Here's a Sample Short Story

Sharing some of my fiction

This will be different from my usual Substack posts. As many of you know, I started out writing fiction, and still consider myself primarily a novelist, even though I’ve only had one novel published. I also wrote a bunch of short stories, which like all my fiction invariably wind up venturing into Twilight Zone territory.

I’m thinking of posting my short stories (maybe even my poetry- I have even more of that) on Substack, including it in the paid option. Free subscribers will still get all of my regular writings. I just hesitate to put the stories out there for free, when I still harbor hopes of getting them published. Is this something that would interest you? Among my thousands of subscribers, perhaps there is a literary agent, or someone who knows one. I’ve had very little luck with agents. I’ve obviously done much better marketing my nonfiction, without one. But it seems that you need an agent for fiction. I’d also love to know what my subscribers think of my fiction.

I am posting a sample story here for everyone. This is the only short story I’ve had published, in a small 2015 anthology called Bill of Frights. Assuming there is a desire for more of them, I will post one every week or so, for paid subscribers only. The two novels I’ve completed and consider my best work are gathering digital dust on them. But sharing my shorter fiction with thousands might catch the attention of the right person, with the right connections. Again, all I ask is that my work be read. I have confidence in my work, both fiction and nonfiction. If this is considered an unwanted intrusion, please forgive me and ignore it. I’ll continue my regular rants.

Here it is. Note that Shadows in Georgetown was inspired by one of my unpublished novels, The Shadows of St. Elizabeths. I think the short story is good, but the novel is better. I had some issues with the formatting from Word, so I hope it reads okay. Any and all comments and feedback are welcomed.

     SHADOWS IN GEORGETOWN                 

Anna was a nervous child. She was unduly afraid of a good many things, but she especially feared death.   

She came by this naturally; her peculiar family was obsessed with the dead and the dying. Her mother and grandmother talked about it constantly. Despite all her efforts at resistance, Anna was morbidly drawn to the subject, too. She spent many nights trembling under the covers, trying to forget the tales discussed at the dinner table, regarding sudden heart attacks, fatal falls and tragic drownings.

            Anna’s family members often referenced the “shadows” that haunted Georgetown, the section of Washington, D.C. where they resided. They intimated that these shadows were everywhere, and the idea terrified nine year old Anna.

      “Watch out,” Anna’s haggard Grandmother would constantly warn her whenever she left the house, “Don’t let the shadows get you.” 

      Anna was also intrigued by ghosts. She gobbled up every book that touched on them in the Georgetown public library. In fact, anything with dark or sinister overtones interested her. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was her favorite novel. The writing was too sophisticated for many much older than her, but nine year old Anna understood every word.

                  The year was 1920 and Washington, D.C. was in a state of transition. No longer the flea-infested swamp land it had been for most of the nineteenth century, signs of a thriving modern metropolis were springing up everywhere. Anna was a child of the times; she’d been walking or riding her bike by herself, all over Washington, D.C., for a few years already. She’d frequently go as far as the National Zoo, contentedly gazing at the elephants and hippos with no one accompanying her. She wasn’t the only youngster left alone and unprotected in those days. 

                  Anna’s zeal for adventure was always tempered by the things she heard every day in her weird household. The shadows, especially, kept creeping into her mind; she often imagined they were behind her, peering over her shoulders. Every time, in fact, she saw her own shadow, she shuddered in fear. Still, she couldn’t help but observe it closely. More importantly, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering where those other shadows were.

                  Anna had a younger brother, but her older sister had died when she was only three years old. Anna had heard the story so many times, recounted by various female relatives with an unnatural amount of gusto and glee. Little Nancy had simply dropped dead one sunny afternoon. That, of course, would be rare enough for a toddler, but it was the circumstances under which it happened that really gave it such an odd distinction. 

