Crowley's Window (Novella) (12 page)

But Abby had destroyed everything Chollo held dear in this messed up world and he’d never forgive her for what she’d done. One thing Crowley had taught the little man well was how to hold onto and nurture hatred. Abby might think the worst of her nightmares were over, and that now she’d earned the right to live happily ever after, but she was wrong. Dead wrong!

Mister Chollo set down the binoculars and pulled out a chrome plated gun from his jacket pocket. He checked that the clip was fully loaded and ready to fire.

It was.

“Soon, Princess. Very soon…”

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I hope you enjoyed my little tale about Aleister Crowley. I’d had the basic idea for a story about a blind fortune teller with real psychic powers for a long time, but I had no idea what to do with her or who she was going to have a run in with. Then one day out of the blue Tom Moran from
Sideshow Press
showed me a piece of art that he had painted and asked me to create a story based on the painting. It was a travelling circus scene in the background, with a young girl being led away from the sideshow by a mysterious man with a big knife on his belt. I don’t know how or why but instantly my blind fortune teller character stood up in my mind and started screaming, “I can handle this one, boss. Just give me a chance!” I did just that, and I really like the way it eventually turned out. I’m even toying with the idea of continuing on Abby’s adventures in a series of follow up novellas. I’m just waiting for inspiration to strike… or for Abby to start talking to me again.

As an added bonus and a personal thanks to all of you wonderful people who continue to support me and my stories, I wanted to give you another story for free to show my appreciation, but I wasn’t sure which story to include. After thinking about how messed up Abby Hawkins’ family life was and the rather strange people who made up her new circus family, I wanted to give you something that played with a similar theme. I took a look in the old vault and the story that caught my eye was a collaboration that I did years ago with a good friend of mine named Everette Bell. Everette lives in Kentucky and him and I have never met in person but we’ve spent countless hours together online first as fiction editors at a defunct webzine called Sinister Element, then later as co-writers of four or five decent movie scripts that still haven’t seen the light of day (but can still be bought if anyone is interested!).

Our short story,
Memories of a Haunted Man
, almost suffered a similar fate. We wrote it and had it accepted for a small press horror anthology called
Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry,
but the publisher went belly up just as the book was going to print and I doubt anyone other than the contributing authors and editors ever actually saw it. Everette and I even sold the movie rights to this story once upon a time to a guy who was putting together a trilogy-of-terror type film, of which our story was going to make up one of the sections. We got paid for that film option but unfortunately that was the last we ever heard from the filmmaker and to my knowledge the movie was never made. Regardless, it’s a good story dealing with another highly dysfunctional family and I’m happy to finally have more people have a chance to read it.

If you enjoy the story, please take the time to check out more of Everette’s excellent work. You can find him on the web here:

http://www.wartoothebooks.blogspot.com

Again, thank you for your support. It means the world to me!

BONUS SHORT STORY - MEMORIES OF A HAUNTED MAN

Toni knelt in front of her son in the foyer and wrapped the scarf around his neck.

“How come we had to come to Canada, mom?”  Robert asked as his clumsy mitten-covered hands pulled his woolly hat down over his ears.  “Why couldn’t we have stayed in Tennessee?”

She understood her son’s heartache, but there was no choice.  The doctors had only given her father Sam a year, and that was if everything went well.  “Honey,” she said with a sad smile.  Her complexion was white as the snow on the ground outside their Nova Scotia home, and her curly raven hair was the same shade as the sadness she felt about losing her father.  “Robby, Mommy had to come take care of Grampa.  He’s really sick.  Can you understand?”

Robby nodded his head. “Yeah, I guess.  I suppose it’s not all
that
bad here.”

“That’s the spirit, honey,” Toni smiled. “Besides, we’re not looking after Grampa all by ourselves. Aunt Pam is gonna help us out.”

“That’s good.  Why isn’t Uncle Dave here with aunt Pam?”

“Now, Robert, mommy told you we don’t want to bother aunt Pam with that right now.  Be glad she’s offered to help.”

