Campfire Stories

Question

For our second (still pretty experimental) Challenge, how about contributing a story that you'd tell around a campfire.  

No word list here, nor a specific word count either. This, unlike our legacy thread from ThinkDraw, is not all about flash fiction or the strictures of editing.  (Certainly those rules could be implemented in another challenge here.)

For this one tho', I'd love to continue the spirit that's risen like a friendly phoenix from the ashes of a mistaken start over in TD's "True ThinkDrawers" thread--
http://www.thinkdraw.com/forumPosts.php?topicId=881&s=100#lastPost

We've been passing around chocolates and other amazing goodies, including several tongue loosening liquid refreshments, and now we're at the s'mores and stories 'round the glowing embers stage...

...come play??

; >

(Since I've begun this one, I'll try to figure out some sort of baton-passing in a week, Monday July 26. )

Comments

Yes, please a story that keeps us awake around the fire... and listening to the wind far away.... maybe near the sea.........I'm already biting my nails.............

Answer 1

Responding to your challenge I'll see if I have enough vocabulary. LOL LOL LOL
Maybe in Spanish... Who knows?

Comments

LOL..... ooooh polenta! Do!
And give us a day or so to struggle on our own, seeing how close we come to getting the mental picture BEFORE offering us your English translation??

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YES!!!! Please write us a story polenta!  Perhaps I can learn some spanish from you here on think write like I have on think draw!  Have always loved the way you title your pics on think draw.  Cant wait!!!!!

Answer 2

I love nights like this. They're perfect for sitting around a campfire and sharing ghost stories. I'm glad we decided to move the garden party out here to these woods...the ground fog rolling in helps set the mood quite nicely, and the story I want to tell you happened in this very forest. Pull up a log, grab your drinks and s'mores, and try not to jump at any shadows.

Many years ago, so far back the details are now lost in hearsay and speculation, teenage girls started disappearing in the area surrounding these woods.

First to disappear was a 16-year-old girl named Jenny. With a new license and a new (used) car, she drove around everywhere, enjoying freedom for the very first time. Little did she know, that freedom would be short lived.

One week after her 16th birthday, Jenny's car was found on the side of the road, less than a mile away from where we sit now. The beat-up 10-year-old Chevy was her pride and joy, and it was found abandoned, door standing open, keys still in the ignition. Anyone who knew her knew that she'd never abandon the car, and suspicions would have been roused if that was the only thing amiss. But there was more.

A quick investigation of the car revealed blood on the drivers seat and steering wheel, still tacky, not yet fully dried. A search of the surrounding area began immediately, with authorities hopeful that there would still be a fresh trail; she'd only gone missing a few hours before.

As the sun began to set on the searchers, no clue had been found as to what had happened to Jenny. Forensic teams were doing a thorough investigation of her car and the area surrounding where it had been found. When full dark hit, the search was called off for the night, and began again early the next morning. Another full day of searching yielded nothing, and hope was rapidly turning to discouragement.

On the third day after Jenny's car was discovered, authorities we no nearer to finding her than when they discovered the blood. The only new evidence was that DNA results confirmed that the blood belonged to her.

That was also the day a second car was discovered abandoned, and a second girl went missing.

Abbygail was only a month shy of her 17th birthday. She had borrowed her parents car to drive over to a friend's house for a group project they were working on in school. When she didn't show up as expected the friend became worried. A drive between the two houses found the abandoned car shortly thereafter. The door was standing open, and the keys were still in the ignition, and still-moist blood coated the steering wheel and driver's seat. A sample was taken, but all involved were sure it was hers.

Efforts to find the girls and any sort of evidence were doubled, but as time went on, hope vanished. Over the next month, no new clues were found, only more abandoned cars. More girls went missing, and they were no closer to finding the killer. The townsfolk lived in fear of an unknown predator, and, despite that it was camping season, no one came in or near the woods.