                  Anna was an infant at the time, and had been left home in the care of her father. Her mother, grandmother and two aunts had gone to Mount Olivet Cemetery, which was predictably enough a favorite picnic spot of theirs. Nearly every Sunday, they would lay flowers in front of the tombstones of Anna’s maternal great-grandparents, spread a blanket over the area and then enjoy their lunch. Usually, they would leave Nancy at home with her father, too, but this time they took her. They would come to rue that decision.

            While they were munching on fried chicken and engaging in wicked gossip, Nancy, allowed to roam free around the adjacent gravesites, wandered off towards some thick woods which bordered the eastern corner of Mount Olivet. One of her aunts belatedly noticed this, and raced after the three year old, who was merely a speck in the distance by this time. What Aunt Isabelle would claim to see as she approached the woods would later be debated and disputed by members of the family.

“There was a dark figure, half hiding,” Isabelle would invariably say, “kind of gray, with the brightest red eyes you ever saw. There was a mist all around it, and a horrible smell.”

By the time Isabelle, with the others close behind her, arrived at the spot, the mysterious figure was nowhere to be seen. Nancy’s tiny, lifeless body was lying in a brown circle where the grass had been burned away. Nancy’s mother gathered up her baby and wept profusely over her, but like many a bereaved parent before and after her, found that tears could not revive her. Autopsies, especially for children, weren’t performed very often in those days, but Nancy’s family demanded one. Unfortunately, the doctors couldn’t determine what caused her death. Nothing natural kills a three year old, and there had been no accident.

Anna’s family would speculate about it ever afterwards, but they would never be able to reconcile themselves with what was a truly unexplainable event.  They simply attributed it to the shadows, and came to believe more firmly than ever in their ubiquitous presence.

              While they would discuss Nancy’s demise constantly, the family never went back to Mount Olivet Cemetery again. Thus, Anna had never been there. Nearly every day, she would ride her bike past the wrought iron entrance gates, slowing down to take in the scenery. She wanted desperately to go inside those gates, and to venture out past her great-grandparents’ graves, to the very spot where it happened. This wouldn’t give her any answers, of course, but she needed to see the spot where her sister’s young life had so inexplicably ended.

            Anna could see the cemetery’s office from the sidewalk. She was a very intelligent girl, and had already planned to ask them where her great grandparents were buried. From there, she would simply look for the woods. Legend had it that the spot where Nancy’s body had been found had never grown grass since, so Anna reasoned it should be easy to locate.

                  While Anna was inordinately interested in the details about Nancy’s death, and possessed a tremendously inquisitive nature in general, her slew of powerful fears kept her from actually doing anything. She’d sigh deeply, then peddle past the cemetery, and wind up at the Smithsonian museum or the zoo. Maybe if she’d had an adventurous friend, it might have been different. She needed someone to push her.

                  Finally, one unnaturally cold spring day, she summoned up the courage. It was totally spontaneous; she’d stopped her bike momentarily, as she often did, and an instant after starting to peddle away, she suddenly veered left and was through the entrance gates before she realized it. Once she was inside, Anna kept going and got the information she needed from the person who worked in the cemetery office. Her great-grandparents were buried at the far end of Mount Olivet, so Anna had to pass by most of the graves along the way. She tried not to read too many of the tomb stones, but the lure was irresistible.

            The ones who’d died at young ages really fascinated her, which was probably natural for a nine year old. All those names, she mused to herself, breathing and playing just like me and now they’re mostly bones and dust. It was a jarring thought for such an innocent mind. There were elaborate, ornate stones everywhere, with a handful of truly spectacular memorials to lost loved ones.  At length, Anna arrived at the place where her great grandparents were buried. They’d died before she was born, but Anna paid a proper moment’s respect on her knees, and leaving her bike lying between graves, slowly sauntered towards the woods, which loomed in the distance to the east.

            When she came within a few paces of the woods, it didn’t take her long to find the spot.  The circle was large enough to stand out prominently, and its dull, brownish color was in stark contrast to the manicured grass bordering it. There was a strange stillness in the air now, and it seemed to calm Anna, who should have been very, very afraid at this point. Abandoning all her customary cautiousness, the little girl gingerly placed her right foot inside the grassless circle.                                                                                                                                   

                  Suddenly Anna heard a deep voice coming from her right.

