Abandoned: Part 1

"Fuck," Tom muttered to himself. His SUV kicked up a spray of rubble and sand as it rumbled over the dirt road. With one hand on the steering wheel, and the other on the map, he cursed again, periodically glancing up, before turning his gaze back on the map.

Looking behind himself, Tom checked that all his baggage was securely tied down. This road trip was shaping up to be a bad idea, he thought. First the overbooked hotel, the flat tires, and now he was lost, traveling down the backwaters of rural America, wandering around in the damn desert. When he had first set out, he was sure that the trip would be full of adventure - but now, all he wanted to do was go home, sit back and watch some television.

"Aarghhhhh!" Frustrated, Tom pulled over to the side of the road, his car tilting onto the sparse grass. The hot midday sun beat down relentlessly, heating up the leather interior of the SUV. Tom turned up the air conditioning, blowing the scents of suntan lotion and sweat away, and flapped the map open on his lap, sending a fine dust into the air.

With a pen, he marked down his route, trying to figure out where he had gone off course. The map was already criss-crossed with red lines, denoting stops and routes, distances and calculations. After a few minutes of staring at the unreadable mess, Tom slammed the map down on his lap and gave a strangled scream of anger. If there were only some gas station, or an information kiosk...

Suddenly, Tom stared off into the distance. Leaning forward, he wiped at the windshield. Nope, it wasn't a smudge on the glass - there was smoke rising from the horizon. A house? A station? Whatever it was, smoke meant people, and people meant help. Maybe they would have directions back to the main road.

Tom shifted into gear. Pressing his foot on the gas, the car roared and sped off, leaving dust clouds in its wake. For the next few hours, he drove, keeping an eye on the dwindling smoke pillar. Eventually by nightfall the smoke had disappeared, but Tom was certain he was headed in the right direction. His hunch proved to be right when he rolled into a small town at the base of a small hill - and just in time. The sun was going down at a fast pace, almost as if it were falling into the surrounding desert.

Parking his car in front of a lit house, Tom turned off the engine and stepped out of the vehicle. As he approached the building, he noticed old-fashioned carts and churns along the side of the wall, and the lights emanating from the window appeared to be flickering alike candles, rather than electric lights. Maybe this was some sort of Amish community, like the brochure back in the car described.

Upon reaching the door and failing to find a doorbell, Tom knocked twice. He could hear muffled conversation from behind the door, and saw shadows moving in the tinted windows. The knob rattled, and Tom stepped backwards as the door swung open.

Simultaneously, Tom screamed and jumped backwards, as the... creature on the other side of the threshold did the same. The door slammed between the two, Tom rushing back to his car, frantically fumbling at the door, yanking it open, throwing himself inside, locking the door after him, and only then did he allow himself to take another breath. Panting, he looked back at the house, where shadows were moving quickly across the window.

What was that? He put a hand to his forehead. All he had seen were two wide circles for eyes, a long muzzle, a bald scalp. As the picture clarified in his head, he almost laughed in relief. It was just a gas mask - the strange nature of it was what had startled him. It was probably just some kids playing around. Tom tossed his head back and closed him eyes. It was the stress getting to him, making him see things that weren't there.

A knock at his window startled him. Opening his eyes, he saw a shadowy figure at the car door. He flicked on the interior light and wound down his window slightly. It was another gas-masked person, holding a candle. "Hello?"

"Who are you?" A muffled voice came through the mask, noisily echoing with the hiss of the filter. "What are you doing here?"

There was a strange lilt to the man's accent, something vaguely sophisticated. Shrugging it off, Tom responded. "My name's Tom, I got lost across the 402. I think I made a wrong turn somewhere. Do you know how I can get back onto the main roads?"

But the man didn't appear to be listening. Looking over his shoulder for a second, he turned back to Tom before asking more questions. "Why aren't you wearing a mask? Aren't you afraid?"

"Afraid?" Tom shook his head, puzzled. "Why are you wearing masks? Is there something I'm missing here?"

The man looked at Tom, his eyes unreadable under the gas mask, his expression hidden. Stepping back, he appeared to be observing the SUV. "What is this? Some sort of mechanized tank? Are you with the Germans? Where is your gas mask?"

"I'm German, yeah - I mean, my parents were born in-"

Before he could continue, the man reared back. Turning around he ran back into his house, shouting something unintelligible. Tom stared, utterly confused, and a little frightened. This place was weird.

The Mary Celeste: Part 1

"Bring her broadside men! Steady now!"

Sheldon pulled the rope with earnest, sweat running in rivulets down his brow. The heavy lifeboat inched closer to the frigate, a wall of wood that stretched almost endlessly upwards. The thick fog of the ocean's morning enshrouded them like a burial cloth. The mood was dank and damp, and the stench of rotting wood and salt filled the air like a haze.

