#azulasfire

It's short and tame. Still a goodie.

London, 1778

 The doctor came out from a black coach. Coughing his thanks for the footman’s assistance, he proceeded up the stairs to Thistleton Estate alone.

Lord Edmund Thistleton greeted him at once, and Lady Charlotte wanted no time wasted after that. “Please see to her. She’s still in bed!”

“Is she chained down?” asked the doctor suddenly. His words prompted the exchange of surprised glances between the couple.

“Why would we? She’s just a child, not a beast,” stated Lord Thistleton.

“A child can be a beast,” replied the doctor.

Shocked, the family led him inside, up to the attic. Little Esther Thistleton, lovely as a dying morning glory, was indeed in bed, her tangled dark hair spilling over a muslin pillow. Esther began to growl from the bed, then she cried out in pain, baring her teeth as the moon outside her window floated among midnight clouds. 

The doctor took note of this and, in a detached manner, addressed the family. “I’m sorry, the girl is past my help. A case like this, so severe, one might wonder if your daughter may actually change with the upcoming full moon.”

The Thistletons held no belief in werewolves, but they wept and pleaded for reconsideration until the doctor, who despised reducing such fine people to puddles of tears, said slowly, “I do have a colleague in Oxford I could ask. He specializes in natures such as these in children.”

Mr. Thistleton paid the doctor in advance, and Lady Charlotte packed a box of the child’s belongings for the coach.

Once in the coach with the child, the doctor opened a flask of moonshine, and gave solemn Esther a small sachet of sweets to occupy her for the road.

At the end of the journey, Esther looked first at the doctor’s manor, and then up at the coachman, who regarded her with a perplexed countenance.

“Tristan’s my name. You come running for me if anything scares you, Miss. Anything.”

It scared Esther that they were not in Oxford.

The doctor supplied her with another handful of sweets, reassuring the poor girl she would be back home in no time. Then he sent her to bed. But Esther couldn’t sleep, and paced in the guest bedroom. Had the coachman been trying to warn her of something?

She paced and paced until she found more of the doctor’s candy under the bed. Esther could smell it then, the mixture of fear, of uncontrollable impulses. Moonshine. Muscle and sinew began shifting in agony, breaking twisting bending. Her vision darkened and deepened, her nose twitched and enlarged, forming a snarl. Her final coherent thought was a scream, and then the wolf took it away from her. 

The coachman had an uneasy rest that night, and awoke knowing that he needed to see if the child was still with the doctor. His conscience wouldn’t be able to bear it if he was too late.

He took the carriage to the doctor’s manor. This time, he would not turn a blind eye to the doctor’s vices. Just when he was about to go in, Esther Thistleton stepped out: Disheveled, stricken, and bloody. 

“My God,” breathed Tristan, and Esther approached him. 

“He was a bad man, sir. Can you take me home?”

Tristan swallowed, nodded, and Esther got into the carriage with an agility that didn’t easy come to girls of ten. But Tristan was happy enough for her request that he had no wish to taint it with questions. He was thinking of how to explain what the doctor had done to Esther, what he had done to all the children…

Tristan stopped the horses suddenly. He could have sworn he’d heard Esther grunting in pain behind him in the carriage.. 

“Miss Esther?”  He swung himself onto the ground.

“No.” 

“Miss, I suspect you must be treated for injury. The doctor, he -.”

“NO!” Her voice rumbled. Esther’s breathing turned into a series of snarls.

Here's a few of the chilling tales you'll be able to read in the next few months:

HUNTER

Suspenseful thriller about an abused teenager whose father has been released from prison.

PORCELAIN

People begin to die upon contact with a doll with scars on its face, and it's not because of what anyone expects.

NAMELESS

A sinister demon is summoned out of Hell to slay anyone whose name it learns.

WITCHING HOUR

A most disturbing curse befalls anyone who spends the night at Anjelica Whitney's cottage. Detective Thoms is determined to catch Ms. Whitney in the act and stop her mysterious spree.

OUTSIDE INSIDE

Outside an unkempt, manufactured home, a nearby tree with spindly branches seemed to reach out, grasping for the moon. The fog rolling through the air outside bore a curious, smoky scent, mixed with dead leaves and dampened earth. It smelled like Halloween.

The Harvest Moon was hanging on a wide, dark canvas, just half past three in the morning. There were no stars visible outside of Toby’s bedroom window. No chance of a wish to protect him, no Peter Pan to whisk him away to a world of play. However, the moon conveyed its message well enough to compensate for the silent vigil: She was coming.