Pam’s relationship had gone south years ago, but Dave and her had stayed together for a couple years just to make sure it was dead.  Toni’s older sister—as dear as she was to her nephew—had a gift for solitude and loneliness.  With Dave gone that meant husband number three was no more, and it wasn’t that she didn’t try.  She had always been a loner.  As far back as Toni could remember, the only person Pam had ever had a relationship with besides herself was their father.  And soon that would be ending.

“Okay, I won’t say anything. Promise.”

Robby’s eyes dropped to the floor, and his chin began to quiver.  Sensing his distress, Toni hugged him.  “What’s wrong, big guy?” she asked gently.

“Is Grampa going to die while I’m at Stan’s house?”

She felt her son’s pain and shook her head reassuringly.  It took everything she had to keep from breaking down herself.  She couldn’t understand why this was all dragging on, why Robby had to suffer watching his grandfather decay into nothing.  “He won’t die while you’re away, but remember what mommy told you, okay?  If Grampa
does
die it won’t be sad because he’ll be up in heaven.  We’ll miss him terribly, but he’ll be in a far better place.”

The boy practically clubbed himself in the face with his mitten as he wiped his tears away.

***

When Toni walked into the kitchen, she was wiping her puffy tear-stained eyes.  “I’m sorry,” she said to her sister seated at the table. She was trying hard to keep her mixed emotions in check, part of her wanting to laugh, part ready to burst into sobs.  “This whole thing has been so hard on Robby.”

“I know,” Pam sympathized. “It’s been hard on all of us.”

Pam had the same black hair as Toni only it was cut in a bob and streaked with a hint of gray.  Their father’s suffering had marked a turning point in their relationship.  The four-year difference in age no longer meant anything, their considerably different lives having been suddenly thrust together.  Seeing Toni in such bad shape tore at Pam’s heart; she wanted to say something, do anything to help, but she felt numb.

Pam let go of her warm coffee cup and leaned forward onto her arms, wrapped in the warmth of her blue polar fleece.  “I was able to rent the house down the street.  With Dave out of the picture, I can finally put my attention on dad where it belongs.” Pam continued after another sip, “We can take turns watching Robby and caring for dad.”

Toni smoothed her hands down her brown sweater and the front of her green pants.  Then she sniffled as she walked over to the coffee pot on the counter and poured herself a cup.

“I didn’t mean for you to give up your life, too,” she said as she sat down. “Dad lived with you for so long after mom died.  It’s my turn to take care of him.”

“We can’t look at it that way, Toni.”  Pam reached out and clutched her sister’s hand.  The lump in her throat was difficult to speak around.  “Besides, I have to do this.  He means everything to me…you know that!  Daddy sacrificed everything for us when we were growing up.  He and momma didn’t even have a honeymoon because he was working two jobs and doing carpentry work on the side just to keep a roof over our heads.  How do you repay that?”  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “How do you say thanks to a man for giving up his life for you?  How do you thank him when he doesn’t even know who you are anymore?”  She shook her head in regret.  “I should have come sooner.”

Toni squeezed her sister’s hands.  “I’m just glad you’re here now.”  She wiped tears from her eyes.  “I didn’t know mom and dad didn’t have a Honeymoon. I knew they’d suffered a lot for having us before they were married, but I didn’t realize just
how
much they’d suffered. That’s so sad!”

Pam nodded, breaking down as her face fell into her hands.  “Family’s all you have in the end.”

Hearing her father’s favorite words brought a wave of sorrow crashing down on Toni, making her feel empty, longing to somehow turn back the hands of time so she could thank her father for everything he’s ever done for her.  Pam must have been troubled with similar thoughts.

“He worked himself half to death so I could waist his money at the University of Kansas and have nothing to show for it.”  Pam’s regret mounted and she bawled like a child.  “He never said a word…not one, just told me to hang in there; I’d find my niche someday.  God, what a fool I was!  I wasted
all
that money,
all
those years, bumming around from one useless man to the next, getting married, getting divorced, getting so depressed I wouldn’t leave my bed for two weeks, then starting the same stupid cycle over and over again.  I must have been crazy.  Hell, I
was
crazy for a while there! I got so damn caught up in my own miserable problems, I forgot all about the only man who ever really loved me for who I was…dad! I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

Leaning forward awkwardly over the coffee cups on the table, Toni hugged her sister, providing comfort as best she could.  Grieving over lost time and regrets had become so difficult for them both.

