Standing directly behind the dead man, Asa shivered. She knew death was cold, but this man was freezing.

He walked with a small limp and his hands hung freely. It reminded her of a zombie, but one with a purpose. Like a programmed robot with a destiny.

“Where are we going?” Asa called out for the tenth time since they started walking.

She really wasn’t sure herself why she followed the dead man, but she did.

Around her, the darkness grew darker and soon the entire town started to fade as though it were dropping off the face of the world as she walked by. Even when she looked she couldn’t figure out what was happening.

She focused on a white house up ahead. A light was on in the first floor window. Asa walked, her eyes locked on the light in the window. The house grew closer until finally she walked next to it. At first, there was nobody in the curtain. Then, a black figure appeared, almost like smoke. The figure opened the curtain, revealing the face and figure of an old woman. She stared at Asa, shaking her head.

As Asa walked, the house moved out of her sight, so she turned around to keep looking at the house. It kept moving and then in the blink of an eye, it was gone. Swallowed up into the darkness.

“Whoa,” Asa whispered and then felt something touch her back.

She spun around to find the dead man standing there.

She was an inch from his cold face, staring into dead eye sockets. His stench made her stomach turn, almost enough to wish she could just deal with vampires and nothing else.

“Keep following,” the dead man said.

“I was,” Asa replied. “Just… looking…”

“Nothing to look at, yet.”

The dead man turned and continued his walk.

Asa did too, staying in silence, only until something appeared ahead.

It began as a white light, a small dot that could have been miles away.

As the dot grew, a picture started to form. It reminded Asa of watching a movie when the picture would explode onto the television screen.

Only this wasn’t television, not by a long shot.

The scene formed itself out and the dead man stopped walking. He put his arms out, halting Asa.

Asa stepped next to the dead man.

Before she could speak, the scene came to life.

She stared at a grouping of trees, in the middle of the day. The sun was bright but not warm, at all. In fact, when Asa looked up she could see where the scene in front of her ended and the darkness around her began.

She’d never seen anything like it.

There were trees in the scene, along with bushes and shrubs, but most important a pond.

A pond that rang all too real for Asa.

The bushes started to move and voices picked up in volume.

“Come on, let’s find one!” a squeaky voice cried out.

“Just be careful, okay Abby?”

Just hearing the name made Asa weak.

No, she thought, no…

Asa watched as she and Abby came from the bushes.

She was a young girl, standing there with her best friend, on the banks of Gaydosh Pond.

Asa knew what was going to happen next.

“I can’t watch this,” Asa said.

“You must,” the dead man said.

Asa closed her eyes, but the scene still played. She opened her eyes and it continued.

“I bet I can catch the biggest frog,” Abby teased.

“No way, you never do,” the young Asa shot back.

“Run!” Asa screamed but the scene ignored her.

“Let me go first this time then,” Abby said.

“Okay, fine…”

“No, wait, I can’t,” Abby said.

“Why not?” the young Asa replied.

“Remember? It’s opposite day!”

“Oh yeah,” the young Asa said. “Well, then I guess you go first anyway…”

The concept and the last sentence sealed the fate for Abby.

If they hadn’t been having an opposite day, Asa would have been the one attacked.

Asa saw the glowing figure of the vampire in the trees, moving towards its attack.

She shook her head, knowing that Abby and the younger version of herself did not stand a chance. She knew this because she had already lived through this once.

The pain rushed back to her, and it wasn’t just from seeing her best friend being killed. It was the aftermath. The idea that nobody believed her. The idea that people tried to force ideas into her head about what actually had happened.

“I’m going to think of a cool name for my frog,” Abby said.

The young Asa stared into the trees but didn’t move.

“Asa? What’s wrong?” Abby asked.

“Shh, I think I hear something,” the young Asa said.

“Yes!” Abby yelled. “The trees. In the trees. Now run!”

A few seconds later the young Asa shook her head. “Just a squirrel probably.”

Abby and the young Asa looked at each other and started to giggle.

The vampire launched from the trees like a ball of black fire. It hit and attacked Abby, and then tore at the young girl with its full intentions of bringing death.

The young Asa screamed, but Asa couldn’t hear her.

The scene started to fizzle and fade away.

As the vampire feasted on poor Abby, the young Asa looked to Asa.

Their eyes met and Asa heard a voice in her mind.

“He’s NOT dead!” the voice cried. “He’s going to kill you next…”

The scene was gone and the dead man put his arms down.

“We continue,” he said.

“I can’t,” Asa said. “Not if that’s what this is…”

“No, there’s no more of that, I promise.”

Asa turned around and saw the darkness.

She really had no choice but to follow the dead man.

“Fine,” Asa said.

“But I promise you,” the dead man said, “there will be creatures… many of them…”

__________________________

©2011 Jim Bronyaur

A rare ice storm hit East Tennessee this morning, shutting down schools and causing car wrecks. It was strikingly beautiful though: a landscape of silver coated trees against a slate gray sky in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Countless icicles hung from telephone wires and the eaves of houses and shacks. Many folks were out taking photos.