This time, nobody was left to argue.

Inside Toby’s bedroom, from corner to corner, the naked walls seemed to lean inwards. All of the stacked books and action figures barricading the windows didn’t help either; they veiled the walls with their looming shadows and the moon’s dim, amber glow. The indoor lights had already died some time ago thanks to an unpaid electric bill, which was only more collateral damage following the disappearances of his parents and uncle.

Toby wondered, his gut sickening at the unbidden thought, what CPS would do later in the day when they arrived to claim him. Would they find him? Would they care enough to ask around for answers?

A police report was crinkled between his fingers, prepared with sufficient details for such an investigation.

The officer who’d overseen the case had tiny writing deeply pressed into the pages with dark blue ink. Cold with dread, Toby needed no reminders of the report’s content. He needed the man who’d written it.

Detective Stefan Larento

You won’t believe one word of this report, but it’s happened, and will continue to happen in similar fashion. And you are going to see that there’s a fate worse than death.

September the 23rd, 2022

7:53 am

911 dispatch – B&E in NE Pensacola

The initial complaint came from Emma Sheffer (70 y) who’d been preparing to host an auction via video call. The auction was to take place in her garage. She says that she was unable to hear any disturbances from there and had no idea there was anyone in her home until ten minutes before the bidding was meant to start. Ms. Sheffer went into her house for a cup of coffee and found Baylee Knight (13 y) in the living room watching TV.

As I took Knight into custody, she explained that breaking into Ms. Sheffer’s residence had been the condition of a dare by some of her friends.

The possibility occurred to me that Knight had not acted alone. When I asked her if she’d had any friends come with her, she appeared nervous and didn’t answer. I lowered my voice to tell her I knew she wasn’t the ringleader, and that she shouldn’t waste her future for someone unwilling to protect her.

A downcast Knight replied that she already had no future, but looked up past the staircase. I asked Ms. Sheffer whether she kept any valuables upstairs and in which rooms; alarmed, she informed me that a collection of designer bags by Demelza Robbins was stored inside her bedroom closet. I went upstairs with Knight, and found Lowan Percetti (14 y) trying to escape through the window with one of the bags.

I apprehended the second suspect, who quickly turned on a third one he identified as Noah Zoro (age u/k). Once Knight and Percetti were both detained safely in the squad vehicle, I turned my focus towards finding Zoro. It took a nearly forty minute search before I finally checked the laundry room and found him hiding inside the dryer. His statement to me before I took him to join the others indicated that both his parents are deceased, and his relatives seem to have abandoned him.

Conclusion:

I’m not sentimental enough to use flowery expressives, but I wish I could do more to help. As I hold little to no experience with kids, I’m resigned to calling in CPS and letting them take this case from there. Nothing was broken or taken from the residence of Ms. Emma Sheffer. With luck, these kids will face minimal charges and receive the benefits of court-mandated counseling.

-Det. Stefan Larento

Toby blinked repeatedly in the empty darkness, as if by doing so he could blink it away; as though he could blink his tears back into their ducts and somehow reverse time.

Then he allowed himself to remember the rest – because Larento’s report covered more than just the beginning. Why the detective hadn’t turned it in, Toby still couldn’t quite grasp. He’d merely discovered it that morning stuffed in his mailbox sans envelope.

…a fate worse than death.

The name Demelza was curiously emboldened with black pen over the blue. Demelza was the key in this testament manifested from Larento’s tomb.

Demelza Robbins was called eccentric, a token of appreciation for her contributions to the fashion of high society. Lower-born company deemed her something else entirely, something she’d earned with her quiet, intense hatred of men and the numerous disappearances of those who crossed her path.

The children even had a rhyme for her:

Moonlit beaches don’t scare me

Miss Demelza, set me free!

Deep down, everyone knew and was just too afraid to say: Demelza Robbins was a witch.

In the case that this document never makes it to Captain Maya Valentine’s desk, it will mean that Toby Holloway is reading it right now – and it means I’ve failed. I’m sorry.

Teeeer! A harsh scraping noise from outside startled Toby out of his reverie, plunging his senses into ice-cold terror. Toby’s shallow breath shook hard in his lungs as he waited.

