A Short Story : A Story?

The sun was high in the sky, gleaming down on us. The air was breezy, but not cold. The day was ordinary, or so it seemed. But what was out of place? That would be my brother, the only person who could possibly get himself into such a situation, with his impossible ability to almost die, but just miss the mark. As he sat there on the ground with his back to us, legs sprawled out in front of him, we didn’t even realize that there was anything wrong. Hold on a second. Let’s rewind this just a little.

I went as fast as I could. We drove by the pond. We drove by the garage. Gary, Tyler’s stepdad, was at the garage. I waved to him as I flew by. I took a turn onto the gravel driveway.

As Jenna stood there drenched in the oniony stench of the cafeteria's chili, all she could think about was how she was going to get revenge on Taylor Everly.

Todd and Aaron arrived at the hospital around the same time. They were sprinting past the cameras and media outlets who were bombarding them with questions. They didn’t care about any of their questions. All they cared about was their father who had been shot during a morning workout at the bus barn. When they reached the front desk, the nurse directed them to the private room they had for Ed in the back of the west hospital wing. When they finally reached the room Aaron pushed open the door that felt as if it weighed one hundred pounds. They entered the room and saw their mother sleeping in a chair near the corner of the room with bags under her eyes. Aaron and Todd peered inside and saw the end of a hospital bed. The rest of it was hidden behind a curtain.

Madeline stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that Gabriel’s things were gone from the room when she returned. Had he left her? She shook her head, trying to calm her anxious heart. Gabriel didn’t seem like the type that would just up and leave because she was uncertain about what she wanted. It seemed more likely that he had just moved to a different room.

Jealousy crept through my body when my parents told me that they were going to dinner in the Willis Tower. Who wouldn’t want to eat on an upper floor of the formerly world’s tallest building? My brother and I waved them goodbye as they pulled out of the driveway. I walked upstairs to my room and opened YouTube on my computer. Nothing seemed amiss.

All of James' life he thought that he was just a simple man and that he would die, perfectly ordinary, in his small village. For 18 years he had lived life as it came to him, growing up in Thornwood. His life was peaceful and dull. Every day since he was young he gathered edibles and alchemy ingredients from the forest, to be sold at a small price. It was an easy job that he was good enough at, but for a long time, he had held a secret dream, to leave this place. If only he had more money, more power, he could do whatever he wanted.

I held open the door for the boy and he mumbled something inaudible as he shuffled past me. “It’s just sitting on that first pew over there,” I told the boy as I slowly began to pull the athame from having had it tucked away in my waistband. “Ah, man!” the boy exclaimed. “What the hell is that… did something die in here?”

75 miles per hour. 80...85. Grave pressed on the gas. 100 miles per hour. They had to drive him into a corner. They had to keep him contained. But where?.... Grave watched the car in front of him take a left. He spoke into his radio,

The man sat up straight, now showing interest in what he had to say. “Whatchu need that place fer? No, don’t tell me, it’s better not to know. It won’t be cheap I tell you that.”

As I returned from my walk I hear voices, her voice seemed different; like she was relaxed and happy for once. I slammed the door open,”What are you doing,” I screamed. While grabbing the first thing I could find, two glass bottles, and stormed over to Van and whatever her name is.”You should learn that I always get my way. Be quiet and don’t fight me. You will be fine if you do what I tell you to do when I tell you.”I lifted up the first bottle and struck her first, but as it shattered over her head I heard a shriek of a high pitched noise right before she passed out. I stumbled back, stunned that such a horrid noise could come from such a small being. I just stared at her; she looked sad, but what did I care, this was fun. I picked up the other bottle and started to walk towards Van, he just looked at me and said,”Please no, please.” He was out within seconds of being hit.

Flying through nighttime, I raced with my fellow ghost friend Laura on the abandoned roads.

Hetty brought a tortoise the day after her daughter died. Her only daughter, as it turned out. Her only daughter and her only tortoise, as it had also turned out. That was almost twenty years ago. The tortoise, Bertram, was, all these years later, still going strong. Still ambling around the house like an old man with dementia, bumping into furniture, getting lodged beneath furniture and nibbling said furniture in case it turned out to be as edible (or more edible) than it appeared. Sometimes, often in fact, he would creep up behind Hetty while she was doing the washing up or making breakfast, lunch or dinner and she was now in the habit, had been for approximately nineteen and a half years, of checking where she was putting her feet before moving away from the sink, the cooker or the kitchen surface, or anywhere else she had been standing still for longer than a couple of minutes, so as to prevent herself from feeling Bertram’s hard carapace beneath her foot, or worse, hearing the soft crunch of that carapace being crushed beneath her shoe.

A humming engine roars through the brisk morning air. Two men dressed in grey suits drive in a white car, their dress matching the dull sky. The driver has light brown hair, slicked straight back. His partner in the passenger seat sports dark hair and dark brown eyes, his short hair parted to one side.

It was the smell of smoke that was the reason I awoke on that dreadful night.The smoke was not from that of a candle nor of a fire, but rather the heavy pungent smoke from a cigarette.The unmistakable scent sent shivers racing up my spine and memories seeping into my brain.In the 25 years, I have lived only one individual I had encountered smoked strawberry cigarettes.I sat silently and pleaded that I was still dreaming, that the scent was conjured up by my imagination.And when I finally did sit up in bed I let out a blood-curdling scream.Standing in the doorway of the room watching me intently was my father.