The Substance

•September 2, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Edim -- the substance -- emerges from a bit of rock

By Christopher Bishop

Tell Time:  7 minutes 30 seconds
Scare Rating: 0/5 Ghosts

“Long ago,” my mom started, “there was said to be an alien planet holding a valuable substance called edim. During a war with the planet’s leader and his brother, a piece of the planet broke off, bringing all the edim in and on it. There is a myth that the meteor hit Earth.

Everybody knows that story from when they were kids, but Jack believes that the edim mine exists.

At school the next day, Jack was up in a tree and had his nose stuck in a history book trying to figure out when the meteor hit and where. Kids laughed at him, saying, “You’re a nerd,” and “Why do you like studying?” but he just ignored them.

For the rest of that day, Jack was trying to figure out where the edim mine was.  He hadn’t done this much research since his third grade research paper about China.  But this was far more than just a report about China; this could change history forever.  Jack was in sixth grade now, and was ready to take on something more.  Jack spent the rest of that month getting laughed at and humiliated, trying to find the mark in history.  Finally, he thought he’d found it, he thought it was underneath the town of Orick, California – his town.

That night, Jack was asleep when out of nowhere, his mom burst into the room, shouting “Get up!  There’s an earthquake!  Get up!”

“Umm,” Jack moaned.  “Do I have to get up?”

Jack’s mom replied, “Yes!  There’s an earthquake!  Most buildings might collapse underground!”

Many thoughts were going through Jack’s mind at the moment, but one idea was the most important:  “This might be my chance to look for the edim mine,” he thought.

After the shaking was over, Jack went out to look.  Only a few buildings were partly underground.  Jack was disappointed.

The next day at school, Jack was up in the school’s tree again, with three other people again making fun of him.  At the end of recess, there was an aftershock, and the small area with the tree where Jack and his classmates were sitting collapsed underground.

It was pitch black underground, and the hole where they fell in was covered over.  Katherine, Austin, and Joe (his other classmates) were sitting in the darkness, while Jack was up looking for the edim mine.

As Jack was walking, his foot fell into what appeared to be a deep hole.  He pulled it out, and told his classmates to come and see.  Now Joe wasn’t so bright, and instead of looking, went right on in.

“Hey guys!  There’s random glowing spots indented in the wall of this cave!” Joe said.

“What color is it?” Jack asked.

“Blue!” Joe responded.

“Yes!  I think I found the edim mine!” Jack murmured.  “You go on ahead; we’ll catch up with you!”

In the long, dark tunnel, Jack picked at the spots of edim and put it into his backpack.  Finally, the kids reached the jackpot of edim.

“There’s tons of this stuff, everywhere!”  Jack said.

“Wait, what’s this stuff you’re talking about?” Austin asked.

“It’s edim, remember?  From the story of the meteor crashing into the Earth?” Jack replied.

“Oh yeah, right.  I just didn’t know what it looked like,” Austin said.

“Well great – while you guys are being amazed and all about finding the substance, you haven’t even thought about the problem,” said Katherine.

“What problem?  We found the most valuable substance on Earth!” Jack, Joe and Austin said together.

“We’re stuck deep in a mine and we have no way of getting out!” said Katherine.

“Right,” said Joe.

“Well, how are we going to get out?” asked Austin.

“Well, edim is really strong and is easy to craft with,” said Jack.

“So let’s make some tools and get ourselves out of here!” said Katherine.

“OK,” agreed Joe and Austin.

“But this edim is boiling hot,” said Jack.

“Well, let’s see if we can find some embedded in this cave that isn’t boiling hot,” suggested Katherine.

“Jack, didn’t you put some edim in your backpack?” asked Austin.

“Yeah, but that’s stone hard, and we can’t craft with stone-hard substances,” said Jack.

“Well the edim down here is boiling hot, so maybe we could get it soft and then craft with it,” said Katherine.

“Good idea!  Let’s do that!” they all agreed.

About an hour later, all of their tools were cooled and ready for use.

“Well, we used all of the edim out of my backpack that I was going to bring back to the surface of the Earth, so I think we should gather some more to bring back,” said Jack.

So they all gathered edim and put it into Jack’s backpack.

“This was a victory for us!” everybody cheered.

When they got back to the surface, they took the edim into the government, and they all got rewarded.

A view of the mine where the edim was found

~

Time passed fast.  Those four kids began to be friends, and Jack wasn’t made fun of anymore.

As time went on, the government began making more and more weapons from edim, and where Jack’s school once was, became a huge mining plant.

This was good that they were making weapons, because two years later, the planet Edima sent out ships to get back the edim.

Everybody was panicking.  The city of Sacramento was already getting bombed.  Jack wasn’t going to let this happen to his wonderful town, and he wanted his planet – Earth – to survive.  So Jack took the little bit of edim that he saved for himself, and he made arrows, a bow and a sword, to use to fight off Edima.

