Four more vignettes for you perfect for the hours of darkness. John Riley reads from The Reaper Cometh.
Category: John Riley
The Hunt
A flash fiction ghost story for the 13th hour after midnight here is John Riley reading The Hunt.
The Woman Upstairs
and now, read by John Riley, a strange tale when all is not what it seems…
Vignettes 4 short pieces
4 Audio Vignettes by John Riley –
An Observation
Audio and transcript for your entertainment.
It is as good a place to perch on damp moss cemetery bench. To fix an unwavering dead stare with berry black eye and wait as the dead do in their graves.
This is a mournful plot, where a wailing and weeping of melancholy pours uncontrollably on this crisp October morning.
Here, deep down six are the dead, spread out around the cardinal points, and at the centre is a Blessed Norman stone church wrapped in ivy. Such isolation and kept that way, by a cemetery fence of splinter and bone.
Among ash, sycamore, oak and beech, all turning over into a blaze of fiery colours, crows roost in the rust coloured leaf canopies. Rasping things that wake the dead these black feathered acolytes with beady fixed stare.
Autumn, it may be, turning mellow and ripe, more like a season of decay, mould and death. But only a cold breath away is an icy chill, tempered by a watery sun that makes it feel like a winter’s day.
I can imagine what took place here, for I confess to a growing feeling for the macabre. This forlorn place, brings quick to memory the tale told by my friend. He, on hearing the episode, was in no doubt as to what took place here.
Imagine if you will a grating gate swung open. A grieving woman and her wicker baby stroller pushed along the cortege narrow pathway. A presence of woeful form treading along sorrowful memories. One noticing the musty decay of spoilt flowers long before passing the compost heap.
Onward she makes her pilgrimage to the plot marked by a simple memorial vase over which many an outpouring of tears have been spent.
Unnoticed on mossy bench is an observer.
Ruth, for that is her name, a young woman drawn grey and sombre, haunted and bereft of joy. For it is again another day she attends to the pain, clutching her broken heart, bleeding that it is, all consumed with grief. For in the bleakness she wails, exorcising the anguish. For here lies one lost too young of age, slaughtered by a woman spurned.
Then, out of nowhere, something to unsettle the ritual. What was that? Something crossed over her thoughts. For emotion held back a breath and pulled her out of a place deeper than a well. Come a haunting are those tales and grave warnings of being here alone. And in the shadow of an angel bowed in despair, Ruth aware of unnatural silence.
Looking out beyond and the way out of here, gathering from yonder hill seeps damp mist. Taking unnatural form like some entity of murk creeping and smothering all in its wake.
What is it, being in this place of repose does observe her beyond the dense fog?
What was that figure that lingered in aftervision?
Look again.
For Ruth is mistaken. It is only a tattered black crow watching her from the bench seat.
Upon her did a winter’s coldness make her shiver. She should make haste, placing the small posy of violas in the urn.
Did not the sound of crows grow louder and that an agitation be upon the flock now taking to the foggy skies?
Then Ruth saw it, or thought she did. A shadowy figure in black weeds and long veil standing near the stroller.
No, no I am mistaken.
Her weeping eyes distorting the vision, it was a crow perched upon the handle of it.
Ruth given to shoo the thing away and it squawking taking flight.
A tremble chill upon her. The blankets still wrapped around and untouched save for a black feather lying in a fold. Undisturbed was Edwin, not quite 8 months, sleeping soundly and snuggly protected.
Just one more moment for tearful goodbyes to her husband’s grave, but something passed over in that way to release a tremor to shake the bones. Turning to face the wet veil of mist did Ruth and their son leave.
She pushed the stroller with a quickening pace. “Don’t look back, don’t look back.” saying it under her breath a thousand times now huddled up into herself.
For behind her waiting at the grave stood a tall figure, all stately in black gown and long veil. It watched mother and child. Only turning away when Ruth fell to her knees clutching at the pain tearing through her frail body screaming at a world unable to hear as she held close Edwin’s limp body, just as a black feather blew away on a stray and cold breeze.
