Tag Archives: ghost

Horror & Dark Fiction

The Sister Who Never Existed

My twin was stillborn. It is all I can think of as I hear the footsteps. One by one, they are the patter of little feet; wet on tiles across the kitchen and then slightly softer as they move up the stairs towards the bedroom. There is a soft clanking sound and the void of fear between each of my ragged, icy breaths.

“Hello…?” I try to call but it comes out hollow, as if there is no air in my lungs, “Hello?”

I am sure that I hear a distant scream and a cold wind sends chills down my spine.

One by one, the little feet step forward feeling their way. I can remember the childhood with two loving parents. Teddybears and presents; sweet cake and dentist visits. Warm sunshine in the park with the coolness of the lake water. I can see the first day of school and the childish fear of the playground filled with strangers.

“Is that you?” I am sure that I hear a distant voice call, it sounds filled with fear and makes the hair on the back of my neck rise, “Is that you, little sister?”

One by one, the little feet step forward, softly crunching on the hard carpet lining the corridor at the top of the stairs. I can remember the first kiss from a boy and our tears when it ended. The darkness and light, the smoky bars and the fast cars. The warm silence of the library when studying. How the light from the full moon broke through the curtain at night and scattered the bed with glowing patches creating a halo around my beautiful sister.

She is lying there in the bed, but she is wide awake now. She is reaching for me with pale, moonlit arms as tears run down her deathly-white cheeks.

“Sister? Sister, is that you?” I am not sure if it is her speaking or me. The room feels cold, like a grave, or is it me that is so cold?

I reach out to take hold of her hand, but I pass right through it. She shivers, tears still streaming down her cheek. She is speaking quickly, words tumbling out. Her ruby red lips are moving quickly but I cannot hear what she is saying. I lean forward to try to hear, and that is when I see–or feel–the cold chains covering me.

“Little sister, it is not your fault. I will always love you,” she is saying again and again as tears keep streaming down her cheeks in the silvery moonlight, “Little sister, it is not your fault. I will always love you.”

One by one, the memories start to crystallize. I remember watching her naked, bloody and screaming as she left the womb. I watched as she grew up loved by two warm parents. I was there as she ran through the park, splashed in the cool lake and made her way through school and then varsity. How many nights did I just stand there watching her sleep, I do not know? I have been there all the time watching the sister–my sister–that was born. Watching my sister that existed.

Because I am the sister that did not.

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction, Romance

Court of the Sunflower King

The Sunflower King sat on his cold throne of petals brooding. The shadows in his Court were growing long and the Sun was nearly set. Everyone was gone. They were always gone. He thought he could smell the kitchens firing and hear the clink of glasses being set out in the garden. In an age long gone, he had married a beautiful Sidhe princess under the maple and the Midsummer Sun. Her throne now sat empty next to him. But, once a year on the Midsummer night, she appeared by him again.

“My dear, how the time has flown. What have we left to do?”

He closed his eyes tight shut for a moment, but then turned and looked at the throne next to him. She–his Queen Cereus–was sitting there as beautiful as the day he had married her. Suddenly the Court was full of people, bustle, sound and light again.

“Yes, my love, the time has flown. We have the banquet to attend.”

The real curse was not that she was taken from him nor that she reappeared once a year making it impossible for him to let go of her. No, the real curse was that if he told her about the curse, she would never come back. The fragile spell that brought her back to his Court once a year would shatter and the darkness that had cursed her would take her forever. And he would be forever alone sitting in his empty throne.

“Banquet? I do not recall a banquet, my dear?” Queen Cereus asked frowning. She shivered involuntarily but did not seem to notice.

The Sunflower King smiled and reached out and squeezed her hand–it had been a year since he had touched her! “It is a surprise, my love, a surprise just for you.” It always was.

***

“What a beautiful Sunrise, my dear,” Queen Cereus said, her head nestled in the Sunflower King’s shoulder. They were sitting atop the highest spire’s peak overlooking the grand entrance of the Sun. The blood red sky was breaking into other colours as a golden fire began to touch the horizon.

“Yes, my love, what a beautiful night,” the Sunflower King breathed, his arms suddenly empty.

He was alone at the peak of the highest spire in his castle overlooking his Kingdom. Queen Cereus was gone and would be gone for another year. His Court would be empty again.

He let his arm drop to his side and he sat in silence and watched as the ball of glowing fire burnt the start of the next year into the sky. It would be a long, lonely year again.