Soon enough, Edima came for the small town of Orick, and the town was prepared.  But Edima wasn’t going to lose a fight; they’d lost the edim, and they wanted it back.

This was a large war, and soon enough, Earth had to take cover.  Edima couldn’t find the citizens of Orick (they were in the edim mine).

In the mine, the government tried making bullets out of edim.  Turns out, it worked!  They made tons of bullets, from assault rifle bullets to rockets.  Now, Earth seemed to be ready to fight back!

But Edima knew that Earth was making more supplies to defend themselves, so Edima called in reinforcements.  The battle grew tougher and tougher, as more and more cities in the U.S. were attacked, and had to fight back.

Jack was ready to attack.  He and his friends left the cave and went to attack Edima.  In the nearby city of Sacramento, Jack and his friends went to the top of the Renaissance Tower to defend against Edima.  Although it took many shots – and rockets – they took down one of many ships.

Jack was getting tired of fighting for so long, so he came up with a new plan.

“I know; they came here to get the edim back.  Let’s give them some of the edim but keep some for ourselves,” Jack said.

“Great idea,” said Joe, Katherine and Austin at the same time.

So in big chunks, big cranes hauled pieces of edim to Edima.

The war on Earth for its edim

~

“Yes!  They are going away!” yelled Joe.

“This is a victory for us!” said Jack.

“Hurrah!” said Austin and Katherine.

But suddenly, they saw a different type of ship approaching.  This ship wasn’t from Edima; this ship was from Eadim.

Eadim was Edima’s sister planet and had been in a long war – centuries ago – fighting for the edim.

“I bet they’re here to take back the edim from Edima!” said Jack.

“I bet you’re right,” said Austin.

“They’re gonna have a war on Earth!” said Katherine.

“Can’t this all just end?” said Joe.

The friends went back to the mines to report that Eadim had arrived to Earth.

“Great,” said General John Kakadew, “now they’re just going to be fighting on our planet.”

Sergeant Jeff Kakadew, the general’s son, was in the crowd and suggested that they lure both alien forces away from Earth.

“Great idea, son!  Now you continue with that plan; I’ll be taking care of some other business in my underground office.”

“O.K. Dad,” said Sgt. Kakadew.

“So what do you want us to do?” asked Jack.

“I want you to take these flares and toss them into the sky, to get the attention of the alien forces,” said the sergeant.

“On it!” said the friends, together.

So the flares got the attention of the aliens, and then Sgt. Kakadew came up with the solution to their problem.

“Hey you darn aliens, why don’t you just share the edim – there’s plenty to go around!” he told them.

The aliens thought about this, and agreed to share it.  All was well except for one thing.  The good part was that the aliens left Earth, and never fought again.  Also, Earth got a handful of edim.  But the bad thing was, Sacramento needed to be rebuilt.

THE END

Copyright 2013

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Shut-Eye

•August 28, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Shut Eye 02

By Jeffrey Bishop

Tell Time: 5 minutes 30 seconds
Scare Rating: 4 of 5 Ghosts

The man perfectly matched the description called into police dispatch: he sat curled up in a ball against the building, rocking and mumbling to himself, just as the 911 caller had said.

He was of a medium build, with greasy, clumped hair matted to his scalp and falling into his face, although some rather large patches were missing, and raw, open flesh was visible in its place. He clearly had not shaved for days, and his body and his clothing were filthy with the grime of the street, and also with blood from hundreds of cuts and scratches across his body — self-inflicted, the officers suspected. Even through the dirt and stains, it was clear that the man’s clothes — what had once been a business suit — were of the highest quality and cut. The fall from grace had been recent, and clearly had also been hard.

But what stood out to the officers immediately were his eyes. Both lids were firmly propped open by dozens of tiny sticks, twigs, coffee stirrers and other similar pieces of natural and man-made trash. The eyes behind this protective fence were dark — the pupils were darkly dilated, and any white was covered over by the deep red of a thousand broken blood vessels. There was no shine to the eyeballs; there was no moisture to them at all, although the man’s cheeks were stained with the tears that had fallen previously. The ducts were clearly now exhausted.

“What’s going on here, mister,” said the officer. He approached slowly and lowered himself to the man’s level. He spoke in a comforting voice. He’d seen cases like this, and he knew that a relatively calm scene could quickly escalate into something dangerous, if not managed appropriately.

“Them, them, them,” he muttered in response, over and over again: “them, them, them, them, them!”. As he spoke, his voice rose in volume and pitch, and he pointed frantically at different dark corners on the street around him “they want me! Them! They want me!”

Clearly a mental health case, the officer decided. He knew that sleep deprivation or mis-aligned wake-sleep cycles could trigger bad psychotic events, so he tried a re-direct.

“When was the last time you got any shut-eye?” he asked. “Let’s pull those splinters out of your eyelids and we can get you home or get you a cot at the shelter so you can sleep.”

