Firearm Is Visible Under Shirt Funny

Ghost story…

Scary Story Contest

There was this scary story contest on another site. It's called vocal. I thought I'd give it a go. The story was not approved. Maybe I suck at stories? I wish there was more information on why it wasn't approved. How does one get better if you don't have criticism? So, below, you'll find my version of horror, which is more psychological than sheer horror… I don't think it's graphic or too sexy or anything like that. But, if you accept this challenge to critique, well, beware- it might be bad, really bad, or really just too scary… My fear, it's too comical or stupid.

The Candle Burns Lightly

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window." (This was the challenge phrase on which the story needed to be seeded from."

The car came to a halt at the side of the road. Dust drifted into the headlights' beams. The engine down shifted into idle, as if sighing after pushing through the heaviness of the world. Gene sat there looking forwards, his eyes seeing dust settling, his ears hearing the softer engine noise, but his mind sorting the candle.

Gene touched the cellphone cradled in the vent holder, pausing the podcast he was listening to. Jungian therapy, emphasizing active imagination as alternative methodology to exploring the unconscious mind. Not as good as severing the two hemispheres of the brain, removing the corpus collosum, studies of which he has participated in. He was presently working with folks chemically suppressing specific areas of the brain, even an entire hemisphere, resulting in radical personality shifts.

There was evidence that the mind was comprised on many entities, and shutting the dominant hemisphere allowed for other personalities to come forwards.

The cabin had been abandoned for years. He deliberated further on the how behind why he couldn't have seen a candle. One, he was going down the road too fast to have noticed. Two, few people take this road, especially at night. That didn't negate someone being in the cabin now, but the road to the cabin wasn't from this road. This road came after the cabin ceased to host human activity. Three, the image of the candle burning in the window seemed bigger than life. Like seeing the moon, bigger in your head than in real life, as evidence by any photo of the moon by hands that were trying to make reality fit the eye. Gene was certain he did not see what he thought he saw.

Still, he found himself putting his car in park. It didn't feel purposeful. The car settled into even quieter mood, the lights dimming as if yawning. He retrieved a firearm from the glovebox. He checked the ammo clip, mated it to the weapon, checked the safety.

He found himself getting out of the car. He was aware that getting out of the car did not feel volitional. It was like he was seeing himself get out of the car. "Am I dreaming?" he asked. He sorted this quickly. He didn't feel like he was dreaming. He had never felt more alive and aware than this moment. Hairs on his arm and the back of his neck stood like cat whiskers testing the reality he could not immediately see.

As a neuro scientist, he was quite aware that the mind could play tricks on a person. He was likely 'psyching' himself out. He thought about putting the weapon back in the glove box. The tail lights cast a soft glow behind the car. The cabin was in sight, but not the window. Trees were between him in the cabin, and shifting just revealed more trees, not window.

He moved forwards, a song in his head. 'Goodbye, Norma Jean. Though I never knew you at all…"

"Hypnogogic state could explain the candle," he thought over the song. Road hypnosis, driving in the woods, inner car lights, perhaps his cellphone, reflected on the passenger window as he came around the bend, mixing with the outer reality…

Gene became aware of being cold. He did math about how long it would take before someone found him here if something happened. It was not an abandoned road. He recalled a story of the hitchhiker. Lonely driver would find a lovely, young woman walking the road, stop and offer her a ride. Inevitably the person would arrive at a destination with no passenger.

Hypnogogic fantasy. Men wanting to be heroes. More likely, he mused, men just wanting to get laid. Did women ever pick up the hitchhiker?

It occurred to Gene that the forest's canopy seemed a little more barren than it did from the side of the road. The leaves were less green. There was a patch of snow. He left the perceived safety of the road, penetrating the forest, weapon slightly raised. The cabin seemed much further from the road than he imagined, making him doubt the candle even more.

"What am I doing?" he asked himself.

He thought he saw someone to his right, but when he turned, he discovered a small evergreen, an abandoned Christmas tree, stunted growth, not worth the taking. A Christmas failed. His sigh was heavier than the car idling down. He went on towards the cabin.

