MKW Books

Every Day (Rhyming Reason)

~ MKW Publishing ~ Leave a comment

(c) K Wicks

Dead Until Twelve (Short Story)

~ MKW Publishing ~ 2 Comments

From my book of short stories – A Short Walk

Dead Until Twelve

I didn’t know any different at the time, we had been together for so long it felt normal. Yet it wasn’t.

At first I thought it was just an imaginary friend, that’s what they had told me when I was small. They said I had made her up as company. Being an only child can have that affect they said. Yet I didn’t name her, she did.

Her name was Amelie. My name is Sylvia.

We played together, went to school together, walked and talked. She was even there when I slept. Amelie would tell me about herself, about the toys she had, about her parents too and her life. She had a little brother she talked about all the time too, I sometimes wondered if he was her imaginary friend. It never occurred to me to not want her around, it didn’t seem an option. In fact, Amelie made my childhood and life much easier and happier. I always had someone to talk to, and she seemed to know an awful lot.

She would also sometimes talk of a darkness, tell me there were things out there that weren’t safe. I would feel quite panicked when she spoke of the dark, as if a heavy blanket was being thrown over me. The light fading and breathing became difficult. But only for a moment, Amelie would see my distress and stop talking. An odd detached silence the only thing that would bring us both back to normal.

For a while though while very young, most people found this whole thing quite charming. They thought it adorable I had such an imagination, such an active mind they would say. Even when my grandmother would visit she would always say.

“She makes it seem so real”.

I knew they couldn’t see Amelie, because I couldn’t either, she was just a voice. Yet she was so much more, she was a person, just without being a person. There would have been no way to properly describe that to anyone. I wanted to though, just could never find the words.

School was rather easy for me to a point, I didn’t have many friends and preferred to keep myself to myself. This may have been because I had Amelie with me, I didn’t feel the need for the company of others. And to be honest, she didn’t care for many other people. Sometimes being quite mean with the things she would tell me about them, or things that sounded so outrageous, I could only presume she was making it up. She was great at school work, and so by extension so was I. She gave me all the answers for tests or when asked a question by the teacher. Possibly part of the reason I didn’t have many friends as well, I seemed to be a bit of a swot and always had an answer. Usually the right one, and I worked out quickly that annoyed people, but I just couldn’t help myself.  

My spare time away from school was just myself and Amelie. We would walk into the woods and over the surrounding meadows, listening for the robins and sparrows. Hoping to catch sight of seasonal wildlife. I usually had a pocket full of nuts and seeds hoping to see some squirrels. She always knew the best places to find them, taking me through a dense bit of woodland and crossing a small stream. It snaked its way through the fallen branches and dark moss, giving the most wonderful smell of fresh damp earth. I wasn’t sure why this was her favourite smell, mine was the meadow. When the afternoon sun warmed the many flowers, it gave a hazy golden glow that took my breath away. The perfume of the wild flowers catching on the breeze and making me smile and sigh at the beauty of it all. We loved nature.

One day we had been walking through the fields, making our way to the woods, when Amelie suddenly wanted to go the other end of field we never passed by before. We made our way towards it, away from the worn path, tramping through the higher grasses. As we got there Amelie stopped us and began looking wistfully into the small wooded area. It was the edge of the reservoir and was fully fenced, but used to be as open as the rest of the countryside apparently. She had told me she had gone that way once, before the fences were there. But she couldn’t remember why. No-one was allowed up there now and by the look of it hadn’t for decades. PRIVATE LAND, KEEP OFF signs were posted most prominently.

We were just about to head off on our normal route when suddenly the atmosphere changed. Despite the rays of sunshine splashing onto our face, and the warm summer air, an icy chill ran through me. Followed very closely by what could only be described as fear, heart piercing fear I had never experienced. A shadow lurked behind the fence in the thicket before us. I wanted to turn but instead just stared, transfixed by what must be a trick of the light, shadows didn’t move by themselves.

“Are you ok Sylvia?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. The voice behind me broke my gaze but did nothing for my heart rate. We never bumped into anyone up here, just their presence was out of place to what we were used to. Although my gaze had been broken, the brightness had not returned, a chill remained and so did the shadow.

“I’ve never seen you up here before, I didn’t think anyone came up here anymore. Are you ok?”