Bit by bit, the sailors tugged and forced their way aboard the eerily silent ship. Sheldon reached a hand out into the side of the ship, running his fingers along the treated wood, marred and furrowed by long service at sea. A cold object touched his palm, cool and wet against the soggy wood. Sheldon stared at the brass lettering.

"Mary Celeste." he muttered to himself. Robin shouted out, much louder, right behind his ear, and he winced.

"Hoi Captain! Mary Celeste! Wasn't that one of the Queen's brigantine's?"

Captain Shelvocke nodded from his perch at the lifeboat's stern. "Aye, sailor. Tis the one they call the cursed ship."

Under his voice, he whispered in stage voice. "They say that her first captain died in her maiden voyage, under the name Amazon, and the brig was driven ashore in an icy storm off'r the coast o' Nova Scotia."

"What's it doing out here then, Cap'n, sir?" Robin lowered his spyglass from the horizon. "And where's the crew?"

"Well, that's what we boarded her for, to find out." The captain raised his gaze to the rails of the ship, far above the tiny lifeboat. He continued, almost to himself, "But I reckon it can't be anything good."

Sheldon turned his head to look at their own ship, the Abel. The fog wrapped around it, and it seemed to drift, anchored though it was. As he looked back up at the Mary Celeste, his heart seemed to stop, and he wished he was back on his bunk, reading a novel, and not on board a lifeboat, about to investigate a ghost ship.

With a creak and a groan, the grapple hooked onto the rails of the Celeste. Ten sailors, including the captain, Robin and Sheldon, all hoisted themselves over the wood and onto the deck. All was eerily quiet, other than the echoing footsteps of the crew. The captain headed for the head of the ship, while the sailors set out to various places on the deck. Sheldon decided to take a look closer to the stern, away from the dark cabin door.

And then, Robin shouted. "Cap'n! Sir! I've found something amiss, here by the rigging! Looks like it was cut'n run."

The crew huddled around, a small group in the midst of the empty deck. The rigging was cut and slashed, as if the crew had foregone proper procedure to lower the sails. All in all, Sheldon noted, it looked as if the Mary Celeste was under some sort of siege, and that the crew, in panic, had tried to escape as fast as possible.

The captain's brow was furrowed, and his eyes narrowed. "No captain would give this order unless under grave circumstances."

Suddenly, a shout came from the bow. "Captain!"

The Abel's crew rushed to the railings in a thunder of feet. Three long scratches adorned the wood, as if some horrid monster had slashed at the ship. The sailors shivered in the cool fog, but it wasn't from the cold.

Carefully now, the crew proceeded to the stern of the ship, and Sheldon saw some of the sailors with knives out, or fingers on triggers. As they reached the head of the ship, a small object struck Sheldon in the foot, causing him to shout. The other sailors, startled, jumped and gave him a dirty look. He picked the round object off the deck.

It was the ship's compass. The needle was missing, the lens was cracked, and the entire thing was sodden with water. He tossed it to the ground, shaking his hand of the wet slime.

Meanwhile, Captain Shelvocke was scanning through the ship's logs. Water-sodden and torn, he puzzled over them for a long time. The crew watched as he flipped the wrinkled papers over.

"Says here," he whispered, "that the ship is carrying over a thousand barrels of the Queen's alcohol, 6 months worth of food, and that the last place it landed was Santa Maria, in Azores. Captain Briggs commanded the vessel... but the last pages are blank. And all the other papers, maps and articles, are missing."

"Wha'happened to the crew?"

"Doesn't say. Although I knew Captain Briggs, and he wouldn't be one to invite mutiny, or lose his head in a situation." His words seemed to invite evil, because all the men suddenly shivered as if hit by a cold wind.

The cabin door creaked as the men hacked it open. Instantly, water poured out. Robin took a look in and said, "Cap'n. The hull is breached, and the bottom's full o'water!"

Shelvocke pushed past. "We can still get in, although it'd be cold. Come on men! Hike up those trousers!"

Sheldon stepped into the soggy cabin. The air was warm and humid, with the unmistakable stench of alcohol. They didn't find anything of interest in the cabin; in fact, everything seemed spookily normal, down to the hanging laundry and the scraps of food still on the table. Odd, creepy, and a total mystery. Wind echoed through the crack nosily, whistling a haunting tune that chilled the crew to their bones.

The men surfaced, unnaturally silent. Working hard, they boarded the lifeboat, with thick ropes tied to the mast of the Mary Celeste. In utter silence they rowed back to the Abel, only broken by the lapping of water against oars, and the occasional murmur.

Once aboard their own ship, the crew relaxed visibly. The shadow of fear still hung about their necks, but Sheldon felt much more relieved than he was on the Celeste. The sailors hoisted the ropes in a knot around the Abel's mast, linking the two ships together as one.

"All done Captain! Take her out!"