There is very little more to tell you. I am here to fulfil a request for my friend and perform a particular set of skills to attempt to end the nightmare haunting my friend’s sister. That there is a crow with its beady eye on me, perched as it is on the mossy bench, shall give me no rise for concern…
story by John Riley
There’s nothing after
by John Riley
She had been reading and stumbled across the article, which caught her eye. A quote, credited to Andrew Marvell – But at my back, I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying near.
She took the dishes back into the kitchen.
Joy Rushton is in a hurry. She shoots a look at the clock in that anxious way while rushing through a line of tasks. Her husband watched her do it many a time. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack___slow down.”
She finished cleaning the cups.
From the kitchen window, she saw a glint of light on the distant hill. It happened to be a removal van, not that she could tell. It was riding on its brakes, slowly descending Stony Bank lane.
She froze again, looking distant, like a statue. These episodes were getting more frequent.
The telephone in the hallway cut the air ringing.
“Hello?”
Dead air.
“Hello?
“Is anybody there?”
Dead air.
Giving it no more thought, she returned the receiver.
At the table, her handbag, small mirror and some make-up were set out on the tablecloth.
Joy never saw the man behind her while fixing her make-up. He sat on a favourite armchair, watching her, knowing his presence had gone unnoticed. In fact, anyone could have walked in on her these last days, and she’d not have known. Joy was growing more forgetful.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Joy.”
She looked over but didn’t say anything. She continued applying her lipstick.
She could hear the birdsong from outside, only out-gunned by a builder’s compressor sending home a row of nails into Mr Shirtcliffe’s feather fencing panels. Joy’s attention switched to the Grandfather clock. A clunking thing, announcing each heavy moment. Joy sighed.
“You know, not your fault… Nobody to blame… We weren’t meant to have that time.”
She didn’t listen.
“Couldn’t live that dream, eh?”
There was no answer, so he returned to his thoughts.
“Life isn’t lonely, doesn’t need to be after all, I’m here.”
He ponders and then mentions something on his mind.
“Lonely though… here…”
He tries not to allow the mood to drop.
“You know, I see you every day. I always pop in, making sure you’ve locked the door. I check around the place while you are asleep during the night…
“In the day as well…
“I’ve seen you… stealing a nap…
“Don’t go to town, not just yet. Stop with me a little while.”
It sounded like a plea.
The letter on the bureau remained as left… open. A brief confirmation of the diagnosis. Joy just stared at the words when first looking at it.
o0o
The removal van steered to safety, away from those hairpins. The torturous hill lane was one of four roads to approach the town centre.
The van had something of an old classic look. A mossy green-coloured livery with gold lettering advertising Shackleton & Son. A reassuring vehicle, not really catching the eye of passers-by, who might have wondered, looking it over, as to whether en-route to a vintage car show.
It took the junction turning left into Victoria Road without so much of a cautionary glance. It gained speed along the road, tailgating the car in front.
Happen someone did catch it in the corner of their eye. Then gone, when they’d be curious to see what it was.
You couldn’t see the van driver, nor if there was a passenger. Three cars in front of it didn’t know it was running up behind. It closed in fast, sped up, closing in.
The van ploughed straight into them, running through all three. But did so as if the cars didn’t exist at all. It ran them all down.
No one saw or heard the collision.
No one saw the van.
No other driver would have known, no man, woman or child, and no one witnessed a collision.
The three cars just continued on their journey.
There stood, kerbside, a lady, way up ahead, ready to cross over to the traffic island. The lead driver had seen her and knew she was about to step without thinking.
Joy Rushton stepped off the pavement straight into the path of the removal van. It hit her full-on, slamming her out to the side.
It came out of nowhere, and the last thing she would see was it charging at her. Just like it would have been for her husband when she eloped and sat as a passenger with her lover at the wheel of his removal van. She lived this haunting daily, every day, and would do so for an eternity.
oOo
Her house was just as left when returning.
In the armchair, the man waits. He gets up after a while and wanders around checking on things. He feels lonely, and the house remains empty.
At the same time, Joy wanders around the deserted house. All is still and quiet. Not even the sound of birds, no jackhammer, nothing. Life was going on but existed outside this isolated place.
Both husband and wife drift around the empty house, waiting for the living to return. Neither sees each other, neither ever will.
-end-