I never took Noah Zoro into the station after he told me his uncle had disappeared without so much as a missing persons report filed-this in itself was not the reason I brought in Baylee and Lowan but not him. I didn’t bring Noah in because he revealed himself as a key witness for several of the ongoing investigations. He would only talk to me if I could protect him.

First, we went to Indigo Beach, where he’d been living alone since May of 2022-surviving off of the profits from his break-ins. Baylee Knight and Lowan Percetti never roped him into stealing anything – it was always the other way around. Apparently he’d told Knight and Percetti that Emma Sheffer’s house was the score of a lifetime.

“The score of a lifetime?” I interrupted him. “Who even talks like that?”

Noah scowled. “I do! Now listen -.”

“How old are you anyway?” I wondered out loud.

Ignoring me, Noah cast his tale. “Uncle Redd had always been nervous about this place. We didn’t have money, so there wasn’t much choice in that. But he hated the smell of the Atlantic waters, and the noise of seagulls screaming. Most of all, he didn’t like being so close to her.”

“Who?” I asked as he pointed towards a cliff built up from the sand.

Noah hesitated, and I sensed he was going to reveal a mind-blowing truth. Or, more likely, an obvious lie.

“Miss Demelza.”

Demelza Robbins? My mind echoed the name, unsure that we were indeed talking about the overpriced purse designer. People in this town thinks she eats babies and communes with the Devil. However, I didn’t live near them. In my opinion witches were either Wiccans or trick-or-treaters in costumes. Anything else sounded completely absurd to my ears.

“Okay,” I said finally. “We’re going to the precint.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Noah snapped. “Demelza did something to my uncle! I saw it!”

“Saw what?”

Noah fell silent. He still didn’t trust me, and I didn’t have time for this.

“Sorry kid.”

He glared. “Don’t ‘sorry kid’ – you’re what? Ten years older than me?”

Then he was about twelve years old. I made a mental note – he looked much younger than that.

“You have an uncle,” I tried. “How about an aunt?”

He shook his head. “Aunt Nelly left awhile back to look for Uncle Redd, and she’s still gone.”

I hesitated. “Do you think Demelza Robbins did something to her too?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.” He seemed so downcast, and I couldn’t blame him at all.

“Alright, I’ll look into it – if you agree to tell me your real name. Can’t do much without it.”

The kid’s jaw hit the ground. “How did you know?”

I snorted. “One Piece fan. “Roronoa Zoro is the best, hands down. So, am I talking to your neighbor or not?”

The kid raised his eyebrows. “You’re not nervous?”

“I don’t believe in witches.”

“Do you believe in serial killers?”

“I believe in guns,” I assured him.

He looked uncertain. Then, “My name is Toby Holloway.”

I nodded my appreciation. “Thanks Toby. Don’t leave town.”

As I went to the door, I could have sworn he rolled his eyes.

I really should’ve left it alone, but I’ll admit that I was curious. So then. Off I went to see the Dark Artist of Pensacola.

Toby had been waiting on Larento’s return ever since. Now he feared the worst.

Fear. It was just an illusion to protect oneself from danger. Nothing shameful about it, nor anything necessary for this moment in time.

Darkness. Scratches behind the walls. Tall, shadowy figures in the moonlight.

They wouldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t hurt him.

But Toby was terrified of the stillness and silence.

Demelza probably preferred to advance when everything else was stopped. It made her victims’ screams louder for her to enjoy.

Toby wondered if Larento had screamed in the end.

A crisp ocean breeze blew into his little home suddenly, blasting his bedroom window off its hinges. The wait was over.

Toby, came a soft whisper. Toby. Come home with me.

No, he shuddered.

Toby, it said again. Don’t you want to know about your detective friend? I can show you.

“No,” Toby whispered again, all of his pleading useless.

The room brightened, and Toby blinked at the scene. Larento was knocking on the crest-white painted front door to Demelza’s beach house.

A statuesque figure with bouncy ebony tresses opened it.

Larento immediately devolved into a giddy high school senior. Clearly he’d been expecting Scary Granny Witch Demelza.

Young, hot, fashion icon witch Demelza was going to eat him up.

“Ah, hello?” Larento coughed. “Demelza Robbins?”

For a moment, Toby saw Demelza’s eyes narrow as they did at the sight of any man, and then they lifted in a politely puzzled expression.

“Yes?” she replied, a slight pitch in her voice hinting at a faded British accent.

“Hi, I’m Detective Larento with the Pensacola P.D.”