Despite caution, by the end of the month, ten 16-year-old girls had vanished, leaving behind abandoned cars with their blood staining the interior. Some say that there were wood chippings, the kind a beaver leaves when gnawing through logs, found in the vicinity of each car. This evidence was written off, and is believed to be nothing but legend now.

And then...the disappearances stopped, as suddenly as they had begun. The investigation continued over the following months, stretching to a year, as the case went cold. No hope was left to find the missing girls, but the fear of the unknown predator started to fade.

People began to camp again, lighting fires and toasting s'mores as we are now. Parents stopped keeping constant tabs on their children. The lost were mourned and locals quietly moved on with their lives. But a question remained, burned into the back of everyone's mind. Old folks around here who remember the tragedy of their childhood still ask it in quiet whispers over hot chocolate as they stare out at the sometimes-foreboding woods: Why? Why did the disappearances stop?

No one really knows the answer to this, but there is little doubt in anyone's mind that unmarked graves fill the woods around us. Ten of them at least, and some believe that an eleventh corpse decayed among these trees.

An unknown predator victimized young girls, sometimes taking as many as three in a week for an entire month, and then stopped. Do you think he just kicked the habit? That, perhaps, he moved on and preys on teenagers elsewhere? The latter is certainly more likely than the former, but I don't believe either.

No one doubts that a mad man once resided in these woods. All the girls' cars were found on the road running alongside it, all within a three mile radius of where we sit now, and many believe he resides here still.

Perhaps he was mauled by a bear, or fell victim to a mountain lion, his body torn to shreds and snacked on by a predator more fierce than him. Perhaps he accidentally got in range of a hunter who mistook him for a prize buck. One way or another, it is believed he died here in these woods with the bodies of the missing girls, and their spirits haunt the area still.

Late in the night, you can hear the girls screaming, crying for help, tortured even beyond the grave. They say you can even hear psychopathic laughter.

The laughter is just their imaginations, my death so many years ago has taken away my ability to laugh.

You all look so enthralled with my story, and I would take that as a compliment to my story telling ability, but I know it's just because the drugs I put in your drinks should be kicking in. And I think Bonnie is about to join us. She's my pet beaver. She liked to run out into the road to cause unsuspecting girls to pull over for me. Ignore the foam around her mouth, it's just a bit of rabies. It took her life shortly after mine was torn from me, which is why she can no longer attract victims from the road for me...she'd only look like road kill.

Don't think about running, the drugs will keep you from getting too far. Tonight I add a few more unmarked graves to my forest home.

Comments

Way to go midnight!  I hope I can get back into the swing of TD and TW soon!

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Nice one! Very much the epitome of the creepy campfire story.

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SCARY!

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midnight:  Aha!  I found one flaw in your story.  I do not believe that they had forensic teams many, many years ago.  Had to tease!  Loved the campfire story.  It's a winner!

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Well now, she never actually said what year the killings took place, just that it was long ago.

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A spine-tingling foray into the depths of cross-species mayhem and murder.  Ye gawds!  I  fear my vertebrae will never (never!) be the same!

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Good creepy story that could be made a lot longer with descriptions of the girls and what they may have in common.

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Your stories always have a twist in the tale. One of your best, midnight.

