Who's There?

On a night like any other, Mom and I sat on our dingy, paisley couch covered with a mustard-yellow blanket and watched tv. The big window behind us was propped open wide, allowing the cool breeze to graze our necks. Cuddling was something I liked to do with my mom often, and I don’t believe she minded either. I snuggled into her arms, wrapping myself around her like a leech.

Crickets chirped, singing their evening tune, a song never changing no matter where I’ve lived, then something else chirped, too. A pager.

Behind us.

Outside.

Mom startled. “Did you hear that?” she asked, hands shaking.

My heart raced. Blood thrummed in my temples. “Yes.”

Turning around, we saw nothing but darkness. Footsteps pounded the earth as whoever was looking in on us ran away.

Tears streamed down my face. I was already afraid of living in the middle of nowhere, and this just added to the mounting torment Lone Oak, Texas offered me.

Dad wasn’t home and neither was Kris, but the spy didn’t come back. Mom and I locked ourselves in tight, slept together for the evening, and wondered just who was out there.

But we never found out.

Happy Halloween everyone. Hope you enjoyed my very true but short story today. The pumpkins below were carved yesterday by my family. :-)

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Six Sentence Sunday

For those of you who didn't participate in Six Sentence Sunday last week, you can see what you missed here.

This will be my last continuation about "HE" (Yes, I'm evil and NO, you still won't fully understand who HE is. Muahahahaha!) Enjoy!

~He laughs, joining me on the floor. “No, Kate, this is not a dream.”

“Well, you have been in almost every one of my dreams since I was fourteen,” I say, not meeting his eyes. Do concussions cause hallucinations? I rub the back of my head. The swelling from my meeting with the rocks on Goat Ridge has gone away.~

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Friday Funny

So I had a whole blog planned for today. I was going to recap my week, talk about carving pumpkins with the kids while sipping on apple cider, complain about the crazy amount of dance practices my daughter has tomorrow for the upcoming Nutcracker (YAY, go Kid #2), let you all know I'll be on the road next week because my brother is marrying the most wonderful girl in the world (and I'll go crazy with Kids #1-3 in the car), and tell you I appreciate every single one of you.

Instead of doing that (snickers), I'm going to share the comic strip @RedTashBooks designed for me based on this week's experiences.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

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Jail Bait

One day after school, my neighbor ventured across the pastures to play. Like so many other times, we watched tv, tossed the frisbee around for our dog Sam, climbed the wooden walls to the hay storage areas in the barn—very dangerous—and ventured behind the pond to see what we could discover in the run-off.

We jumped into piles of hay from heights that could break something if we hadn’t landed just right. We collected tadpoles from the stream and laughed as they wriggled in our hands.

We were kids, and fun was the only thing that mattered.

As the sun was setting and the tall grasses radiated with a golden hue, it was time for my friend to go home. Mom and Dad would return from work soon, which meant dinner and whatever else they had planned. Probably bathing and bedtime.

My friend and I ducked between the barbed wire fence and exchanged confused looks when her dogs started barking hysterically.

“Don’t they know it’s just us?” I asked ready to bolt for my house. No way was I getting bit by a dog.

She called out for the mangy mutts to shut up, but they continued on as if they didn’t even know we were coming.

Gripping the cold metal wire, I held the fence open enough for my friend to slip through, but we both stopped dead in our tracks.

Living in a trailer without plywood secured to the bottom of it, like ours, gave my friend and I a vantage point neither of us could have imagined. Someone jumped from her back deck, clad in black boots and dark-blue pants, and took off running, jingling all the while.

“Who?”

She looked at me, eyes-wide with panic. “No one’s home but me.”

“Run!” I screamed, trembling while holding the fence open for her to come back through.

We locked hands and ran all the way back to my house, jumping through the fence so fast we didn’t take the time to worry about the wounds the barbed wire inflicted.

Mom and Dad weren’t home yet. There was no one we could call. The police wouldn’t make it to the middle of nowhere fast enough. We were defenseless. I thought about my dad’s gun, then remembered what happened the last time I shot it.

“Don’t you have a knife or something? Anything? We can’t just sit here and wait for whoever that was to kill us.” My friend gasped for air, skin as pale as the cotton in the field next to us. Her hands were frozen and grasped permanently around my arm. “What about your dad’s machete?”

The fools we were, we grabbed my dad’s machete and instead of locking ourselves in the trailer with it, calling the cops anyway, or waiting for Mom and Dad to get home, we ventured back to her property.

I swung the gigantic, rusted knife through the grasses without chopping any of them down. The blade was dull. Just like our plan. My friend’s dogs weren’t barking anymore, there wasn’t any jingling, and we certainly didn’t spot a murderer waiting for us, but what we did see once we reached her fence was our courage run away.