The sails were hoisted and the yards trimmed. The ropes snapped taut as the Abel towed the Celeste, dragged backwards by the weight of the brig. But the Abel was a larger ship, and bit by bit, both boats cruised towards the horizon.

It was only in the middle of the night that Sheldon heard the harsh snap and screams of men. Sitting bolt up in bed, he swung out of his bunk, narrowly avoiding Robin as he dashed round the corner.

"Hurry men!" The Captain was already on deck, along with most of the crew. Sheldon struggled to pull his jacket on, and as he burst through the cabin door a spray of mist hit him in the face. All the sailors were clinging to the mooring rope, the thin line connecting the Celeste to the Abel. The cable was swaying dangerously, almost as if something were pulling the other end.

"Steady!" Shelvocke shouted, as the sailors groaned and heaved. The line slowly settled down, and the men relaxed. But the next second, it had whipped into the air, tossing unsuspecting and unwary bodies everywhere. The captain himself stumbled back into Sheldon, knocking him down. With barely a second glance both were up, pulling at the rope once more.

In the distance, in the light of the moon, Sheldon could see the ghostly brig flotaing in the dark. Although the rope twisted and turned like the devil was fighting them, the ship itself was calm in the waters. A eerie feeling struck Sheldon as he paused to look. Almost as if a spell was cast, all the men stood stock-still, staring at the distant ship.

The Call

The Call
February 7, 2007

She was going to kill herself.

It was decided. Life was going so badly. School was a mess, and her social life was in the trash along with her broken dignity. Her friends had abandoned her, and her family was totally clueless. Even she didn't know who she was anymore. The bedsprings creaked as she sat back on the pink bedspread. She reached into the small, white pill box.

25 pills. Enough to cause a lethal overdose in an elephant. She tipped them out onto her hand, the split-colors tumbling out onto her pale palm. There they were, her gateway, her escape.

She plugged one into her mouth, chasing it down with another one, and a gulp of water. The drowsiness began to take effect. Her mind swirled with memories of her friends. Her family. Her life, her sadness, her despair all seemed to fade away at once...

She poked another one between her reddened lips. The capsule pushed past teeth, rolled across her tongue, and fell the unfathomable distance into her throat. She took another one.

Her eyes began to tear up. Thick salty drops fell onto her palm, and she tasted the tears with the next pill she swallowed. Her hands began to shake. Another one.

Another one. And one more. Each pill was harder to swallow. Her throat clogged with tears, her body shaking violently as she rocked herself back and forth with increasing rapidity.

One more would be a lethal overdose. The point of no return, the invisible line that seperated life from death. She looked at the pill. Her only chance to turn back.

She swallowed the pill.

The phone rang. At first, she thought it was her fading mind, her grip on the concious world slowly loosening its hold. But no, it was really the bedside phone, ringing away like Death's messenger. For whom the bells toll...

She sat, cross-legged in her loose nightgown, legs awkwardly and haphazardly slumped. The phone rang, and rang. It rang, until she could bear the tension no longer, and snatched the phone up.

With her quickly failing life, she whispered. "H-Hello?"

A burst of static squealed from the other end, and the soft buzz of a disconnected line met her ear. With a sob and a sigh, she turned to hang up the handset.

"zzzzzzDOzzNOz-AAAA-HELLO?" A voice screamed from within the phone.

"H-hello?" With the unexpected link of human contact, she was suddenly desperate to talk to someone, anyone, before she passed on. "Hel-Hello?"

"zzzzzISzzzDON'TzzzzNOzzzz" A voice emanated as if from inside a long tunnel. "zzzzzzzCALLzzzNOzzzAzz- DON'T DO IT! DON'T DO -"

And with that, the line died. She set the handset down by her side.

She sobbed, confused and scared, once again, a young girl. Then she picked up the phone. Tapping the disconnect switch, she dialled emergency services.

"He-Hello?" She whispered, her voice a mere shadow. "I- I took some pills, and- and I think I... I think I need some help..."

***


10 years later, she walked into her new apartment condo. Her boyfriend lugged the boxes behind as she set her handbag on the new countertop.

"Just set them down there. Thanks a bunch hon, I'm going to go snoop around." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before bounding upstairs.

The rooms were all empty, vacated by the previous owners. As she walked through the blank hallways, the children's room jumped out at her. If all went well, there would be someone to fill that spot in just a few years. She twisted the engagement ring on her finger anxiously.

There was also that other part of her too. She stood in the doorway of the kid's bedroom. For a second, she saw a younger version of herself, planted on a pink bed, dressed in a thin slip: gaunt, forsaken, ready to die. She shuddered, and the vision passed.

For years, she had always wondered about that mysterious call that had not only saved her life, but had given her a second chance. She had never told anyone about it, not even her closest friends. But she was ever grateful. Unspeakably so.