“Noooo!” the man screamed emphatically. This time, he focused his vacant, catatonic stare and pointed his dark expression at the officer. “That’s what THEY want! They’ll take me away if I close my eyes. They’ll consume me, all the way to my soul, if I sleep. THEY can’t have me unless I shut my eyes!”

The officer backed away and turned to his partner and to the EMTs who were also dispatched to the incident. As the man returned to a less violent state of agitation, the first responders decided to sedate the man so they could get him the treatment he so clearly needed.

The officer approached again. He got the man’s attention and started to talk to him again, using a soothing tone of voice. Armed with a syringe and protected only by thin rubber gloves, the lead EMT crept slowly, innocuously, nearer to the man from the side. Being discrete was difficult against someone who never blinked.

“Tell me about ‘them,’ said the officer, trying his hardest to not sound patronizing. “Where are they now? What are they?”

“They’re demons! They want to devour my soul! They won’t wait until I die to have it; they want to rip it from my still-alive body! They want it FRESH!” The man continued to ramble in his hyper-active cadence. “I know that I’ve been wicked, but I can get better, I can do better. Help me keep my eyes open. Help me keep them at bay!”

“Sure, yes, we’re going to help you,” said the officer. As he spoke these words, the needle plunged into the man’s arm and the liquid sedative entered his body. Horrified, the man scrambled to his feet, clawing and swinging at the EMT and the officer. He knocked the syringe from his arm and started clawing at his sleeve, trying to tear through and dig the calming agent from his body physically.

It was too late. The man’s legs buckled, and it was all that the assembled rescuers could to catch him before he landed face-first on the hard pavement.

They laid him on his back, and one EMT went for a stretcher. The man’s eyes were still open, but he was no longer there with them. The EMT placed eyedrops into the man’s eyes, and together, he and the officer began to remove the shards that held the eyelids apart.

As the eyes closed, a dark storm erupted around them. A black fog rolled in from the alleys, and thick, smog-like clouds obscured the sun, rendering it almost dark on the open street.

Then they heard them. Shrieks, howls, and the fast scampering of thousands of claws against pavement and brick and stone. The officer felt a sharp bite in his back, and swung in pain so hard that whatever it was broke free, but not without taking a piece of flesh with it.

Other things scampered from the dark recesses of the street to the scene; they clambered on and over the heroes, but any terror they caused them was incidental to their main objective: the now-unconscious businessman. As they got to him, they tore at his clothes and his body, trying to get deeper into his being.

The officer drew his weapon and took aim at a large thing — a demoniac of some kind — that was tearing at the man’s ear. He let the round fly, and the beast flew back, incapacitated if not destroyed. But in its place, three new monsters appeared, and the man was wholly covered by the time the officer had emptied his clip into the massed horde.

The officer reloaded, but it was too late. Pieces of the man’s body were now being dragged away in different directions, into the dark shadows. As they went, the fog and acrid smoke lifted and was broken up by a gentle breeze. A bright sun shone on the dark blood-stained pavement. The man was gone.

For the officer, if not for the man’s eternal soul, the ordeal was over.

THE END
Copyright 2013

Posted in 1. Scary Stories
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The Mystery of the Dead Crows

•August 26, 2013 • 3 Comments
Crow cries "Cah?!"

“Cah?!” quoth the crow.

Author unknown
Courtesy of the internet

Researchers for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority found over 200 dead crows near greater Boston recently, and there was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu. A bird pathologist examined the remains of all the crows, and, to everyone’s relief, confirmed the problem was definitely NOT Avian Flu.

The cause of death appeared to be vehicular impacts.

However, during the detailed analysis it was noted that varying colors of paints appeared on the bird’s beaks and claws. By analyzing these paint residues, it was determined that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with trucks, while only 2% were killed by an impact with a car.  MTA then hired an ornithological behaviorist to determine if there was a cause for the disproportionate percentages of truck kills versus car kills.

The ornithological behaviorist very quickly concluded the cause:

When crows eat road kill, they always have a look-out crow in a nearby tree to warn of impending danger. They discovered that while all the look-out crows could shout “cah,” not a single one could shout “truck.”

THE END
Art copyright 2013

Posted in 2. Humorous Scary Stories
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The Ghost Tour

•August 19, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Ghost tour tour guide fades away into the night.

By Jeffrey Bishop

Tell Time: 7 minutes
Scare Rating: 1/5 Ghosts

Nick was unimpressed. So far, the night tour of historic Colonial Williamsburg had been about as much a dud for the teenager as had the rest of the family vacation. It seemed that everything they’d done so far had been tailored to his younger brother, Matt.

This tour, focusing on the haunted history of one of America’s first cities, was supposed to have been for him. But the stories had been lame so far, despite the heat lightning and low rumbles of thunder that seemed custom-made to complement such an event. Nick was especially unimpressed by their tour guide and his linen suit and woolen socks — traditional garb from the mid-1700s.