Gene was happy he hadn't discharged the firearm. Not that anyone would hear, but how embarrassing would it be to explain how a tree snuck up on him in the night. Even though he didn't discharge the weapon, in his mind the thunder of it breaking this stillness felt like a sin.

He passed under leaves of brown, tracking around shrubs, some of which he discovered only after his leg caught it, and then he pushed through to find himself in the clearing with the cabin. Dead or sleeping trees lined the perimeter of the clearing. The cabin was on a slight rise, hardly a hill. Moon glories peered out from a trembling trellis. Looking up at a full moon that seemed so small, so impossibly far gave him pause. Was it a spotlight on a stage?

Gene focused on the cabin, the moon's clarity coming in as he looked away. The window seemed dark from his angle. He skirted the perimeter until he was face on with the cabin and the window. No candle. He lowered the weapon. He thought to return to the car, but he couldn't let it go.

"You're trespassing on private property," Gene said, loudly enough even the trees might wake from their slumber. Did the moon glories turn to hear him? Did the moon retreat again?

No response. Not even a breath of wind. Gene advanced on the door. The porch creaked under his weight, perhaps the only weight it had born in a hundred years. He brushed an invisible spider web from his forehead. The door was slightly ajar. There was a hint of light where none was before, but it was uncertain, as if the light was hiding behind the door.

Gene pushed on the door with his left hand. The door resisted.

"You're trespassing on hallowed ground." The voice came from within the cabin. It was female. It was the most melodious, soulful voice one might imagine. A Carol Carpenter song, blended with a sultry, whispery tease of a Marilyn Monroe.

"You can't be here," Gene said.

"Philosophically?" she asked.

"Let me in," Gene said.

"You really don't want to come in," she said.

He was at an impasse. He could shove the door. He imagined he could over power her. He hadn't even seen her and was thinking of overpowering her. He could shoot through the door. He was mad for thinking such, felt the safety with this thumb; safety was on.

"What are you doing here?" Gene asked.

"What are you doing here?" she asked back.

"I own this place," Gene said. "I saw a light. I investigated."

"You've seen a light before and didn't pursue. Why now?"

"I have never seen any indication someone was squatting on my property," Gene said.

"There are more here than you allow," she said.

Gene felt the door pull away and suddenly he was not so sure and halted it's movement, grabbing the old metal handle. The female voice chuckled, not quite mocking, but not quite friendly. There was now more of that golden sheen, like the promise of whatever was in that suitcase in Pulp Fiction lie behind the door. It was the promise of love, hope, knowledge, sex, and all the dreams fulfilled. It was a bizarre image in his mind. He wanted to follow it, a dance scene, being stuck with a needle in the neck… He wanted to explain his thoughts, inappropriate for the moment, ironically humorous, but he was so transfixed, the flashback to a movie faded and he found himself holding a rusted door knob that felt like sandpaper. His father had offered him a book, Finding God in the Shack. He had promised to read it, but it was lost on a shelf in a private library of many artifacts read and yet to read. A collection of thoughts rarely dusted off and examined.

"No one is stopping you but you," she said.

Gene pushed through the door and stepped inside, chasing the light that wasn't there with his eyes, as if it was retreating as the door swung on it's arc. He stepped in. The floor gave way and he fell. The snapping of his leg was louder than the weapon discharging. He could not stand up. It took all of effort to free his leg and turn over.

Gene cursed. He was hurting but his anger at himself for chasing ghosts was louder than the pain. The light of tiny candle filled the room. The hand holding it was visible and his eyes followed to the arm, the casual nightwear and the person hovering over him became more prominent than the candle. She seemed to be floating. Her gown, or was it just an oversized t-shirt, and hair flowed as if she were in water. It was as if a wind was teasing her. The edges of her dress didn't rise, but pushed between her legs. It conformed to her. His eyes lingered hoping to see more thigh. When his eyes tracked to the floor, he saw her legs. She was wearing socks, but when he met her eyes, she looked like she was floating.

The candle was there and not there, she was holding it and not holding it. She was illuminated with a gold light that was in front of her, but also seemed self illuminated. She was solid wherever his eyes focused. Realer than real.