***

The Sunflower King could not remember how long this had gone on for, but over the years he began a conversation. Each annual appearance of his Queen when his Court was full and they held a banquet, he would try to get her to remember.

He could not tell her that she was cursed. He remembered the witches curse clearly. But, he could get her to remember this for herself.

“Do you remember where you were yesterday?” he would inquire between mouthfuls of nectar wine while the Court musicians played.

“Oh, my dear, I-I was here with you,” the Queen would reply, each time elaborating just a little more as something inside her began to get dislodged, “Didn’t we have a banquet too? We have too many banquets, my dear, we should do something else in the evening, don’t you think?”

Each year each time, he got just a little more of an answer from her.  But then, the Sun rose, she left and the Court, draped in shadows and loneliness, was empty for another year. He would spend his time waiting, watching the sunrises and sunsets on his own again while planning how to get her to remember. Nothing else existed.

***

“Do you remember where you were yesterday?” he asked, holding her hand tightly as they both sipped their nectar wine. The Court was full and the musicians were playing a particularly soft, dreamy piece of music.

“Oh, my dear, I was here with you,” the Queen answered, yet more convincingly, and then she turned her head and looked directly at him, “No… No, you weren’t, my dear. Where were you yesterday?”

This was a new line of conversation. He had never gone down this road before. Gazing at him with her beautiful eyes wide open, she involuntarily shivered again.

“My love, I was right here sitting on my throne and waiting for you in our Court,” he said slowly and deliberately.

“No, my dear, you weren’t. I was in the Court and talking to the Elders. They were saying–” the Queen tilted her head to the side like she was trying really hard to remember and her eyes moistened, “They were saying that I should consider remarrying because you were gone and not coming back. I don’t want to remarry, my dear, I love you. I love you so much.”

The Sunflower King was confused. This was not what he had expected. The curse had obviously confused her.

“But, my love, I am not gone. You–you are–” he paused, he could not bring himself to say it or risk breaking the enchantment, “I sit all year long in the empty Court and I only get to see you once on the midsummer night’s full moon.”

The Queen’s face wrinkled in confusion. Or was it sorrow? Her eyes were wet and the Sunflower King suddenly had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“But, my dear, it is not midsummer night’s full moon tonight,” she pointed up and suddenly the Sunflower King saw it, “it is All-Hallow’s Eve on Samhain. You are the Sun while I am the Moon. You are the Day while I am the Night. And, you can speak with the living while I can speak with the dead on such a magical night like this…”

The Queen let her voice trail out. She was looking intently at him and, in fact, the whole Court had grown quiet. Even the musicians had stopped and everyone was looking at the Sunflower King. Slowly he began to remember and realise.

He remembered how beautiful his Queen was on the day of their wedding. But he also remembered how the wicked witch had appeared in their midst and he had struck out with his blade to defend his love.

Then he realised why his Court was always so empty. Why his Court was always in shadows and his sunrises and sunsets were always alone.

“I-I am dead,” the Sunflower King breathed, suddenly hearing the echoey sound of his voice from the grave.

“Yes, my love,” Queen Cereus said, looking at the pale apparition of her former husband before her, its light flickered and she saw its face contort in pain, a tear rolled down her cheek, “Yes, my love, you died defending me, but you need to move on and go to the Summerlands. I will find you there. My love will guide me.”

For the last time, the Sunflower King looked at his Queen Cereus. A single ghostly tear ran down his face and disappeared. He began to speak, but his image was fading fast and all the Queen heard through her own tears was:

“I miss you, my love. I just miss you so much…”

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

Elysium Field

When Kenneth died–or was unwillingly murdered in a lonely field outside of town, as he would be quick to tell anyone that would listen–he found that he could not move on. It is true what they say about unfinished business, and so Kenneth stayed behind long after his body had left.

At first, he wandered around the world looking over the shoulders of old friends, family and long-lost lovers. He would stare at them while they slept, watch them go about their days, peep at them in the showers and be there for their intimate moments with their partners. He would giggle and, occasionally, manage to knock over something small, like a picture or a glass off a table.

But most of the time he just watched.

Eventually, this grew boring and he wandered further afield. He found his murderer, but after knocking over and rattling everything he could–which was not very much–and screaming at her repeatedly while she slept, Kenneth got bored of this too. In fact, he suspected that she liked it. Bitch. There just was so little you could do from this side of the world.

And so he found himself wandering back to that lonely field just outside of town.