I studied his face before speaking. I had never seen this man before, yet he seemed to know my name. Maybe he was friends with my parents? He must be local to the village or how else would he know my name? There was something extremely familiar about his face but I couldn’t quite place it.

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you. I’m just a bit hungry and my mother is expecting me for lunch. Good day”

And with that, before I even knew what was happening, we were running back towards the village and our house. I wasn’t hungry, this I knew for sure. My stomach was in knots and if anything I felt sick. But on we ran, not stopping until we got home. My mother was most surprised to see me, usually we would be out in the woods for hours, not half an hour.

“Are you ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

I didn’t know what I looked like, belt I felt pale. If that can even be a thing. I felt like my guts had been wrenched out and my very being drained of blood. Seeing that shadow and meeting that man had left an impression.

“I just felt a little sick when I got up to the reservoir fence, I didn’t want to stay out. I met this weird man as well, he knew me by name but I didn’t recognise him. I think I’m going to stay in today”.

She seemed happy with that explanation, although not too happy I was talking to strangers in the countryside. Maybe I shouldn’t play so far out anymore she suggested.

“Oh, and remember to tell me if you want a birthday party before Saturday, you are going to be Twelve. Almost a grown up!”

She added that last bit with a cheery smile, I think she gets more excited about my birthdays that I do. But I hated the idea of a party, she tried every year to get me to want one. Maybe next year I kept saying. Amelie didn’t like parties either, but she loved when it was our birthday, she told me hers was the same day as mine. We celebrated together. Every year she would say things like, ‘well, when I turned eight, or when I turned nine. It was such fun when I turned 11, my brother and went to the zoo’. But this year she hadn’t really been saying anything like that, and we were going to be twelve.

Amelie didn’t want to talk about what happened in the fields, she stayed quiet about it. Nothing ever upset her, so I was very confused about what had happened.

I had always felt safe and confident with Amelie. To avoid embarrassment for my parents and being sent to a psychiatrist, I stopped speaking of her when I was about eight. She had told me that people wouldn’t understand, and my mother didn’t so it seemed best to keep it a secret. As my birthday approached though, it seemed Amelie became quieter and more afraid.

One night two days before, she very quietly said to me ‘I’m afraid Sylvia, I don’t know what it’s like to be twelve’. I didn’t understand what she meant. I was apprehensive too, we would be going to big school and everything would change. She didn’t say anything more about it and I didn’t want to upset her, I had never felt her like this. On the eve of our birthday I tried to be excited but there a heavy feeling about our house, a gloom had settled.

We didn’t talk much that night. She had lost her usual enthusiasm and I didn’t know how to help. Maybe she would feel better in the morning I thought.

I woke to the sun streaming through my bedroom window and my mother opening my door with a hot chocolate and slice of cake! I swear she gets more excited than I do about my birthday. I got hugs and kisses and told my cards and presents are downstairs. It felt nice. The house had lightened since yesterday, I looked around the room and sensed it was all different. Nothing had moved but everything seemed out of place. No my mother had left the room, I was alone. For the first time in my entire life, I was alone.

I looked behind me, I looked under the bed, out of the window, in my drawers, everywhere. I must have looked like a mad person because it was not clear what I was looking for. I felt empty. She wasn’t there. Amelie wasn’t there. My mind was quiet, when I asked a question, just a void of nothing came back. I asked if she was still there, but I knew she wasn’t, I could feel she had gone. I sat on the edge of my bed and cried. My years after that felt incredibly lonely, and life seemed more difficult than it had ever felt. School was suddenly really hard, I didn’t have someone in my head telling me the answers all the time.

I missed her greatly and never quite got the hang of friendships. No one could quite match up to her anyway. It was a personal loss I had to carry on my own, never quite getting over it until years later, although what I later found gave me more questions than answers.

Years later at the Christening of my first child, who I had decided to call Amelie and was born upon the very same day as my birthday, I met a priest. He noted to me.

“How interesting you have called your daughter Amelie, my sister had that name, and the same birthday too. Unfortunately she disappeared when she was a child, but I am so glad her name is still going strong”.

He had a sadness with his smile. I suddenly remembered something she used to tell me about her brother and what she used to say to him, and I couldn’t help but say it.

“You can always turn that frown, upside down…”

He stared at me.