Answer 3

My story begins; as all good campfire stories should; along a narrow, winding country road on a foggy, moonless night.   We’d all heard the tales about the strange goings on in the woods around Vestry Hollow but I was young and brash and knew that surely nothing could harm me.  Aren’t we all immortal when we’re teens?   I was not at all concerned with axe murderers or crazed, mask wearing hitch-hikers. Well,  mostly not concerned anyway; it was terribly dark and foggy that night and everyone knows that’s when the crazy, axe wielding hitch-hikers are in their glory.  
So I drove slowly on account of the fog but not too slow on account of the nut-jobs.  Out of nowhere, materializing from the mist, there was suddenly a girl in front of the hood of my car.  I slammed on the brakes, swerved the car and said a few four letter words that my parents would be shocked to find out their good little daughter knew.  I didn’t know how I didn’t hit her; she was so close to the car it was a miracle that she wasn’t suddenly turned into a hood ornament.  The car came to a screeching halt and I was still trying to swallow my heart back down out of my throat when I saw that the girl was right next to my window causing my heart to climb right back up there again.
 She was about my age, pretty in a blond sort of way and was wearing nothing more than a red knit sweater and a pair of Capri pants, I couldn’t imagine how she wasn’t shivering in the cold, clammy night.  I cranked the window down and glared at her.
 “Are you crazy?” I said “Why were you standing in the middle of the road like that?  I almost killed you!”
She looked at me in a dreamy sort of way and I decided that her mind wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
“Something’s wrong with my car,” she said, gesturing vaguely off into the mist, “I can’t get it to do anything, can you help me?”
I sat with my mouth agape for a moment, what was she expecting me to do in the dark, in the fog, in the middle of the axe murderer infested woods?  
Finally I said, “Get in, I’ll take you into Vestry Hollow, you can find a mechanic there.”
She looked at me blankly for a moment then nodded to herself and sort of drifted around to the passenger side and got in.  We started off towards town and I tried to get a little conversation going.  I asked her if she was from around here,  I thought I knew all the girls in town but there were some from the outlying farms who went up to Creston for school and I wouldn’t know them if they fell in my soup (or jumped out of the fog in front of my car).  All her answers just kind of drifted off into nothing until I finally gave up and we drove in silence.  Suddenly, as we came up on a driveway with a bright yellow mailbox she piped up and said, “Ooo, this is my uncle’s house, you can drop me here.”  I tried to go down the lane but there was a closed gate blocking my way, the girl got out, I thought, to open the gate. Instead she simply waved and slipped behind it, her red sweater vanishing back into the mist nearly as quickly as she’d  appeared out of it.  I got out  and called after her, “Hey, dumb girl! You can’t go out there on your own, Micheal Myers will get you or something!”
There was no answer and I certainly wasn’t going out there into the psycho infested fog.  I decided to come back tomorrow in the light of day to check on her then went back to town.
So the next morning in the warm, lovely light of psychotic-free daytime I made my way back out to find the yellow mailbox.   Finding it a little farther along than I’d thought it was I got out and opened the gate and drove on through up to the house.  The first thing I saw when the house came in view was a car with the front end completely smashed in.  I went up to the door and rang the bell, a very drawn looking man opened the door and looked at me with sad eyes.  Behind him in the living room sofa sat a woman in black sobbing inconsolably and clutching a bit of red fabric.  My heart dropped suddenly as I started thinking of my last comment calling the girl dumb and making axe murderer jokes.  
“Were you a friend of Trisha’s?”  The man asked sadly.
“Um, I think I gave her a ride, what happened?” I squeaked out.
“Oh,” he seemed at a loss before continuing, “She went off the road yesterday morning,  died instantly they say, thank God.  We didn’t find her ‘til this morning, I can’t imagine what it would have been like  for her if she’d still been alive all that time waiting for someone to find her.”  He dropped his head, shaking it gently before he said, “The strangest thing, though, was that axe sticking out of the windshield.”

Comments

The story of picking up a hitchhiker and discovering she's a ghost is a chilling classic. You did it very well and made it your own. My heart just about jumped into my throat at the last line. I wasn't expecting that at all.

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Chilling, to say the least. A story well told, Dragon.

Answer 4

Every town has a ghost story.  My town has its share, and I have heard them all.  Each story ends the same, but the details always differ depending on who is telling it.  That is how “true” stories turn into urban legend.  But the scariest stories are the ones that never get told.  Personal experiences that are so disturbing, the victims would rather not revisit them…like the one I had during the summer of 1987.

After twenty years of military service, my father moved us to Oklahoma to take over the family farm.  Life was a simple but pleasant routine then.  My dad and two brothers worked the fields.  Mom kept up the house.  Being only seven,  I had no real responsibility.  After my chores were finished, I would spend my days outside—playing, exploring, and getting into trouble.  I was always looking for the ultimate adventure.