"You're a figment of my imagination," he said.

"Oh, I am so not a tulpa," she argued.

"What?"

"You should really pay attention to the books you shelve away, as it all becomes you," she said. She went to a shelf only she could see, browsing tomes. She tapped one. "A Dark Pool of Light: Volume One, The Neuroscience, Evolution, and Ontology of Consciousness." She came back to him. "Sounds pretty heavy. Lots of big words that say nothing or everything and it's always too little or too much, don't you think?"

"You're not a ghost," Gene said. "I am hallucinating because I broke my leg."

"Do you suppose breaking your leg resulted in you hallucinating the candle light that drew you in prior to breaking you leg?" she asked. She noticed where his eyes went and she leaned over to let him have a better look.

Gene licked his lips. Her bosom was inviting and warm and more arousing than being in an unconscious, REM state. When he realized how long he had been staring, he forced himself to meet her eye, and found empty orbs in a skeleton with hair. He screamed. She laughed, stood up, returning to her previous appearance.

"No one ever wants to jump my bones," she lamented as she returned to the shelf. "It's also amazing, beauty or horror, no one ever looks away. Sunset or train wreck, you will watch it all, make it you… Oh! God on Harley, Joan Brady! Lovely book."

"You're not real," Gene insisted.

"The book is real," she pointed out. "It's on your shelf."

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," Gene said. "That's not the point."

"My name is Lindsey, by the way," she said.

"I don't want to know your name!"

"Afraid I might stick around if you say my name three times?" Lindsey said. "Or does that make me go away. I forget?"

Gene reached for his pocket and his cellphone.

"You left it in the car," Lindsey said. She smiled at his horror. "Sucks being without a phone, doesn't it." She followed his eyes to the firearm. "It wouldn't help. Ghost. Remember?" She mused, "What the fuck did people do before cellphones? Maybe really talk to each other? Talk to themselves. You've been ignoring us, you know. Always so interested in the multivariance of others to better define deviance from norm, but never so interested in your own deviance. DID. MDD. Is there a definition for normality in the DSM V?"

She leaned closer. "Would you like to be deviant with me?"

"Are you going to kill me?"

Lindsey rolled her eyes. "Ghosts don't kill people. Only people kill people." She seemed amused. "You do realize, your leg is not really broken in your mind."

"I don't understand," he said.

"Did you read the Red Book?" Lindsey asked.

"What?"

"It's on your shelf," Lindsey said. "Carl Jung?" She offered. "I see a red book and I want it painted black…" She raised an eyebrow hoping he'd appreciate it. "Come on, that's funny."

"Who are you?" Gene asked.

"Lindsey," Lindsey said. "Spirit guide. Philemon. Well, the female version of Philemon."

She offered him a hand up.

"I can't get up."

"Oh, come on. Give it a go," Lindsey said.

"I can't!" Gene said. "My leg is broken."

"You did break your leg. But you no longer have a broken leg," Lindsey said.

"What?"

Lindsey nodded to the body on the floor. His body on the floor. The entry wound seem so small innocuous. He could only imagine the other side of the head. It was likely not a clean cut that severed the corpus callosum.

"I am dead? This is heaven?"

"You're dead. You're nowhere near heaven."

"I am in hell?!" Gene asked.

"Surprised?" Lindsey asked. "Anyway, closer to hell than heaven, but not technically there, either. Everyone goes to the in between place first. Carl Jung, he built a tower."

"I get a broken down shack?"

"You're luck this was here. You really didn't set up any real treasures in heaven," Lindsey mused, pulling up a rocking chair. "Some of us in here are debating helping you, and they sent me. I like the moon glories. Nice touch."

He wasn't listening to her. He was looking at the body.

"Don't worry. That will fade in time. You'll get more mobility and will eventually wander the worlds we share," Lindsey said. "Care for a song? Hazy Shade of Winter… Bangle's version… I love how it speeds up as you approach the end. Ever notice how life seems to go faster as you get older? Look around. Look around. There's a patch of snow on the ground!"

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Source: https://solarchariot.medium.com/scary-story-contest-ace9312a787c

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