“You’re too hard on yourself, sis.  You’ve always been too hard on yourself.  Those battles with depression weren’t your fault. You were sick…and you did the right thing by getting some help.  No one blames you for that, so give yourself a break.  You were there for dad when mom died, right?  I’m sure he knows how much you love him.”

“What did Dr. Moore have to say?”  Pam quickly changed the subject, speaking through tears, not wanting to dredge up any more bad memories.

Pulling away from her sister’s lessening embrace, Toni wiped her eyes.  “His mental status has declined.”  She sniffed to clear her nose.  “I can even see it here.  Half the time he doesn’t even know who I am.”

“Is he still talking about Grandmother?”  Pam was eager for her sister’s response.

“It’s gotten worse.”  Toni was uneasy.  She didn’t like how intently her sister was hanging on her words.  “Forget it.  I don’t want you getting worked up about things we can’t change.”

“Tell me,” Pam insisted.

“He’s gone past talking about the abuse.  Now he acts out angrily, fights with her.”  Toni shook her head ruefully.  “I think he’s reliving all the abuse he suffered.”

Pam gritted her teeth.  “It makes me sick to think such a good man is left with such horrible memories, all he has left!  All because of his goddamn cruel mother!”  A strange hardness came to the lonely woman’s features—as if one emotion turned off and another turned on.  “Do you know what she did to him?”

All Toni could muster was a shake of her head.

“She used to lock him in the closet when he didn’t work in the fields as long as his brothers.  And how could he, he was smaller than all of them?  For a fucking year she made him sleep in the basement just because she didn’t think he was worth as much as the other boys.  She even beat him when she thought he ate more than his fair share.”

Pam drank deeply from her mug then with a voice just barely above a whisper, coldly said, “I wish he would have killed her.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, Pam.  What’s done is done.”  Toni was afraid of the intensity in sister’s voice, but she didn’t say anything.  Pam being as close to their father as she was, she sometimes got worked up and a little carried away.  Best to simply allow her to let off some steam.

“What about the gun?” Pam asked.

Toni didn’t like this line of dark questioning her sister was taking her down, but she answered.  “He doesn’t threaten suicide anymore, if that’s what you mean?  His mind is too far gone now.  Honestly, I don’t think he’s capable of thinking it through anymore.”  She sipped her coffee.  “He has no reasoning left, Pam.  He’s all emotion, nothing but hate for Doris.”

“Hell, can you blame him?” Pam asked, seething with anger.

Toni watched the way Pam was grasping her coffee mug – knuckles whitening from her grip, hands literally shaking with rage – and silently wondering if her sister had stopped taking her depression medicine again. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, but now didn’t seem like an appropriate time to bring it up. Besides, Pam was a big girl, and could take care of herself, so instead of instigating a potentially embarrassing conflict, Toni decided to just carry on with their talk.

“He picks up the gun,” Toni continued shakily, “and screams like he’s talking to her about how he wants to kill her and how he’s not worthless.”  Exhausted from the morning’s emotional output, her eyes were dry and painful.  All Toni could do was let her head flop forward into her hand.  “He pulls the trigger dozens of times before he puts the gun down.  I usually just leave it in his room.  I mean, there are no bullets in the house, and it’s the only thing that gives him peace.”

Pam stood up.  “I’m going to do it, Toni.”

“Absolutely not,” Toni snapped, “it’s insane.”  She stood up to look her sister in the eyes.

“He’s our father,” Pam exclaimed, “and the best damn man I’ve ever know.  If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to let him leave this world happy, not stuck in a fuckin’ continuous nightmare of dementia!”

“Listen to yourself,” Toni pleaded.  “This is crazy.  I won’t let you do it.”

Pam responded slowly.  Her eyes said it all.  She was going to do it.  Her father’s lessons of loyalty had found a pupil in Pam’s heart, and it was family above herself –above all!  “Don’t stop me, Toni.  Money’s not a problem, and it’s not like I have any kids to worry about.  It doesn’t matter what happens to me if I do it. At least Dad will finally get the peace he deserves.”