The southern border of our farm was a long gravel road that ran east to west.  Across the road was another field mostly used for grazing—flat and full of tall wild grass and flowers.  I was forbidden to play in the neighboring field.  My parents constantly warned me to stay away from there.  But I had been to every corner of our own property.  I needed a new playground.  And that field was perfect because about fifty yards from the road stood the old farmhouse.  

It was magnificent but long abandoned.  I had never even been close to it.  Everything I knew was what I could see from a distance.  Two stories with windows all around.  A barn to the south.  To the east side, a little cobblestone well sitting right outside the entrance.  It had so much potential.  A fort.  A secret base.  But my main interest was in the third floor that had only a single oval window.  That was going to be my room.  

Of course, as with every abandoned farmhouse, this one had a stigma.  Stories about ghosts of the murdered occupants.  My brothers used to say that they could see a light coming from that lonely oval window.  Or shadowy figures looking out of it.  But even as a child I was skeptical.  And my mind was already made up.

The next Sunday, as my parents went on about their usual business, I packed my backpack with paper, pencil, and crayons for jotting down ideas and plans.  I snuck across the road and climbed the barbed-wire fence, taking my time as I crossed the field.  The house was enormous—never seeming very big from a distance—intimidating to look up at from the foot of the entryway.  

The door to the main entrance was missing.  I took a moment to peek inside.  There was no furniture.  No curtains.  The open windows flooded the rooms with sunlight.  Once inside, I was surprised at how sturdy it was.  From its initial appearance, I expected the house to be all but falling apart.  There were portions of wall outside where the siding was gone, exposing the frame, but the inside panels were still intact.  And the inner rooms were typical—cobwebs, dust, and dirt.  The kitchen cabinets had no doors on them.  In fact, there were no doors anywhere.  Only empty hinges.  Even the sinks and bathtub had been removed.  The house was completely bare.  

I explored the entire first floor, searching for a way up.  When I found the stairway, I squealed with delight.  The corridor off of the kitchen opened into a wide foyer and at the center was a winding staircase.  I had never seen anything like it, and I marveled at how it spiraled up into an opening in the middle of the ceiling.   Climbing it was a given, and I did so without caution.

The stairway opened into a central vestibule surrounded by four rooms.  I walked into the northernmost room and could see my parents’ house from the window.  This was the north face…the side of the house visible from the road.  I knew that my room with the oval window was directly above me.  Wheeling around, I discovered a ladder on the back wall adjacent to the door.  It led up into a small hole in the ceiling.  I tried to peer into the opening, but I couldn’t see anything but darkness.  

The ladder surfaced into a narrow passage between two walls.  This wasn’t right.  There was no room.  No window.  Just a bare wall.  There wasn’t even a door.  No access to the room that I was sure was on the other side.  I could see that it had been built out of two-by-six boards.  They hadn’t been cut—whole boards nailed horizontally.  The wall had been constructed in a way that the boards overlapped each other like roof shingles.  There were no seams anywhere and no trace of a door having ever been there.  But, at the bottom of the wall, all along the floor was a three-quarter inch gap.  Sunlight seeped through from the window on the other side.  Why would someone wall off a room?

I was heartbroken but still determined.  This was the whole point after all.  It would have to come down.  I studied it for a moment as I reached around into my backpack.  What would I need to accomplish the task?  Perhaps I could borrow a crowbar without my dad knowing…or even a hammer.  As I pulled out a slip of paper, my pencil fell to the ground and rolled right beneath the gap.  I sighed, frustrated, as I got down on hands and knees to retrieve it.  

Thud

The sound froze me in my place.  

Draaag. Thud.  Draaaag.

Footsteps.  It was the sound of someone taking heavy steps and dragging the other foot.  At first the sound was soft…distant.  But with each step it got louder.  Whatever it was began walking faster.

