Please welcome Troy Lambert, author of Broken Bones short story collection, to my blog today with a SCARY guest post in anticipation for Halloween. He has graciously offered for giveaway to one lucky commenter, a copy of Broken Bones.
Please answer the following question:
What is your most memorable scare???
Please fill out the Rafflecopter form for Blogger or answer the question in the Wordpress comment field and make sure to leave your email address. GIVEAWAY ENDED~~~
Devil in a School Dress
The windshield was spattered with blood. Her blood.
Why did Brad have to have such a high mountain driveway? A mangy black dog had run into the road and she had swerved to miss it. The passenger side wheels left the pavement. She tried to correct, got them back on solid ground, but slid sideways. That’s when the rear wheels left the pavement and the car tumbled end over end down the hill.
She was seat belted in, and every air bag in the Volvo her husband had insisted on buying her had deployed. Her husband, who was on business in Chicago with the advertising firm they both worked for. Somehow in all the flipping the car had turned around and now she was facing downhill looking at a tree through the spider webbed cracks and droplets of blood. She tried to lift her right arm to touch her head, and pain shot through her arm and up to her shoulder. Broken.
Her husband had insisted on the Volvo for the safety. Yet she was headed to Brad’s to celebrate Halloween after she had called her husband earlier in the evening and told him she had a headache and would be going to bed early. He had been concerned. “You sure you are okay honey?” he asked.
She had reassured him. Of course she was fine, she had told him. It was just a little headache. She was going to stay home.
“Goodnight. I love you,” he said.
“Goodnight,” she had answered and hung up. She touched her forehead with her left hand and it came away soaked. There was a lot of blood and she smelled something she didn’t like. Gas.
She tried to open the door. It was twisted and mangled into place. She couldn’t move it. Frantic, she banged her left shoulder into it over and over, finally falling back into the seat. She undid her seat belt and stared at the center console. It had popped open in the crash and inside was one of those little brass hammers for breaking the window if you were underwater. Her husband had insisted she carry it. At the same time she spotted her cell phone on the passenger side floor. It was lit up and ringing. Even from here she could see the name on the caller ID. It was Brad. She tried to reach it with her left hand. She couldn’t reach the phone, but her hand closed around the handle of the hammer.
The gas smell seemed to get suddenly stronger and she retched nearly losing the light dinner she had eaten earlier. With a rapid reflex she raised the hammer and broke the window pushing it out. Fresh air flooded the car and she attempted to turn her legs to slide out the window. Her right ankle protested, but not as loudly as her arm. She screamed with a start and then began to move more carefully. An inch at a time she eased herself out the window, working her shoulders out first including her dangling right arm. Holding on with her left she judged the distance to the ground dreading the drop.
Her cell chirped again, the signal for a text message. As it did the right side of the car exploded pushing her out of the window and into the dirt. She landed on her right side, and then began to roll rapidly downhill. She fetched up against a tree with a grunt, and for a moment the world went black.
She awoke to two things: smoke and fire. She struggled to stand, and kicked off the ridiculous red heels she had been wearing. She looked down at her costume, suddenly ashamed. A devil in a schoolgirl dress? Really? It had seemed so playful and harmless at the time. Her legs were scratched and the red stockings were shredded. The tail and pitchfork still protruded though at an odd angle from under the plaid skirt. She thought of the red garters there, the red matching bra under her white button up blouse now stained with blood.
At least your underwear are clean, She thought and giggled thinking of her mother’s odd obsession. Her thoughts were interrupted by crackling flames. The hillside was on fire. There was a trail a foot from where she landed that led downhill.
Always go uphill form a fire, her husband’s voice said inside her head.
She looked at the heavy underbrush. “I can’t honey,” she said out loud. “I love you.” She limped down the trail, full of regret, moving as quickly as she could. A few yards ahead she saw a gate. A sign read:
Abbandonate ogni speranza che entrate.
It looked oddly familiar but she couldn’t remember where from. She went through. As she did the air changed. It smelled like burning sulfur.
She turned and looked back through. There, closer than she thought possible was her crushed Volvo. Flames licked hungrily at the hillside around it, and right next to the driver’s side door lay a body. She recognized the costume, and the little headband with the red horns laying by the head.
“Welcome,” a deep voice said. She turned and saw a beautiful blond angel. He looked a lot like Brad.
“Thank God,” she sighed. For a second I thought. . .
He held up a hand. “Your costume is a poor imitation of me,” he stated. Her face fell. He straightened to a regal pose and began to speak:
I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements time cannot wear
were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
Abbandonate ogni speranza che entrate.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements time cannot wear
were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
Abbandonate ogni speranza che entrate.
“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here,” his voice filled the world with the translation.
She cried out in horror and screamed. Lucifer stood silent waiting patiently for her to stop.
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Troy Lambert is author of the short story collection-“Broken Bones”. He is a freelance writer and historian from North Idaho where he lives with two gifted dogs, two of his five children, and his lovely wife of ten years.
Troy Lambert Website
Troy Lambert Blog
Twitter
Facebook Author Page
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Great excerpt .... Ill be def adding this to my trb pile !! Love the way lucifer re assesed her attire lol. Thanks for the giveaway and the post Heather !
ReplyDeletekat
kittee_cat@bigpond.com
Forgot my most memorable scare !!! hearing fighting on the balcony at my house at night and walking out to see no one there - then going back to bed and hearing it again... The balcony was moving but no one in sight !!! so I just made my doors where locked !! and stayed in my room lol
ReplyDeletekat
Great post!! Most memorable scare was when I was about 16 and watched the Exorcist with my sister in the basement and when she went to bed she started screaming madly. No one told her our other sister was sleeping on the bedroom floor - and she moved. All three of us were terrified!
ReplyDeleteDidn't think I would like this as it's not my usual thing but I was wrong. The extract really dragged me in and I'll put in on my wish list. This is great blog by the way. I'm following!
ReplyDeletehttp:\\elizabethbaxter.blogspot.com
Liz, can you make sure to send your email address and answer the question???
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Heather
I was eleven and it was the last Halloween I was to go trick-or-treating. I was at the end of a street that backed onto the Loyola University campus in Los Angeles. Suddenly I heard unearthly shrieking. After recovering from the momentary jolt of adrenalin, I ventured out on the University's golf course to investigate. Two large white cats were locked in what appeared to be mortal combat. I approached them and frightened them into separating and high-tailing it in different directions.
ReplyDeleteSuddenly, I heard florid piano music--something like a Liszt rhapsody--but I couldn't find the source. Then I spotted an "igloo" across the fairway. It was a musician's practice studio, a precast concrete dome of maybe 25 feet diameter.
I approached the building to take a closer look, to discover there were no lights on inside. My mind quickly manufactured a ghost at the piano, or a demon, playing an annual Halloween concert. I couldn't shake the feeling. I felt the tickle of hair at the nape of my neck standing on end.
I ran. And ran. At eleven I could run all day, but when I finally stopped at a what i judged a safe distance, I could still hear the music. I haunted me all the way home.