“Do you feel that?” asked Charlton, their aged tour guide. “Feel that lone cool breeze blowing on a hot summer night? That’s a sure sign that there’s a ghostly spirit around!”

“More likely that we’re standing in front of an ‘historic’ shoppe with its air conditioner running and people coming and going,” muttered the boy. Dad’s sharp elbow to his ribs meant that his wise crack had been heard.

“This is the home of a family of Tories — loyalists to Britain,” explained Charlton outside an old brick home. “As the revolution heated up, they fled back to London to sit out the war. While they were away, the gentleman passed away, and at the end of the fighting, the lady returned to Williamsburg to resume the life they’d started in the colonies. But no one in the town would talk to her. The ladies wouldn’t let her into their societies, and at church, she’d have an entire pew to herself because no one would sit by her.

“Eventually, she went mad. They called her ‘Loonie Lucy,’ because of her erratic behavior. She took to stealing fashionable dresses off clothes lines in the night. Soon, she was committed in the town’s only hospital, which happened to be an insane asylum, where she died just two years later.

Nick was still not impressed.

“You might think the story would end there; however, just last year, a young couple from Richmond rented the historic home for the summer. When the lady went to her closet to retrieve her new dress for a night out with her husband, she found it was missing. The next time it was seen was on the figure of a ghostly apparition that was seen in the house in the middle of the night!”

Nick didn’t buy the story. How could a ghost wear real clothes?

“Let’s keep walking,” said their guide.

If Nick was impressed by anything, it was with the speed at which the old man moved down the rough brick sidewalks. He almost seemed to glide over the pavers.

“Ghosts are usually associated with tragedies,” said Charlton as he led the family across the street to another old brick residence. “This next tale is no different in that respect. The family that owned this home had more than 50 enslaved workers in the home over their lifetimes. The woman had found a few of the slaves to be troublesome, and had for years urged her husband to sell them, but he refused.

“Finally, after her husband died, the woman sold off the ones she couldn’t get along with. The most notorious of them was Netty, who had a husband and children who were also enslaved members of the household. When Netty was sold, she begged and pleaded with her former master to also sell her children and family along with her, but the cold-hearted woman refused. So as her new master dragged her away, Netty put a curse on the home and on the woman’s family.

“Within a year, tragedy struck the owner again and again. One of her three children fell out of the tall magnolia tree in the home’s front yard to his death. The oldest died in a farming accident. The third contracted small pox and died. The woman died herself just a few years later, a bitter and crazed woman.

“Today, people often see three small blueish-yellow lights in the second-story window to the right — that was the nursery where all three children lived. They say it’s the children’s small, playful spirits cursed to remain with the home for eternity, just as Netty’s children had to stay with the home. You might just see their lights yourselves tonight.”

Before Nick could comment, Charlton directed them along again.

“Let’s keep walking,” he intoned. As they moved on, Nick looked back on the home, and might have, for a short spell, witnessed three small lights peering at him from the same bedroom that the guide indicated.

“Couldn’t be … ” Nick said under his breath. By this time, the skies were dancing with lightning from the nearby summer storms, and he imagined that the window lights could have been a focused reflection of lightning in the distance.

“Our next stop is my last stop,” said Charlton. “This is Shield’s Tavern; it’s an infamous public house from colonial times.  Indeed, it was where General George Washington is said to have acquired his taste for oysters-on-the-half-shell. It’s also where revolutionaries held meetings to debate actions they should take in the face of an increasingly tyrannical British monarchy.

“But it’s most fondly remembered as a dance hall, and in the cool spring after crops had been planted, or in the still-warm fall after all crops had been brought in, the young and the young-at-heart would come here to socialize and to dance.” The man’s blue, clear eyes seemed wet, causing them to sparkle with cheer, as if he was reliving some memory.

“The story of this place is that one night, one of the town police officers drove by and saw a lone candle burning in the window. Fearing a fire, he stopped to investigate. As he approached the building, he could hear raucous laughter, loud music and the footfalls of dancing. But when he entered the building, there was no sign of any activity; the hall was dark and silent.

“The guard went upstairs, found the candle, but again found no sign of habitation. He quickly extinguished the candle and left the building to file a report about the incident. As he got to his car, he glanced back at the building to find that the candle in the building was burning bright again. Already skeeved out from his first visit into the hall, he quickly left the scene. Today, whenever the candle’s burning in the window, townsfolk know it’s just because there’s a dance taking place.”

“Wow, what great stories, Charlton,” said Mom. “Don’t you think so, boys?” she added, in her special voice meant to encourage them to use their manners.

“Oh yeah!” enthused Matt, and Dad gave a hearty, “Mmm hmmm!” Even Nick had to admit that the tour, the stories, and even Charlton had grown on him.

“It was great, Mom. Thank you Mr. Charlton,” he said with earnest sincerity.

“My pleasure, laddies,” said the guide, briskly. “But if you’ll excuse me now, I must be off — I’m due at another occasion presently!”