Toby groaned nervously at the transparent question mark Larento had left at the end of his introduction. Apparently Demelza’s cheerleader body was costing him his certainty that he was a cop.

“Did you find him? My lost dog, I mean?”

Demelza owned a dog?

Larento hesitated. “Ma’am, I’m sorry about your dog, but I’m here on another matter.”

Her face fell with a practiced grace. “Oh. What can I do for you then, Detective?”

Larento hesitated, and Toby knew he was the one who was lost. The poor sap must have been a virgin.

“Is it all right if I come in?”

Demelza flicked her long eyelashes in wide-eyed surprise. “Of course.”

NO! Toby’s heart sped into a frenzy.

Once Larento and Demelza were settled at the kitchen table with a teapot in the middle, Demelza took full charge of the conversation.

“This is a special leaf blend of mine,” she gestured at the teapot. “But you don’t need to drink it. I know there are words whispered about me around town.”

Larento coughed again, and Demelza offered him a cup.

Then the idiot drank the tea.

“How does that make you feel?” he asked, now a therapist rather than a police officer.

Demelza shrugged. “Makes perfect sense. I cross the pond and wind up in a fairly superstitious part of the country. But I don’t make my livelihood selling fortunes and reading palms, Mr. Larento.”

Larento ignored the drop of his title and surmised, “You make purses.”

Demelza laughed, and it echoed through Toby’s veins as he watched the scene play out.

She sobered. “I hope to branch out and create more than handbags eventually. But yes.”

“It’s an impressive career.”

“I owe it all to the people who helped me get this far. But you didn’t come out here to discuss fashion accessories.”

“No, in fact, I came to ask you about a man named Redd Rivers.”

Demelza’s dark brown eyes flashed cold for a moment. Larento must have seen it, because he continued, “His disappearance and the subsequent vanishing of his wife left their nephew without a guardian. I need to find them before he’s placed in the foster system.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” she murmured. “Why come to me about this?”

“Because, according to Toby Holloway, you were the last person Rivers saw before dropping off the face of the world.”

“Hmm.” Demelza seemed nonplussed. “Fair enough.”

“Do you have any idea where he went?”

Demelza smiled. Only smiled. “Poor Toby,” she said at last. “He has quite an imagination, doesn’t he? Did he tell you the locals’ running theory that I turn those who cross me into handbags?”

“Please answer the question, Ma’am.” When Demelza did not respond, Larento asked the most intelligent question used so far in this “interrogation.” “Did you…turn Redd Rivers into a bag, ma’am?”

Demelza grinned wide, and the basket containing all of Toby’s hopes fell to the wayside. “You’re cute. I think you should stay,” she cackled at him, the scene reverting back to Toby’s bedroom. Demelza’s cackling still reverberated from the walls.

“What did you do to him?”

For the first time tonight, Toby felt bold. For a brief thirty seconds, he’d felt like he could finally have an actual friend in Larento.

“I let him go.”

Toby whirled around to see Demelza standing at his door. She had a tartan handbag slung around her arm – the one that was left behind after she was finished enchanting his uncle. Toby gulped.

“Yeah. I’m guessing he just went home to binge One Piece. What about this report?”

“Oh that?” she waved a dismissive hand. “He knows what your fate was all along Toby. To be an orphan, abandoned and unloved. He could have fought for you, but he mailed off a half-baked apology and abandoned you instead.” Her eyes flashed in the dark. “Just like Nelly and Redd. Just like mommy and daddy. They all could have had a gift to cherish but they wasted it.”

Then it hit Toby, bringing a lightning sharp shock to his senses, making him sick to his stomach.

The real reason Demelza was ridding the people around him, for the purpose of her claim – the one thing Larento hadn’t been able to do anything about.

Demelza Robbins’s lost dog.

“Mistress,” he remembered, disbelieving.

Demelza’s smile returned, twisted in malicious amusement as Toby dropped to all fours.

“Let’s be a good boy and get going. I have a new bag to pick up for my collection.”

Sleeping On The Floor https://a.co/d/14u6PEv

"Hunter" (cont.)

I get inspired ideas all the time. That's the easy part. Formulating a narrative with those ideas is the fun part. It's writing the thing itself that is difficult.

My first story was a tenth grade creative writing assignment. I was writing my own story within a group of classmates given the same prompt: detention.