Thud Drag Thud Drag Thud

I was too suddenly filled with terror to breathe.  I kept my eyes fixated on the floor.  Unable to move and helpless to do anything, I listened as the footsteps got closer and closer.  And then, at the base of the wall where it was just short of touching the floor, there was a sudden break in the sunlight.  Something on the other side was making a shadow; and it was standing right in front of me.  I wanted to run, but I couldn’t make myself move.  Then a different sound…click click click click click click.

The sound of my pencil as it rolled back out from underneath the wall.  

As slowly and as silently as I could, I began to crawl backwards and away from that wall.  I started towards the ladder, pausing only when I heard the unmistakable sound of sobbing.  Softly at first.  Then the crying erupted into deafening wails.  I covered my ears throughout the unearthly howling.  And no sooner than it stopped, the scratching began.  It was almost unbearable, the sound of fingernails on wood.  Furious, violent scratching.

It was trying to get out.  

It was then that the same fear that had kept me so still had suddenly motivated ne to run as far and as fast as I could.  There was no time to look back or even scream.  I ran.  I never stopped.  Not until I was safe in my own home.  

A few weeks later, that old house burned down.  The farmer who owned that field used a common practice of burning off the old grass to nurture the new.  And although he made an attempt to  protect the house by drenching the surrounding ground, it caught anyway and burned until there was nothing left but rubble.  A body was never found.  But from the debris they did pull a metal watering can, a rag doll, and portions of two-by-six boards worn almost paper thin with scratch marks on them.  

I fought away the urge to tell anyone what I had witnessed there.  In the end I never did.  The fear kept me quiet all that time.  Fear of what people would say and think.  But mostly, the fear of seeing what was boarded up in that house.  Of seeing the restless soul that had committed a crime so atrocious that his punishment was to be walled up into that room alive.  Or discovering who could have been so cruel as to build a man his grave before his time to die?  I was too afraid to ever know the real answers.  

I only ever found relief after the house was gone.  Relief that I never had to look at it—to be reminded of it—ever again.  And a relief in hoping that, if there was an eternal prisoner trapped in that attic, maybe he is finally free.

Comments

okay, my comment isn't showing up. I don't know if it's a delay or I pushed the wrong button...

I loved this. So scary, and even scarier because you never know what's behind there. I really really want to know now.

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I got a bit carried away with this.  But I did learn that the maximum characters allowed is 8000.  I had to pare it down a bit to get there, lol.  As long as I'm commenting, I would like to mention that this is LOOSELY based on a true story.  Everything is factual except for the footsteps and scratching/wailing and the Poe-esque buried alive angle.  Other than that...it totally happened.

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If most of it was fabricated, the only thing left is a kid who discovered an abandoned house against their parents' orders.  Then finding a walled in room and getting scared by what it could be.  You did a great job of elaborating on that.

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Oh, wonderful creepy tale!  Love the fact that the pencil comes clicking back out and the line "who could have been so cruel as to build a man his grave before his time to die?"

Excellent contribution.

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I was spellbound, shivers running down my spine. A very descriptive account of a scary situation.

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You had me hanging on your every word.

Answer 5

Uncle Neil always told the stories.  After dinner he would pluck his banjo for a few tunes and then stop abruptly.

"Listen.  Do you hear it?" he would say.

"Hear what, Uncle Neil?  Is this the..."

"Yes.  It's the moan of the ghoul of Bagaha.  Close your eyes tight and try not to scream if he comes too close.  Maybe he won't notice we're here."

Once again we acted terrified - to please him.  It's kind of like when kids pretend to believe in Santa so they don't let their parents down.

"Can you smell him?"  Neil whispered.  We nodded our heads.  It was like the smell of pine and smoke.  We heard the moaning through the trees and knew it was just wind, but we always played along.

Suddenly though, this time the moan got deeper.  We were actually frightened when the wind gusted in and put out our campfire - scattering embers everywhere.

