girls had gone to stay with Grandma and Grandpa down in Hot-Lanta, as their father always referred to the city that Emily now called home. But that had been the summer that Grandpa Bill had taken Granny Marie to France, and John Paulson had been forced to leave his two girls with his sister Sally.

2

Detroit Michigan: June 16, 1977

But I don’t want to daddy! Eleven year old Emily Paulson almost yelled as the mammoth blue Buick pulled up in front of the house. Tears were filling her giant green eyes as she stared at her father, silently begging him to turn around.

Emmy, I don’t have a choice in this, I have to work. John said as calmly as he could manage, he must not let her see just how bad he felt about this. The truth was really much grimmer than he wanted his daughter to know. If he couldn’t come up with five hundred dollars in the next two weeks the bank was going to repossess the little shit can house that he owned in Wayne. But if he took the job near Ironwood as a topper for a lumber company he would not only be able to bring the mortgage current but he would be able to pay the tuition at St. Mary’s for the girls schooling in the fall.

But daddy ... Emily began again, but she stopped when she got a good look at the expression in his eyes. It was a little scary.

John got out of the car and opened the rear door so he could scoop sleeping little Natalie out of her car seat. She stirred a bit as he lifted her up but then settled back down to sleep, her head resting on his broad shoulder. Emily slid out of the passenger side of the car and headed to the trunk to help her father carry the bags up the walk to the house.

It was a giant three story Victorian that seemed, to Emily, to list severely to the right. The exterior had at one time been a dark green but was now faded to a dingy green gray that made Emily feel a little sad. She thought that the house had at one time been really pretty but now it was not. They walked up the cracked walk, with shoots of crab grass splitting the ancient concrete every two or three feet. The floor boards of the porch creaked and moaned as they ascended the staircase to the front door.

Daddy knocked on the door and Emily thought she could hear the sound of a television, or maybe it was a radio, coming from inside the house. Then she heard the creaking of more floor boards as somebody came walking to the door. The door opened and short, rather fat, woman wearing glasses and pushing back stringy blond hair looked at them. It was Aunt Sally.

Johnny, you’re late. Sally Paulson said looking at her brother and her nieces.

John stepped forward and hugged his sister with his free arm, I have missed you too Sal. He said smiling.

Emily saw the barest of sad little smiles cross Sally’s face and them she reaffirmed the mask of tired disinterest that Emily would get to know, and admire, so well over the next ten weeks. They went into the living room, a room like none that Emily had seen before or since, and sat on the overstuffed brown sofa. It was soft and smelled of dust and clean linen. The room was large and stuffed with multiple pieces of furniture, every free inch of the walls were covered in painting and photos of hundreds of different dogs.

Jesus Sally, John said, Do you think that you have enough of them? He gestured at the walls with a look of amused bewilderment.

If I wasn’t allergic to the real thing maybe I wouldn’t need to have them. She replied. But was that again sadness Emily detected from Aunt Sally?

Alright Sal, I learned a long time ago to never argue with you. John chuckled and then placed the still slumbering form of Natalie on the soft couch.

Good. That was Sally’s only response to what John had obviously hoped would be a tension breaking bit of witty humor.

Where are we going to sleep Aunt Sally? Emily asked.

Sally turned her head and looked at Emily, again there was again the barest hint of a smile and then she said all business like, You and Nat will sleep in your fathers old room. You know that your father and I grew up here don’t you?

Emily nodded her daddy had told her that before her Grandma and Grandpa had moved to Hot-Lanta they had all lived here in the scary house. But that they had moved while daddy had been in the Army and before he had met mamma, now it was Aunt Sally’s house.

I really appreciate this Sally. I had thought that I was out of luck this summer when it came to finding work. But then Jimmy Pellem got me on this crew and I can’t turn it down.

It’s no problem at all Johnny. You know I love to have the girls around, besides mom and dad deserve a vacation. She hesitated and then continued, Can we talk in the kitchen for a minute Johnny?

Sure, he turned to Emily, Can you keep an eye on Nat for a few minutes squirt?

OK daddy, she wanted to say no because she hated to be called squirt anymore, that was what mamma had called her. She moved closer to Nat who was still sleeping and then dug through her purse and pulled out a Nancy Drew book daddy had just bought her yesterday. It was a real ladies purse made of soft brown leather and holding it made Emily feel like a million bucks.

John and Sally Paulson walked through the hallway and into the kitchen at the rear of the house. John pulled the kitchen door shut absently and did not notice that it failed to latch and swung a few inches open behind him. Emily heard everything that they said.

How are you holding up Johnny?

For a minute John said nothing and them Emily heard what could only be the tight little sobs of her father crying. Every day is harder than the one before it, John choked out."

It has only been four months Johnny. You have to give it more time.

I don’t think it will ever be better.

If you were the only one affected Jonathan Paulson I would let you mope about until you got it out of your system. But you have those two girls in there that need you more now than ever. That drunken son of a bitch may have taken your wife, but those two have lost their mother. The compassion was still in her voice but it was over shadowed by an icy pragmatism that appealed to a far corner of Emily’s mind. Her mother had been like that, able to take the needed actions when times were tough. Like two winters ago when Nat had been one and the gas had been shut off because daddy was out of work, mamma had brought out the old electric space heater and they had all slept in mamma and daddy’s room with towels shoved under the doors and against the windows. Daddy had just been sad that he couldn’t pay the bills but mamma had turned it into an adventure for Emily, it was one of the happiest memories of her life.

You don’t understand Sally, John began but was immediately cut off.

I don’ need to understand to know that you need to hold it together for your daughters. She said it in a way that let John know that the conversation was over.

Emily had never thought about it before, but daddy had been acting strange lately. He was staying up late and sleeping so long that Emily had missed a lot of school because she couldn’t just leave Nat there with daddy not getting up to take care of her . And when he was working he came home very late and he always smelled like beer and cigarettes, gross! But since he found out he was going north to cut trees he had been a little more like the old daddy, she was still sure that he was sad about mommy but he seemed a little better.

Daddy walked out of the kitchen and Emily could tell that