I had no experience in detention, and I hadn't seen The Breakfast Club yet, so my story followed the lines of a mystery - who pranked their substitute math teacher and resulted in making the other students suspects? I enjoyed making the first plot twist that the honors student was the culprit. But I felt like that wasn't enough, so I threw in an ending scene where the sub forgives the distraught girl and buys her a Happy Meal.

It was simple, perhaps unsurprising to a more experienced reader. But it surprised my own teacher, and she encouraged me to keep at it.

Which brings me to Hunter.

Writing is an instinctual process that, like a musical instrument, constantly needs fine tuning. With my current story, Hunter, I can break that process into sections. They aren't listed in chronological order for coherency's sake, as ideas usually come along out of order.

Title: something obscure before reading. Who is the hunter? The correct question is, who is Hunter?

Plot: Hunter is a girl who was abused by her father, which has had long lasting repercussions on her sense of self. Her father is out of prison, and the entire family is worried about her. The funny thing is, to keep Hunter's thoughts a mystery for most of the story, I deemed her brother, a private investigator, as the perspective that should tell the story.

Twist #1: Ah, you didn't think I'd spoil it already, did you? Suffice it to say, this is the more obvious of the two twists I usually embed in my short stories. It confirms what we already suspect but opens the door wide for another surprise...

Twist #2: This is the shocker ending, the cliffhanger that isn't really a cliffhanger. It works not only for short horror stories but for fan works and dramatic short prose fiction.

Ending: Really, I let the genre define this. If it's horror, it doesn't end happily ever after. If it's a fantasy piece, it ends with a few ethereal passages. Romance ends on a note of realization for one or both main characters.

As far as the style goes, it must both fit the tone of the story and be semi-consistent with my preferred writing conventions. It has to simultaneously sound like me and sound like its authentic self, if that can be understood. Every word written, however, should be appreciated for its contribution to the story. I know this sounds silly, but style feels like a deliberate practice to me. There's a big difference between saying, "See Spot run," and saying, "With his heartbeat propelling him onward, Spot galloped across the street." Same thing, different effect.

And so I leave you with this for now.

"Hunter"

I'm working on a short story called Hunter at the moment, meanwhile taking a couple of online Masterclasses on writing.

It's a fascinating endeavor, combining what R.L. Stine teaches, what Joyce Carol Oates teaches, and what I taught myself long ago. I'm still working it out.

Something new to me that R.L. Stine's class explores is deciding your own rules of writing the story before you power plot through it. His rules are lots of fun bumps and twists during the chilling premise, and to also make sure no one dies in his kids' books. Once he has those parameters, he says, he can easily create the story he wants.

Joyce Carol Oates, on the other hand, focuses more on detail and character. When writing a short story, she suggests to list the items you would have on set if it were a short film instead. List and describe the props, the location, the clothing, etc. Let them also say something about the characters.

I guess what I've taken away from Stine's class mostly impacts the ending of my story. I hate being predictable, and I always include a twist at some point in the tale I'm spinning. But usually someone gets hurt. One of my greatest fears is doing something negative that can't be undone. Which is silly, right? People do that all the time. I get mad and I get over it...but what happens if I can't get over it?

Oates has gone and instilled her method in my process and I love it.

Characters

Elisa Ridge

Hunter Ridge

Wesley Adam Ridge

Linnea Combs

Ori Wrenshaw

"Props"

Elisa’s house:

giclee paintings of the sea

victorian patterns

floral print rugs

thin cherry wood framed coffee table, frosted glass surface

green bananas, flowers in basket (after her divorce she went to school to become a floral arranger)

Wes’s house:

professionally shot and framed photographs

ivory and ebony paint, with beige furniture accents

golden retriever with kind but sad eyes

wine bottles from an exclusive vineyard

handgun (.38 caliber revolver)

Hunter’s dorm

dim lighting

low ceiling

chain-pull lamp with peacock feathers painted

Organizing in this way makes things so much more efficient and better in quality.

I'll come at ya with another of these posts soon to define what I've learned for myself in the twenty years I've been writing. Til then!

With my scripting responsibilities done for the moment, we can move on to some short stories.

Based on the titles/descriptions of the Coming Attractions post, I’m curious to know what piques the most interest.

Hunter

Porcelain

Nameless

The Witching Hour

So, it's happening. I finished a script for this baby, and now it's rolling on track! We have cast an extremely talented lead voice actress, as well as an amazing actor to play opposite her. We have another two scripts underway, and a fabulous musician on our team to write the soundtrack.

Never thought I'd be spearheading a horror project. It still feels really good.