Uncle Neil shouted  "Get up and help me put out these hot embers.  Just kick dirt on them.  We don't want a forest fire."  We were done in about 10 minutes.

There either is a ghoul of Bagaha, or it was a freaky coincidence, or we created the ghoul through our mutual concentration.  I'll never know, but Uncle Neil never told that story again.

Comments

This is giraffe.  I don't know why some of my posts say posted by 'me'.  Some say by 'giraffe'.  I guess there are still bugs to tweak.

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It only says that when you are logged in and looking at your own posts giraffe.  For the rest of us, it says "giraffe" after your responses and comments.  :)

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Really cool story.  Was it the power of evil spirits?  Or just the power of the mind?  I like it.

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Uncle Neil knows ...

Answer 6

Round' the Campfire

Witches pound their chests in glee
As they round the apple tree
When they stop you might not want
To be the one they're out to hunt.

Stirring fast a cauldron boils
Filled with various roots and oils
Take a sip your throat shall burn
The three witches twirl as they churn

Never you worry it'll be over quick
With the swoosh of a witch's broomstick
You�ll fall into the pot with a splash
Your bones will burn and turn to ash.

Comments

charming!

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Yes.  Very romantic.

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I didn't know it,
That you were a poet.

Answer 7

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=113475

They say a picture is worth a thousand words!

My camp-fire story is true: The A259 in Kent, a small road- near a seaside town called Deal, is the final resting place and haunt of "The Grey Lady" a woman of renowned reputation for dalliance despite her marriage to the local pastor.  One night the pastor took his horse and buggy along the road to Dover, to try and find his shameless wife, the sea mists had enveloped the small road at Oxney Bottom, making visibility difficult, the horse raised it's ears nervously and the pastor felt the hackles of his own neck rise as a cackling could be heard in the mists ahead of him.  The fog parted slightly to  reveal a woman in a terrible state of dress, her blouse torn down the front and she was  obviously intoxicated with cheap gin. On closer inspection the pastor recognised his wife and in a fit of anger, rode her down the wheel of his buggy almost severing her legs from the torso.

  The pastor buried the remains beside the road and told everyone that his wife had run away with one of her lovers, everyone believed him because of the shameless behaviour of his wife, and he went on to live another ten years before succumbing to TB.  Over the years a strange legend grew from this crime, of a silent lady, dressed in a grey cloak waiting patiently beside the road, a road that became an important link to the port of Dover.  A motorist who stopped to pick up this women would see her get into the back of his car silently, her face hidden.  But upon turning to introduce yourself to her...you would discover nothing but a chilled waft of air and a small damp patch on the seat...

I went in search of the Grey Lady once with my mate Darran, we drove to the reputed spot on the A259 left our cars and walked up a track beside the road.  It was late, very late and the only illumination we had was the headlights from my car lighting the way ahead.  We could hear foxes shrieking, leaves rustling in a light wind and coppiced trees eerily reflecting back the light looking like still figures in the dark awaiting our approach.  We spoke nervously, and speaking for myself I noted how clammy my hands had become the tension clearly showing.  We had travelled barely 50 feet when the light breeze turned into cold gust that caught both of us by surprise, and call it a trick of the light but one of the assumed trees up ahead seemed to turn toward us.  Turning to Darran in panic and seeing him flee back to the car was enough for me and I followed as quick as I could, leaping into the car and driving home as quick as I was able.  Probably just a trick of light...or was it?

http://www.yourcounty.co.uk/Kent51/oxney.html


If you use the URL above it will take you to a site based on the Oxney Bottom "Grey Lady" accounts from witnesses and Ghost hunters, all have to say one thing in particular that Oxney Bottom basically whats left off Ancient woodland  and Oxney Chapel at night time is the scariest location many have experienced.