With those words, he removed his tri-point hat, gave a deep bow, and turned away. As he did, a chilly breeze blew over the family. In the rising fog, his departing figure seemed to melt away into the night. Nick followed his form with his eyes, and saw the guide climb the steps of the public house. At the top step, he turned back to the family, gave a wave, and passed through the door and into the building.

Every member of the family saw the same thing, as judged by the fact that each turned toward the others with the same “did you just see what I just saw?” look on his or her face. As they did, the sound of a waltz rose in the night air, as did the timeless sounds of a party. The family turned back to the hall to find a single yellow candle glowing strong and bright in the second-story window.

“What an historic night!” exclaimed Nick, as the family turned and walked back to the modern, well-lit parking lot where they’d first met Charlton Leigh, tour guide and member of colonial-era Virginia Regiment.

THE END

Copyright 2013

Posted in 1. Scary Stories
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The Final

•August 4, 2013 • Leave a Comment
Jon faces his final test

Jon faces his final test

By Jeffrey Bishop

Tell Time:  2 minutes
Scare Rating:  2/5 Ghosts

Jon stared in awe, but he was dejected at the scene before him:   In his forever-twilight vista, a high stone wall spread beyond his vision upward, and as far as he could see to the left and to the right.  In front, a tall, arched opening in the otherwise endless stone curtain showed a bright forever — golden light spilled into Jon’s present world to reveal a possible eternity of splendor.  One easy, long stride away.

Obstructing the view — the path — were dozens of thin, shimmering webs. Thousands of spiders of all sizes toiled on the gate, some spreading new lines across the path, and others cutting and reeling in obsolete lines from the pattern.  Though to Jon their purpose seemed singularly focused on him — on terrorizing the young man — the spiders nonetheless seemed oblivious to him in their work.

“All of life is a test.  But, before you can graduate, you must pass a final test,” came a voice from nowhere and from everywhere.  The voice came from the twilight ether that surrounded the scene.  It wasn’t clear from tone, timbre, volume or attitude if the  speaker was benevolent or otherwise.

The young man paused.  He looked beyond, at the blessed eternity that lay beyond the simple stone wall.  He looked beyond, but the spiders and their snares is all that he saw.He looked beyond him, to find oblivion — only cold, black, empty darkness.

He felt a choice.  He hesitated.  He knew what he wanted.  He wasn’t sure of the cost; he wasn’t sure he could afford it — or perhaps, if he wanted to. He paused, then turned away from the wall.  His shoulders hanged heavy and low, and even the relief of having made a choice couldn’t lighten the load he carried.  Dread had replaced fear.

Nevertheless, on he walked.  Into the darkness, by his own choice.

A small man must make a forver decision at the gateway to another world.

Jon faces his final test — initial sketch.

THE END

Copyright 2013
What might you have chosen?  If not spiders, what fears do you have that might have compelled a similar decision? What if there was something — someone — who could clear the obstruction and provide a clear, easy path to the paradise beyond the wall?

Posted in 1. Scary Stories
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Suri-cide

•July 31, 2013 • 1 Comment
Death holds a smart phone with a deadly map app.pp

Suri says: “Turn right at Cross Rd.”

By Jeffrey Bishop

Tell Time: 4 minutes
Scare Rating: 1/5 Ghosts

Hal was glad for his MapApp on his phone. His new sales territory had him all over the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia, on poorly signed roads and treacherous mountain passes. The breadth of knowledge and the inherent confidence of the app’s computerized voice, known as Suri, was reassuring to the navigation-ally challenged traveling salesman.

“Get me safely to my hotel, Suri,” said the man. “How do I get there?”

“Start by taking exit 60 for Bluff’s Creek Road,” she instructed.

“Was that ‘exit 64’ or was that ‘exit 60 for’ Bluff’s Creek road?” Hal asked.

Suri’s conversation skills were rather limited, so she just repeated herself.

“Start by taking exit 60 for Bluff’s Creek Road,” instructed the phone mechanically.

Soon enough, the road signs cleared things up and the man merged on to exit 60.

Hal smiled to himself and settled in for the drive. He eased the car around hairpin turns as he slowly climbed the side of a mountain. As the sun lowered behind thickening clouds, he sneaked an occasional peek out his side window. All he could see for the deep forest tree-scape was a steep incline that seemed to go forever into oblivion.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed to himself, or perhaps to his companion Suri, as he anxiously snapped his full attention back to the winding road. “Let’s stay out of that!”

“Of course,” said the app. “Now, take exit 10B for County Highway 118.”

“Was that ‘exit 10B for the county highway,’ or was that ‘exit 10 before’ the county highway?”

This time Suri didn’t answer. The road signs soon enough confirmed that it was exit 10B.

“Whatever,” mumbled the man. He took the exit, then noticed his gas gauge was nearing empty. He took the next off ramp to find a gas station.

“Take a u-turn at the next intersection to return to County Highway 118,” instructed Suri.