Passing into another room, she was surprised to see that not everything was gone. The previous owners had left an object in the middle of the room, attached to the wall by a thin cord. A single telephone, of the antique variety. Spin-dial, made of brass, very ornate and unique.

Playfully, she took a seat beside it. She admired the designs, the shapes and spirals, the hook of the handpiece and the rounded edges of the base. Then she picked it up and held it to her ear.

A soft voice came through the line. "H-Hello?"

The Painting

The Painting
February 5, 2007

Helen first spotted the painting at a yard sale.

The golden frame leapt out from the other mundane objects on the lacy tablecloth, and the swashes of color were vibrant amongst the dull silver trinkets that accompanied it.

"Hey! Hey, how much for this painting?" Helen asked the old woman tending the tables. She waved towards the golden square with a slender finger.

The elderly woman looked over. "Oh? That old thing? I'll give to you for... say, 5 dollars?"

"Done!" As an art collector, and one might say a connoissuer, Helen knew the value of the simple painting was far more than 5 dollars. In fact, the thick oils of the abstract female form were at least a few hundred dollars.

Handing over a bill, Helen hoisted the heavy painting into her back seat. The picture featured a nude woman, her back to the observer, facing off into the horizon. Her thin arms wrapped her body protectively, as if modesty and embarassment were on her mind.

***

The picture matched the wallpaper perfectly, Helen noticed gladly, as she puttered around her kitchen preparing dinner. The steams from the stovetop obscured the picture for a second, bathing it in a thin mist. The haze only made the painting more mysterious and alluring.

"Oops!" Helen bent down to pick up the spoon she had knocked off the maple counter. A stain of tomato sauce splattered across the room. Looking up, Helen saw a drop of the red stuff smeared across the painting, marking the woman's back. "Shit..."

Heading to the sink to get a cloth, Helen's foot met with an overlooked splat of sauce. With a gasp, she fell hard on the tiles. A sharp pain came from her back as the spoon dug into her skin.

Rising painfully to her feet, Helen rubbed her back painfully. Teeth and eyes clenched, she felt a wet, slippery liquid dribbling from her fingers. Taking a glance, she saw blood running like water off her fingers.

***

When she woke up, something had changed.

The painting in the kitchen was different. Very different. Helen only noticed it when turning the radio on, and out of the corner of her eye. She searched her house, but no doors had been unlocked, no prankster had been inside to change the picture. So she was confused to see that the picture today... was not the one she had bought yesterday.

The woman in the painting now was adorned in a beautiful fur coat, with a handbag stuffed with dollar bills.

With a shiver of paranoia creeping up her spine, Helen studied the painting closely. It wasn't painted over. In fact, the golden frame hadn't been removed, and the oils looked ancient, as if the painting had been masterfully drawn and finished with the fur coat included.

Then the radio announcer began blaring out numbers. Helen didn't register the voice until something began to nag at her very hard.

"And 24! Thanks for playing the 649! Jackpot is 25 million ladies and gents, so make sure you check your tickets!"

With a sense of detachment, Helen removed her ticket from the purse on the table. "And again! Those numbers are 2, 4, 28, 46, 42, 32, and 24!"

The ticket read 2, 4, 28, 46, 42, 32 and 24.

Helen glanced at the painting. No, it couldn't be... or could it? The woman's fur coat, the Louis Vutton handbag full of cash...

That day, Helen went out and bought herself a fur coat, and a Louis Vutton handbag. She almost felt like she didn't deserve it.

***

And the next day, the painting was changed again.

This time, the woman in the golden frame was not alone. A tall man stood beside her, with his arm pressed across her shoulders. He too, looked off into the distance, staring at the horizon.

Taking a close, eager look, Helen noticed the clipboard in his hand, the tidy suit he was wearing, and his polished shoes. She stared hungrily at his physique, taking in his appearance.

Ding! The doorbell interrupted her thoughts. Sighing, she danced down the hallway and opened the door.

"Hello ma'am, I'm taking a survey on... Ma'am?" The surveyor asked the open-mouthed Helen, as he tapped on his clipboard and brushed lint off his immaculate suit.

***

The next morning, Helen woke up next to Dave and snuck out, making sure not to wake him. Putting her feet into pink slippers, she slid downstairs to take a look at what her day held for her.

The painting was inscrutable in the dark. Helen flicked on the lights.

The image in the golden frame...

There was nothing. Nothing but the endless horizon and the setting sun. The lady had mysteriously vanished, along with the man.

Helen stared confusedly. Was she going to take a trip?

Staring closer, Helen noticed that there was something left in the frame. A small blob of color on the bland ground.

A small spot of red. Whatever could that mean?

***

The next day, the officers took Dave into custody for second-degree murder. Turns out Helen's lottery win didn't go unnoticed.

Strangely, the police did find a very odd painting hanging above the stove. A square of perfect black, in a golden frame.