“But, that was decades ago, must have been at least two before you were born, how could you know that?”

I didn’t know what to say, I was now flushed and trying to think quickly. Amelie would have known what to say I thought. It had been a burden for so long, I needed to share it, even after all this time of burying it and trying to forget. He spoke before I had the chance to find any words.

“She went missing on the eve of her twelfth birthday. Used to go walking in the woods and meadow and that day, didn’t come back. We never found her. They say she may have fallen in the reservoir but no evidence. That’s why the fences went up”.

It was heart-breaking, seeing in his face he had always wondered what happened to her. I felt the same about why she left me and wanted to end his pain as well as my own. Now I knew for sure she had been real and that she hadn’t just been my imaginary friend. She had been my best friend. Over the years, wondering now and again if I had made it all up. The sign of a lonely child and all that. But to now know her true fate was unknown and that I had found her brother, something would have to be done.

I knew the place well even though I hadn’t been back since that day. A few days before my twelfth birthday in fact, when I had encountered the shadow and the creepy man. The dark corner she had led me to, I think I probably knew then, but didn’t want to admit it or think about it.

“I’m so sorry this happened to her and you’ve had to live with this for so long, but I think I know where to look for her”…

(c) K Wicks

Doctors Visit (short story)

~ MKW Publishing ~ 1 Comment

Taken from my book of short stories – Under the Apple Tree and other short dark stories currently available through Amazon.

Enjoy the creepiness.

Doctors Visit

His shoes and coat were in the foyer, a briefcase placed beside them. He had left his notes neatly written out, filed in meticulous order, a detailed account of every visit and diagnosis. The detective read them all.

‘The father it was presumed was harbouring a distant mental illness, one that plagued him during the hours of darkness, tormenting his sleep and keeping him awake. Leading to psychosis and hallucinations. Although it seemed to be psychosomatic, as no plausible explanation could be found’.

Despite this the doctor stayed overnight on a number of occasions. It should have been an open and shut case, with a prescription of lithium marked in the corner of the page with a question mark.

‘However, his paranoia towards his family does indeed seem a cause for concern. All of his negative energy and ideas were being thrust upon them, directly and indirectly. He believes intermittently that they were the enemy, possibly not even really his family. As his grasp with reality was deteriorating his perception of friend and foe became blurred and some days he would say they were imposters sent to spy on him.’

This was not unusual the doctor had noted in cases of mania and psychosis, and had been documented in a number of other cases. But it was the other family member’s behaviour that intrigued him so and made him return. It was as if they had all either adapted to accept this new mental state from the head of the house, or they were all suffering from a strange form of mental impairment caused by it.

‘The mother was extremely fragile and pale, almost as if she were made of a fine porcelain, with the darkest hair the doctor had ever seen. The children too had inherited the maternal line of looks, although it was hard to see or imagine what their father may have looked like when fit and healthy.
They were always flitting around the house doing something, making tea, tidying and fussing. They had a fireplace in every room and were constantly stoking them. Never making too much noise though, she said noise would upset her husband. It’s hard to gauge how their relationship was holding up through this, I’ve never seen them in the same room together.’

It was remarked in the notes somewhere around his second week of visits. It was not a surprise that two adults could live in the same vicinity and not make contact on a regular basis. It appeared to be normal in many a household these days. Despite the notes, it was hard to actually tell when he had been here precisely. Each day of the week was catalogued, times of day and interviews, but with no starting date, and in fact, no dates at all. The detective was confused by this case. The house was completely empty save for the doctor’s belongings. Originally a plantation house owned by the Reeder family, who were well known in these parts. It passed down to John F Reeder who took it as a family home with his young wife Emily. They began renovations with John doing most of the work himself.

But that was over 50 years ago. Everyone knew the local story, she had run off with someone else, taking the children. He never recovered and slowly went mad, until he died in the house a number of years later. The house wasn’t left to anyone so by local law it has to be left for 60 years in case any surviving relatives turn up to claim the property. Otherwise the local council had to pay the equivalent value if anyone did turn up, it was cheaper to leave it. John Reeder had burnt all the possessions in the house during his mad years. The only thing that had remained when he died was a prison like bed, a mattress and one blanket in the top bedroom of the house. The body wasn’t discovered for a number of weeks, so the state ended up burning them too. The mangled bed frame that had been thrown from the top window, and was still evident in the garden now covered in creepers and vines. There had been no funeral, in fact he was cremated at the hospital and the ashes scattered back at the house.