Hal ignored the phone as he looked for the closest source for fuel.

“At Roger’s Road, turn right to return to County Highway 118,” said Suri. The voice seemed more insistent, and Hal even thought she — it — sounded a tad annoyed.

Hal saw a filling station ahead. He navigated past the turn that Suri wanted him to take, and pulled in to gas up.

Suri was waiting with a new instruction when he returned to the vehicle.

“Proceed south on Wilmore Road,” Suri instructed. There was definitely a stern, insistent tone in the machine’s cold, digital voice. Hal obeyed.

“Turn right NOW to return to County Highway 118,” she directed.

The instruction came a bit late, and Hal had to brake and swerve to not miss the on ramp.

“Sheeminy!” he exclaimed as he fought to regain control.

“Continue driving on County Highway 118 for one mile,” said the app, suddenly sweet again.

Hal began to be concerned by the temperamental nature of his computer-driven MapApp. He briefly wondered about the wisdom of placing his full trust in electrons and algorithms.

“My phone is nutso … Either that, or I am!” he muttered under his breath.

“Turn right onto Mountain Bluff View Road,” directed Suri, again in her normal, chipper tone.

Hal made the turn, onto a road that steadily climbed higher into the mountains on a series of switchbacks that seemed to never end. By this time, the sun had set behind the western range, and the wood-shrouded two-lane road was black as coal. Fog started to creep out of the valley off to the side and onto the road.

“This hotel sure seems off the beaten path, Suri. Are we getting close?”

“We’re almost to your final destination,” replied Suri.

Hal let out a heavy sigh and tried to relax, despite the demands of the chosen road. Soon enough, he’d arrive.

The car approached the top of the mountain, and there was still no sign of the hotel. Hal wrapped his car around yet another hairpin corner. On the other side of the turn, he encountered a barricade marked with a bright yellow “road closed” sign.  Hal stomped on the brakes, but his car was moving too fast. The vehicle punched through the boards and plunged into the deep, dark valley below. On the way down, the full fuel tank burst open and ignited into a giant fireball. Death was certain.

~

“Bizarrest thing,” said the sheriff at the scene of the accident. “His hotel was 50 miles to the south, in the valley, not in these treacherous mountain passes. I really can’t fathom what would have brought him up to this desolate, dead-end road. I wonder if it wasn’t suicide?”

He’d never know that in fact, it was Suri-cide.

THE END

Copyright 2013

Posted in 1. Scary Stories
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Fear

•July 22, 2013 • Leave a Comment

By Jeffrey Bishop

Powerless to move so don’t even try

says the pacing papershredder, removing any doubts

of his bark being worse than his bite

as your last drop of courage drips from your forehead

and soaks the cover of an undelivered PennyPower.

 

A near scrape: they were nearly scraping you

from the pavement;

she turned before you too soon; but don’t stop now, Ma’am

and you will,

barely, sideways, slowing, stopped.

Lucky you had your helmet on, kid.

 

Fear is the guy who taps on your

left shoulder while hiding behind your right.

And you know hes comin’ around

but if you know, then how come

he always catches you off guard?

 

Copyright 2013

Posted in 3. Poetry
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Children Made My Mom, Mom

•July 18, 2013 • 4 Comments
A regular scene with Grandma Bishop found her engaging in a creative activity with her kids and grandkids -- here, she shows how to use cookie cutters to make baloney sandwiches taste even better!

A regular scene with Mom found her engaging in a creative activity with her kids and grandkids.  Here, she shows two Bishop grandkids — my sons — how to use cookie cutters to make baloney sandwiches taste even better!

By Jeffrey Bishop

Children are what made my mom, Mom.  Mom to me, and mom to so many others – and not just my four brothers and one sister – a large family even by Catholic standards.  Because even before I came along and long after, Mom raised up children.

Mom was a teacher.  And seeing how she taught and raised children her entire life, I think she was a fine teacher.  Although I could be a little biased.

Her earliest brood was special needs children at the Institute of Logopedics in Wichita, Kansas.  It’s there where she met my Dad and started her family.  By the time I came along, she was managing a Montessori preschool and day care.  When it closed – because we needed the income, and because she is a Mom and a teacher – she brought the preschool and day care to our home, where she continued to operate it, if for a smaller brood of kids.

Even after she closed the home-based preschool, she continued to teach and to raise many kids.  Some of our friends came to live with us for a time, for a variety of reasons, and they were Mom’s kids all the same.

Mom continued to advocate for kids, fighting for strong schools and a strong school board for all of Wichita’s kids in the early 1990s.  And of course, the sunset of her career again brought her to a role where she could continue to nurture the development of thousands of children, as a speech pathologist and literacy coordinator with the Wichita-area Head Start program.

And no sooner had she started foisting her own children into the world, did grandchildren come along.  And she was there as Grand Mom, to help raise up another generation of children.