But the storm wasn’t much of an inconvenience for me. I’m a writer, I work at home. And in that respect the morning was just like any other. That is, until around 9:30.

I was bunkered down in my writing room at the time, the location of all my books, movie posters and monster toys – action figures, I mean – working on a short story at my laptop desk. I was putting down a scene when a series of small bangs arose from the kitchen area of my prefab house.

“What the hell is that?” I said, glancing at the Wolf Man.

I walked out into the living room, all robe and threadbare socks, mug of cold coffee in hand, forehead furrowed beneath an uncombed head of hair. I made a right turn at the dining area – a spacious extension of the kitchen – and faced the sliding doors of the back patio. There, a bright red cardinal was flying against the glass.

“Dude,” I said. “What are you doing?”

 
The cardinal dropped onto a patch of snow, limp and exhausted.

“Don’t kill yourself, bird brain,” I said to it through the glass.

I wasn’t too concerned though, as birds, especially cardinals, had a habit of starting fights with their own reflections. A territorial thing. And they never seemed to truly injure themselves in the process.

I looked at the clock and groaned; it was too early for a beer. So I shuffled back to the writing room and took a moment to admire my favorite zombie action figure. That’s when a series of louder bangs began.

“Here we go again,” I said to the zombie. “Bird braaains,” I imagined the zombie saying back.

This time, about a dozen birds were whacking themselves against the patio doors. Pop, went a sparrow. Pop, a wren. Pop pop, a pair of titmice.

“What the hell?”

I looked slightly to my left. Frankenwhiskers, my tiger striped cat, was staring at the lower cabinet where I kept his food.

 
“Don’t you see this shit, Frank?”

That’s when I noticed the birdfeeder I’d hung off the eave of the roof: it was completely iced over, the tasty morsels trapped inside. “Is that what you’re all so creased about? Can’t get to the birdseed? Well that’s a dumb reason to bang your skulls against my window!”

Frankenwhiskers walked up to me and began figure 8-ing between my legs. If I didn’t feed him soon he’d open the cabinet with his paw and start biting the cat food bag. That’s when it occurred to me: the birds wanted inside the house, they wanted the birdseed in the plastic green bin near the patio doors. No doubt they’d seen me open it each time I refilled the feeder.

“Okay, you can calm down now!” I said to the birds. “Jesus.”

Two mockingbirds flew up and hopped along the doors, chattering to one another and peering into the house. I went to get my coat and boots. That’s when the phone rang: my lovely fiancée calling from Chicago where she was attending a conference.

 
“How’s the writing going?” she asked. I may have lied when I assured her it was going “super superbly.” She hadn’t laughed at that.

What did make her laugh, however, was my “story” about the birds. “It’s true!” I said. “Here, listen.” I put the phone next to the patio doors but all was silent. The birds had gone.

“Ah hell. You bastards.”

“Okay, well, see you in a couple of days then,” she said. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

After turning off the phone I fed Frankenwhiskers, got distracted by another phone call, and then went back to my writing. Somehow I forgot all about the birdfeeder.

For the next couple of hours I was pretty much unaware of anything else but my story, although I did hear pitter-patter on the roof and the cracking of ice now and then.

At ten seconds to noon I was back in the kitchen eating a sandwich, patiently waiting to take a swig of beer. Suddenly, a windowpane shattered and a long stream of birds came rushing into the house. There were dozens of them – and they all had sharp icicles in their beaks.

Frankenwhiskers meowed “Shit!” and ran behind the couch. Pussy.

“Whoa, wait a minute. Waaait a minute!” I announced to the Hitchcockian gathering, my hands up, my back pressed against the refrigerator. A crow flew atop the birdseed bin and began to tap the lid aggressively with its icicle. “Okay, okay – you’re hungry. I get it. No problemo!”

I inched my way towards the bin, eying each bird cautiously. Some were perched on chairs and cabinets, others stood directly on the counter, their icicles pointed forward. A turkey – seriously, a turkey? – poked its head through the broken glass holding a large, double-spiked icicle of its own. The two mockingbirds from before zipped past me and landed on the floor by the couch.

As I reached for the bin the crow flew to the side and landed atop the kitchen table. It raised its body at me and gave me the cold eye, then “sharpened” its icicle on the edge of the table and pooped.

A second later, Frankenwhiskers yelped in pain and bolted out from behind the couch with two icicles stuck in his back. I nearly screamed and made a move to help him, but the birds were staring at me, their heads tilted. Silence followed. No sound but the drip-drip of a few icicles. So I held my breath, slowly lifted the lid off the bin and looked inside. I was all out of birdseed.

________________________

©2011 Jason Sturner

Jason Sturner was born and raised in the western suburbs of Chicago, where he has worked as a grocery bagger, elevator operator, rock n’ roll drummer, graphic designer, naturalist, and botanist. He is a widely published poet trying to break into the short story market. His stories and poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming in, such publications as Black Petals, Death Head Grin, Mythic Delirium, Space and Time Magazine, State of Imagination, and Thirteen Myna Birds. He currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. Website: www.jasonsturner.blogspot.com