It was a nice, quiet, little field. A small river slipped quietly by it and, at dawn and dusk, a small crowd of ibis would cluster the banks of it. Their occasional caws would break the quiet as the glory of the rising or setting Sun would streak the sky with brilliant reds and golds, deepening the soft, wavy green of the grass and reeds in the nice, quiet, little field. Occasionally, people would wander out here to fish, take pictures or even picnic, but he would scream at them and whoosh the long grass near them, and, eventually, they would leave him and his field in peace.

But time changes all things, and his nice, quiet, little field was no exception.

The days became years, and the years became decades and then centuries. The nearby city grew, roads popped up around the field and factories spewing out smoke before a large block of flats popped up where the field was. Thousands of people began appeared overnight in this block of flats, they came and they went and noise and neon light roared all around them, but the small crowd of ibis no longer came by and the sunrises and sunsets no longer sparkled on the bogged, polluted river flowing by.

Kenneth raged! He screamed and shouted, knocked everything that he could down–which was not that much–and cursed these nameless, squalid people from ruining his quiet field. He thought less and less about his friends, family and, even, his murderer.

But time moved on, and within the century, the block of flats was abandoned. The factories around it were still. The pollution still came and the city light all around him blinded the night sky while the traffic noise deafened him by day. Then the planes dropped bombs in the distance, fires began to rage and soon the city was wiped out. It was quiet all around him again, but his crowd of ibis never returned. His field was little more than a slowly collapsing building or a slowly forming pile of rubble in a blackened land.

Then, early one morning as Kenneth was whooshing around two thin, starving pigeons fighting over some seeds on the ground, a light started over the horizon. The light grew brighter and in moments everything was blasted into dust, except him.

Kenneth remained. There was nothing left to push over, scream at or whoosh. There was not even a river anymore, so clogged up with dust was it that the land had disintegrated into a desert. A dusty, grey desert.

There was nowhere else for him to go. Besides, this spot reminded him of his field. So he just stood there waiting.

The earth was silent now. He found himself wondering if he was the only thing alive on it, but then he reminded himself that he was actually dead too. He would manically laugh at this before screaming at the wind as it blasted fine nuclear dust through him.

But time moved on, and the centuries became millennia, and the millennia moved into a unit of time that Kenneth did not even know what to call. He had long forgotten about his friends, family and, even, his murderer. The earth grew dark and cold, and then the sky started to get brighter and brighter until even Kenneth needed to squint to look at it. Even the sand and dust started to burn as a steadily growing roar began to penetrate the air.

And then the Sun exploded.

Such fire and destruction reminded Kenneth of the humans and their little bombs and wars. The earth was literally ripped apart by the force of it, but Kenneth remained. It all just went through him and left him floating out there in space.

He missed his quiet field with his crowd of ibis and his lazy little river that flowed by. He now missed his planet too. But, he had nothing to do in space but float there in agonising boredom and let the millenia’s millenia slip by…

***

“Kenneth? Kenneth? Do you know where you are?” a voice began to penetrate his consciousness. It was a familiar voice, he thought, but he could not place it, “Kenneth, please respond? Do you know where you are?”

He opened his eyes and, at first, everything was blue with green lines framing it. Then he recognised the sky above. The real sky, from earth. The green lines were the grass in his field. He was lying on his back in his field, the grass around him and the sky above him.

He sat up abruptly, surprising a nearby ibis that cawed and flapped to a further part of the nearby quiet river. God, he had missed them!

“Kenneth, do you know where you are?” said the voice again. Kenneth abruptly looked at it and saw his wife.

“I, I, I dreamt that you murdered–uhm, I, I was just asleep, wasn’t I?” he answered, the words feeling unfamiliar as they left his throat. His throat was dry and his mouth tasted like dust. But then he felt a surge of relief that had all just been a bad dream.

His wife smiled at him, which for some reason made him feel uneasy. Something started to bother him, nagging at his subconscious.

“Oh, Kenneth,” she began as she stood up, a gun in her hand, “But I did murder you, and now I am going to do it again.”

The crowd of ibis were startled at the gun shot and flew off into the sky loudly cawing. His wife laughed evilly and walked out of his sight and off of his field. Kenneth lay there bleeding, or, at least, his body did. He was already standing in that field looking down on himself dying. He found himself wondering how times this would happen? How many times had this happened already? Somehow, deep down inside, Kenneth knew the answer and it terrified him, and then he suddenly realised what had been bothering him.

He had never had a wife.

The grass in that quiet field whooshed angry by an unseen wind.