So what had the doc been doing there? From his I.D they had worked out he was a professor of psychiatry from the city and had no business even being down here. No-one had reported him missing and they couldn’t even find an employer or trace of him. He checked himself into a local motel a month ago and from what seems to have transpired in his books, made almost daily visits to the house. Although the motel owner doesn’t remember seeing the doctor leave or return on any day. He paid up front and was never seen again. The only evidence of his ever existing was the motel owner as witness and his very sparse personal belongings left in the room after check out day. These included a small notebook with the house address and the name John F Reeder. Without that they wouldn’t have ever been up here until it was time to tear the old place down.

The detective went back to the visit notes. The intensity of what the doctor was observing seemed to increase over time. It was like a small window into a family’s descent into a dark tormented madness. No wonder she ran away with the children the detective thought as he read about the atmosphere in the house. As he did though, a dark haze swept over him and made him drop the book. He steadied himself on the banister closest to him. The room began swirling and his vision swimming. While trying to see through blurry eyes, he could swear that the room suddenly had furniture in it, a lamp in the corner, and curtains over the windows. An almost warm homely feel, just for a moment. Then it was replaced by cold and dark. But a musty dark that also swirled for a moment, slowly clearing to reveal an empty room.

The detective sat down on the bottom of the stairs, his legs suddenly not as stable as they were. He had never been superstitious or a believer in the heebie-jeebies, until now. He picked the book back up and carried on reading. The doctor had mentioned the basement a number of times, but after looking over every inch of the house he realised it didn’t actually have one. Highly unusual for house of this time not to have one, but there were no doors or traps that could be found. He went back to reading.

‘The children have become more withdrawn and I fear they will need help to adjust back into the normal world. He has kept them all isolated for such a time that it will do them no good to stay here. Their obsession with the fireplaces troubles me. This is where they are to be found at all hours of the day and night. Often the mother too. Emily becomes frailer by the hour. She has now told me often to not go into the basement. She stares at the door under the stairs with such fear in her eyes that I cannot say what is down there. I have respected her wishes so far, but with no explanation for the deterioration I may have to investigate.

John doesn’t even seem to acknowledge me, and he creeps around the house, checking his family are stationed at the fireplaces. Poking the flames and ashes, keeping them lit. I am trying to understand his symptoms and possible causes for them. Emily did say that when they started renovations in the basement, there were secrets down there. Secrets they shouldn’t have awoken.’

The detective stood up from his place on the stairs and looked over his shoulder towards the panelling, very neat and ornate, it almost didn’t look one bit out of place. Except that it looked so well done, it did. Wood slightly newer than all the surrounding finishes, although aged, definitely newer. The height was right for a doorway too. He could feel his heart begin to race, the room went swirly again and he held onto the wall opposite the panelling for support. Through hazy vision, he saw the door open to the basement and the shape of a man appear. The shape walked towards the living room and over to the fireplace. There was a dark shape in one hand and a long shape in the other. He squinted, trying to see better through the haze. The dark shape was thrown into the fireplace. The man shape turned back towards the basement and towards the detective. His heart pounded as he saw the long shape was an axe, and over his shoulder the dark shape had now caught fire and a face could be seen. With quickly smouldering dark hair.

The vision faded as quickly as it has happened. The room was empty, there was no doorway, and there was nothing in the fireplace. He wondered for a moment if he was going mad. It sounded crazy. Maybe he had killed his family, maybe he had got away with murder? He walked over to the fireplace in the living room, scuffing his shoes on the floorboard. Wondering what to do next or how to explain this to someone without being sent to the loony bin. He kicked the ashes out of frustration and possibly still a touch of fear. A flash of the face with black hair startling him back a step. But just enough to see the skull protruding slightly through the ashes.

The local newspaper covered the basics after the house had been searched. Plantation House of Death they had called it. Revealing the grisly details of the decapitated family, heads found in the fireplaces and bodies in the basement. But there had been more down there. Even more horror was uncovered going back to the beginning. To the old times and when the house had been a fully working plantation. The town had to accept a new history of the Reeder family after that day.


(c) K Wicks