                  “You won’t find your sister here,” a gruesome looking dark spectre stepped out from behind an imposing old elm tree. “And you’ll never solve that mystery, no matter how hard you try.”

                  He threw a half vaporous head back, exposing in full his jet black goatee, and laughed manically. He then approached Anna, who was powerless to run away. The figure appeared more to be floating than walking.  The grey phantom placed his hand- which was unbearably warm- on Anna’s shoulder and gazed deeply into her eyes.  The youngster felt paralyzed as the monstrous apparition planted a lengthy and painful kiss on her forehead. His foul, ugly lips left a blasphemous mark there, accompanied by an uncomfortable stinging sensation. Anna closed her eyes, to avoid seeing that hideous face, and when she opened them he was gone. Able to move at last, Anna ran off without a single look behind her.

            All at once, it began to rain incredibly hard. Sheets of water bounced off of the tombstones with a macabre rhythm. Anna slipped on the suddenly wet ground and landed head first next to an open, gaping grave. As she raised her eyes toward the freshly sculpted tombstone, she gasped aloud. Her name was carved there, with the present day’s date chiseled right after the “D.”

                  The terrified little girl scrambled to her feet and continued on through the graveyard, which seemed somehow a lot larger now. Eventually she passed her great-grandparents’ plots, and nearly fainted when she saw the ground begin to move, and a couple of ghoulish green, twisted fingers emerge through the earth there.

                  Anna couldn’t find her bike anywhere, so she ran as fast as she could, with the rain beating down incessantly, and at long last she rushed through the entrance gates, moments before they inexplicably clanged shut behind her. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Anna realized that the massive downpour of rain had ceased as abruptly as it had started.                                                                                        

                  The little girl was stunned and dumbfounded. She stumbled through the cobbled streets of the city, and it was quite a while before she began to realize that most of the people she passed were staring at her.  She felt their eyes, which were seemingly all concentrated on her forehead. Many of them whispered in audible tones, “She’s got the mark, alright” and “Don’t touch her!”

                  Finally, Anna stopped to catch her breath. She rested her body against the plate glass window of a five and dime store, and turned around to check her reflection out. There was a dark, noticeable mark squarely in the middle of her forehead. Anna didn’t recognize the distinct symbol, but it looked inherently evil to her. It was as if she’d been branded. She couldn’t bear to see it and turned away in disgust. As she did so, she found herself facing an imposing figure in blue.

                  “Alright, little miss,” the huge police officer with the unfriendly, ruddy face bent down so that she could all too clearly see his dishonest yellowed eyes. “Come along now. We have some questions for you.” 

                  The policeman grabbed her firmly by the arm and practically carried her to the Metropolitan Police station. As they walked past the front desk, a few other officers smiled knowingly and winked at her. A middle aged secretary emerged from an office, pointed in horror at Anna, covered her mouth and dashed into the rest room.

                  Anna was whisked into an interrogation room, where a thin detective with a dark, wrinkled face was chain smoking cigarettes. The little girl was shoved into a wooden chair and the detective slid his own chair right next to hers.                                                                                                                                                        

            “Well,” the detective blew his cigarette smoke directly into Anna’s face, “What did you see?  What do you know?”  He grabbed the shivering youngster by her shoulders.

                  Anna couldn’t speak. She had no idea why this was happening. She felt like she was having the worst nightmare of her young life.

                  The detective threw down his cigarette and stamped it out on the floor, less than an inch from Anna’s foot. “Tell us everything!” He screamed into her ears.

                  Anna’s parents would discover her bike, lying behind some bushes just inside the entrance to Mount Olivet Cemetery. They notified the police, but the authorities were unable to give them any answers. Nine year old Anna was never seen again. The family became even more preoccupied with death and the darker aspects of our existence, having lost two children to the shadows lurking everywhere in the city.