Mom was a gifted, loving, natural mother and teacher.  She was creative and resourceful; I remember being very young and being kept occupied in the kitchen with an industrial-sized aluminum baking pan and a handful of unpopped popcorn, and being instructed to make pictures out of the food-beads; it was her creative, loving means to keep me busy and engaged while she baked bread nearby.

At the Montessori, at nap time, we’d each pull out an olive drab Army cot – Lord knows where she got them – for a mid-afternoon snooze.  How lucky we were to have those cots, as we’d realize a few years later at kindergarten, when naps took place on the floor on a towel or on a rope rug.

To brighten a mood or to teach a concept, she’d make up a game or sing a song.  Sometimes it worked.  But not when I had to learn my times tables or how to read a clock.  But the faults in those situations were mine, not hers.

The lessons she taught stuck.  Last night, I told my two sons – teenaged boys – that their Grandma Bishop had passed away that morning.  I let them know that any way that they might respond to the news over the coming days would be perfectly OK and natural:  they might laugh, they might not have any response at all, or they might even cry.  And it would be OK, regardless.

Then I remembered where I’d learned that it was OK for little boys to cry; from a song that my Mom had shared with all of her children at the preschool.  Some of you might know it:

If you’re crying now, it’s alright.  Sometimes big boys cry too.

As I told my boys, we cry when we lose someone because we miss them.  I can also cry in joy, because I know my mom is somewhere safe, and is comforted and eternally loved – without the pain that marked her last days here.  And I know that soon enough – but hopefully not too soon – we’ll join her.  And together with all her other children, we’ll sing another of her favorite songs, which she taught to her grandchildren:

May God bless you in Heaven, Mom.  We love you and miss you!

Dorothy Mae Bishop
Dec. 20, 1943 – Jul. 17, 2013

THE END

Copyright 2013

Posted in 4. Non-Fiction
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The Boarder Hoarder

•July 13, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Pencil sketch of a basement full of the collection of boarders.

By Jeffrey Bishop

Tell Time: 6 minutes
Scare Rating: 2/5 Ghosts

The traveler met the Widow Graybar on the front lawn of her large post-Victorian home. The heavy-set matron shuffled about, pulling weeds from beside the ankles of what must have been a couple hundred concrete garden gnomes of all shapes, sizes and affectations. A warm breeze made the dozens of wind chimes and light catchers hanging from the woman’s deep porch sing and dance, as if to welcome the man.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he called from the fence. “Heard from the stationmaster that you might have a room to rent?”

“I might, good sir!” replied the widow as she lifted her large frame to take a pause from her work. She looked the stranger up and down a full two times, then seemingly satisfied with his appearance and station, shuffled to open the gate and let her guest in.

“I haven’t taken anyone in yet, and haven’t really been sure until now that I would. But the house is awful big and quiet and empty since Jed went away,” she said. “I could use some company, even if temporary. And I could use some income. So I put word out that I’d take boarders.”

At the man’s tired, grateful smile, Mrs. Graybar opened the gate and led him in.

“We’re coming up on our lunch meal. Get yourself inside and washed up. We’ll feed you and the get you into your room,” she said.

As the man moved through the house, each room he passed through was stuffed to bursting with, well, stuff. The foyer featured what must have been every newspaper published since the invention of the Gutenberg press. From the conservatory, hundreds of beady glass eyes, set into the faces of innumerable porcelain-doll faces, seemed to watch him move past. The main hallway was stacked with wooden crates filled with bottles, jars and other glass artifacts. Clearly his hostess was an eccentric. For his peace of mind, the man sought to size up the exact nature of her eccentricities.

“You have a lot of … things,” he said. “You are a collector?”

Mrs. Graybar cackled a hearty laugh as she pulled a ham out of the oven. “You could say that,” she replied. “I collect lots of things. Picked up the habit from my husband. Now I collect my own things.”

The clear benignness of the woman’s eccentricities, combined with her hospitality and perhaps also the smell of the warm, rich lunch, reassured the man.

“Be a dear,” she called over her shoulder to him, as she started to carve into the meat. “Go into the cellar and grab a jar of pickles would you?”

The man complied: he strode to the other end of the kitchen. As he opened the cellar door, he felt a firm push on his backside. Losing balance, he tumbled down a flight of stiff, well-built wooden stairs and into a dark basement. As he came to a stop in a bruised heap on the dark, dirt floor, he heard the cellar door slam shut and the dull thud of a heavy bolt falling home, followed by a maniacal cackling sound.

~

Olaf Atchison found his way to the Graybar Boarding House as so many other traveling men had over the last two years. He stood patiently on the widow’s breeze-cooled porch for his interview as a boarder.

“I’ve been taking itinerants in ever since Mister Graybar passed on, rest his soul!” she said mournfully. “I’ll have you, and the rate’s by the week and in advance — $25 if it pleases you. Curfew’s at 11 and meals are served at 6, noon and 6.”

Weary from his travels and grateful for a temporary home, Olaf picked up his bag and obediently followed his hostess into the house.

