Crooked Stick Figures

did with them, alone, in the dark.

I hadn’t thought of the legend in thirty years.

Thunder rumbled and the old roof groaned.

Wind banged the front doors off the wall.

I cocked the hammer of the .38 and jumped at shadows, feeling like a kid again—entranced yet terrified. Ghosts drifted in and out of my peripheral vision; children demolished in pleasure, their shadowy forms humped and kicking and crawling because he took a hacksaw to them and lit candles inside their hollowed ribcages.

Water dripped in the tub upstairs.

Or Virginia was still close by.

Rain dotted the window at the end of the hall, black beneath the day’s failing light.

The house stank of the bog that ran off the Loyalsock River in the low country, when storms raged and every animal bristled with fear.

I thought, This place doesn’t exist.

My mind clouded and I scratched my finger on the trigger guard. I shook my head, unable to remember how I’d gotten here, what roads I drove, or why. My stomach hurt and I couldn’t stop trembling.

Easy. Take it easy.

Hot air blew down the corridor and something stomped on the second story floor. I knelt and grabbed the paper, feeling heat trapped in my face, the paper crumbling, and I thought, No! as I flipped it over and glimpsed the child’s scrawl: the word Boom Stick underscored with slashes, most of the page crowded with jagged lines that seemed to mean nothing. I sucked in another breath, suddenly dizzy, and squeezed the pistol’s grip.

Hell calls some of us.

And some of us are stupid, or stubborn, or sick enough to answer.

I blinked as shapes on the page twisted around each other. Men, bent and crooked like intertwining snakes, nipped at my fingers until blood blossomed and stained the page.

Not men, I thought. Children who want to grow up and never will. Children buried in trunks of trees, in forest paths, stuffed in abandoned cars.

The wind moaned and the paper stilled in my hand. I blinked sweat from my eyes.

“You’re still here, aren’t you?” I glanced left and right, bones heavy, mind nearly mush as the paper caught fire and I dropped it before it singed my fingers. The children screamed from every wall. The dead sang songs for me.

“What did he do to you, kid?”

I knelt again and sifted through the ashes, wanting to bring them back, make them whole because I know what it’s like—we all know what it’s like—to have something taken from us, and to have our innocence robbed and our soul ground to dust and trapped in endless burning.

Shadows swept across the walls. Crooked stick figures danced across the face of a grandfather clock near the step-side wall, and children whispered, He said you’re not his friend.

I shivered, thought, Tear it down. Get the cops out here looking. Who fucking cares if they think you’re crazy.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

The house trembled as cries echoed from long-untilled soil. The illusion shattered like glass, and I squeezed my eyes tight as ash and leaves battered me and rain pelted my head and neck. I brushed debris from my face and stood, surrounded by a forgotten forest. To my right, a rusting, claw-foot bathtub sat decaying among the bramble. A small hand, most of the skin eaten away by beasts and elements, lay draped over the edge.

I cried for Virginia and the chances stolen from her, my hand fumbling with the gun, while children peeked around trees and whispered as one, My parents couldn’t protect me. And nothing can protect you. He knows who you are. He said you are not his friend.

They drummed the air—rat-a-tat-tat—and lightning etched the sky.

About The Author

Lee Thompson started selling work in early 2010. You can find his stories in Delirium Books, Darkside Digital, Sideshow Press, Shock Totem, Apex’s Zombie Feed anthology, Tasmaniac Publications, and other neat places. He’s worked a lot, sweated a lot, and continues to take up space the best he can. The best place to keep track of what he’s up to is his blog: http://alongthispathsodarkly.blogspot.com