We walked back to my house and waited for the adults to swoop in to rescue us. While we were daydreaming of all the ways we were going to die, I turned on the tv and saw a news report that had my blood running cold for weeks.

Breaking News: Convict escaped local jail and is on the loose in the Lone Oak area. If you see a man . . . .

I didn’t hear any more, didn’t see any more, past those words. I just knew whoever the escaped convict was, that’s who was in my friend’s house, running away in his black boots and dark-blue pants.

When she finally made it home, the only thing missing was money. Isn’t that what a recently escaped criminal would need?

That’s what I thought.

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Six Sentence Sunday

By popular request, I'm picking up where we left off last week. So if you missed out, go read HERE, then come back...don't worry, we'll still be here when you get back.

~“Y-yes. I came to find someone to talk to and saw all of the food and couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess.” I kneel to gather pieces of plate, chicken and potatoes from the floor. “This is all just a dream, it’s just a dream, and everything is going to be okay,” I whisper to myself.

“A dream?”~

There is no official Six Sentence link this week, but make sure you check back next week for more authors involved in the Six.

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Halloween?

Orange pumpkins lined our neighbor’s porches. Carved and downright scary, the most wasted food on the planet illuminated all the decorations people had so intricately put on their homes for the spookiest day of the year.

Walking home from school I envied these families, envied the kids living in those homes who would don their Halloween best and romp around the neighborhood collecting candy later that evening. For free.

My parents didn’t allow us to celebrate Halloween, said it was the devil’s day, it was evil and . . . I’m not even positive what the full excuse was because I didn’t understand it.

I was mad.

Jealous.

Hurt.

Why did I have to stay home when all my friends were out running around? Why did we lock ourselves up? Why didn’t I get to dress up like a witch or fairy or princess?

Pushing through the front door, I dropped my book bag then went for my room where I remained the rest of the afternoon.

Mom and Dad came home from work and dragged me out to spend time with them, but something was different. They had plastic bags full of things they were talking in hushed whispers over.

Could it be? Had they changed their minds? Would I get to go out this year?

I couldn’t contain my excitement. A smile stretched across my face and I ran up to them and tugged on Mom’s hand. “What’s in the bag?”

“Tracks.”

“Tracks? Like railroad tracks?” I asked, leaning in to get a good look inside the bag.

Dad laughed. “No, like religious tracts. Instead of handing out candy or pretending like we’re not home, we’re going to pass these out.” He dug one out and gave it to me. “This is going to be great.”

No. No this was not going to be great. I may have only been in second grade, but I knew without a doubt how this would go over. We were going to be known as the family who didn’t just hide on Halloween, we were going to become the family who refused to give out candy on Halloween.

“Oh.”

“You can help pass them out.” Dad placed the bag on the entryway table and went about his business for the rest of the evening.

I cried on the inside. Opening that door would give me a glimpse into a world I’d never experience. A pure, simple fun I’d never know. Did they realize how bad this hurt? Did they know they were subjecting me to ridicule at school? Did they care?

The first knock came just as the sun was setting, and I had the pleasure of answering the barrier between me and a fun filled night.

“Trick-or-treat,” cried the eager kids dressed as kittens, ghosts and oh so many things I wanted to be.

Dad opened the bag full tracts then handed them to me, and I frowned while dropping them into the cute little buckets and bed sheets the kids had hoards of candy in.

The kids and their parents scowled.

My heart sank to my stomach.

Slinking back into the house, I allowed my dad to deal with whatever people had to say to him then I sat on the couch and didn’t move the rest of the night. I refused. I wouldn’t ever open the door on Halloween again.

Period.

I don’t think any of the kids even remembered what we passed out—they were too busy comparing candy counts. And I was too busy hating my life to notice if anyone at school ridiculed me.

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Six Sentence Sunday

Another week has flown by! Can you believe it? I feel like Sunday comes faster and faster all the time. Sigh. Well, I didn't want to give too much creepy away this week. Figured I'd save some for the grand finale. We're going to go for more of a What? response this week. :-) Enjoy.

~I put so much food on the plate it heaps with potatoes and chicken. Turning to take the treasures back to Brad’s room, I bump into someone standing right behind me. My eyes work their way up a man’s chest, neck and face and finally rest on eyes so familiar, my hands tremble and all the blood in my body runs cold.

It’s him.

The dish falls to the floor, breaking and splattering food all over the place.

“You must be Kate,” he says, frowning at me.~

To read more awesome Six Sunday entries, make sure you click here.

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