“Don’t mind my collections,” said the widow as she led him into the kitchen. In the intervening years, she’d succeeded in filling up almost every remaining open space. In addition to newspapers, the foyer also now included dozens of cuckoo clocks. None was set to the right time and there were so many that at any given moment, one or a few birds would peep out to sing its alarm. In the next room were hundreds of bird cages — wire cages, gilt cages, fancy cages and bamboo cane cages.. Inside each was a stuffed mammal — a badger, a beaver, a number of squirrels, a couple prairie dogs.

The scene unsettled Olaf a bit. He considered whether he should move on to a new town — to a new boarding situation that might be a tad less odd. Something about the widow’s house made him feel unsafe. He noticed a faint scratching sound from under his feet that compounded his anxiety.

“What’s that? Did you hear that?” He asked his hostess.

“Yes, and I apologize. We have a bit of a mouse problem in the cellar,” she replied. “Need to get me a new mouser cat. They won’t harm you though — they can’t get to any of my food, seeing as it’s all stored in jars. Reckon they just want a cool place to rest in the summer. Can’t blame them for that.

“You can see for yourself,” she said. “I need a jar of olives from down there. Would you be a dear and fetch them for me?”

Olaf hesitated; he still didn’t have a good feeling about Mrs. Graybar or her peculiar habits. But he stifled his inner anxieties with mental rationalizations:

“She must just be a harmless — if somewhat touched — old woman. What could she do to harm a relatively young and strong man like me?” Having duly convinced himself, he moved toward the door that the widow pointed him.

He flipped the deadbolt and pulled the door open; but yet, there was something that bothered him still. He paused and turned, and was shocked to see the Widow rush toward him, arms stretched out in a push — at first — but a look of surprise quickly replaced her crazed expression as her momentum carried her past her guest and tumbling down the stairs.

Olaf stood in stoic awe at what just happened — at what almost happened to him. Then, he thought of his attacker; he peered down into the darkness, and heard movement — and voices. He reached into the darkness and found the pull string for the cellar light and snapped the single bulb to life. In the dim brightness, he saw crowded around the Widow’s body what must have been at least 20 gaunt, haggard-looking men. Each was bound with rope tied to the heavy stone wall. Each was gagged silent with dirty cloths.
Olaf immediately grasped the true nature of the scene, and ran down the steps, past the broken, still body of his hostess, to free the imprisoned men — the men whose fate he might have joined as a new addition to the hoarding Widow’s collection of boarders.

THE END

Copyright 2013

Posted in 1. Scary Stories
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‘How-To’ Awesome Neckerchief Slides Part 2: ‘Blanking Out’ and New Templates!

•May 25, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Shots of all current neckerchief slide templates available

By Jeffrey Bishop

A popular summer camp activity is carving wood — either in pursuit of the Wood Carving Merit Badge, or just to fill idle time at the campsite.  This time can be all the more productive with a nice, accessible project for the boys, and we’ve had a good response to our template featuring more than a dozen Awesome Neckerchief Slide Designs!  So much so, that we’ve come up with some more great designs:

Scurry Tails Neckerchief Pattern Set B

Click the link above to download a new worksheet with instructions and patterns that you can print out and take on your next camp out or den / troop meeting!

Note that both pattern templates look “muddy” when viewed in our Firefox browser, but appear fine in Explorer and Chrome; our apologies for any difficulty with this.

We’ve also provided have some step-by-step instructions here for blanking out — for how to create a wood blank — by transferring your favorite template design onto a block of wood:

Option 1:  Transfer paper:  Simply place a layer of commercial transfer paper — available at hobby shops and office supply stores — between the template and your wood block.  Trace over your chosen design with pencil, pressing firmly and staying on the lines of the template.  Being careful to not slide your layers out of place, peel up a corner of the template and transfer paper to see how you are doing — you might need to press harder or go over your lines more than once for a good transfer

Step 1 Trace

Option 2: Push pin:  Depending on how soft your wood is, you can also use a push pin to transfer the design from the template to your block of wood.  To do so, place the template over the block of wood and repeatedly push a pin or needle into the wood through the lines on the template design.  A tip is to color across the back of your chosen design with soft pencil, as the pin will push the graphite into the wood to help mark your design on the wood.

Step 2 Pinpoint

Again, being careful to not disturb the alignment of your layers, be sure to lift up a corner of your template to test progress.  When finished, you should see a series of small dots on your wood blank that reflect the image of the design you just transferred.

Step 2 Pinpoint Finished

Trace over these dots with pencil to see the pattern well.

Step 2 Pinpoint Traced

At this point, the pattern has been transferred, and can now be cut out with a hand jig saw or a scroll saw prior to carving.

Step 3 Cut Blank

Best of luck with these patterns; and we’d love to see pics of your finished projects — especially if you used one of our templates!

THE END

Copyright 2013

Posted in Free Stuff, Scouter's Corner
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