Oxney Bottom is generally regarded as one of the most haunted place in Kent, The Grey Lady is only one of the spectres that frequent the woods around here, ghosts range from Roman massacres to headless Highwaymen and a Ghostly coach and horses that forces cars off the road, a boy who fell into a well at the ruins of the nearby Abbey, a sulphurous stream that runs underground and emits a foul smelling odour associated with witch-craft and devilry and many more tales of dread associated with the abandoned Abbey and refectory.  An abbey/chapel that was ruined in the reformation of King Henry VIII in the 1530's and the subsequent abandonment of the long established village of Oxney .

Comments

I really enjoyed this, and want to believe that it was not a trick of the light.

Also...ThinkWrite can edit our posts?

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It's scary and.... contrary to what midnigthtpoet thinks... I personally would want to believe it was a trick of the light. Brrrr..... I'm afraid!!!!!!

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This is a bit close to home for me, Steve. I'm not going that way again.

Answer 8

Déjà vu.

There's a framed print on my study wall.  It's travelled with me from home to home for the past forty years. It's not 'painterly' but is highly detailed and more a statement of fact. My family have never shown any interest in it because they don't 'feel' they have 'been there', as I do …  and yet I can't possibly have been there; it's set in a different era.

The scene is an ancient port, with buildings on top of the sturdy harbour walls. There are warehouses, an inn and other commercial buildings, forming terraces. With the exception of one timbered Tudor building, they're constructed entirely from gray stone; their undulating roofs of slate and tiles are topped by smoking chimneys.  The smoke indicates that there is a gentle breeze, as does the multi-faceted surface of the water. The harbour walls form the foundations of the buildings which stand three and four storeys high, with narrow alleyways running between some of them. One alleyway is like an arched tunnel running through the terrace, and I can see through to the harbour beyond. There are three figures standing at the far end of the 'tunnel', silhouetted in the daylight behind them; a man and a woman with a child. The woman's clothes are long and her skirt slightly flared.

There are walkways around the terraces, wide enough for the loading and unloading of cargo. Of course, there are no cranes or modern machinery for this purpose but the warehouses have pulleys fixed at the highest points. On the outer walls of the harbour, a flight of steps rises straight up from the water to the top of the wall and carries on up through a sloping alley between the 'Ship Inn' and the 'Chandlers'. The other flight rises sideways on to the wall, terminating at the top, opposite a warehouse door.  A large rowing boat is tethered where the steps emerge from the water and a heavy chain hangs from a nearby railing. I can imagine the gentle rocking of the boat and the rise and fall of the tide, lengthening or shortening the flights of steps, according to the time of day.

A tri-masted galleon, with four decks, is passing through the narrow entrance to the harbour; there are three spars to each mast; all sails are furled and tethered to the spars; a murky red flag gently flutters from a pole at the stern. A smaller flag, the Union Jack, flies above it. The ship is end on and going away from me as it enters the harbour. Perhaps the ship is being carried through by its own momentum, sails having been hauled in as it approached the port, or perhaps it's being pulled along by a large rowing boat with several men at the oars … I can only guess at the possibilities. My own mind introduces the sound of creaking ships, of the seagulls circling overhead, of chains being hauled and of the inevitable sound of human voices. There are four tall ships moored within the harbour, their masts towering over the terraces on either side of the entrance; only the top two spars are visible above the roofs, all sails neatly furled and secured. It's a dull day but the scene is alive with atmosphere and of the charm of antiquity.  Men are busy around the warehouses, dealing with cargo stacked on the quayside.

I don't have any romantic notions about the life of the people … they lived in hard times, but I imagine the smell of spices, of tea and tobacco, of unseasoned wood, salty water and the possible smell of squalor and poverty. I don't know why I feel I've been there, but every time I look at the picture I get a feeling of déjà vu.

Comments

Hi, Login.  It's amazing how someone got that whole scene into one picture.  It reminds me of so many population centers where things are so concentrated, they have to make use of every square foot of space.  Nice.

Answer 9

Why, oh why did I go on about that picture!  I've driven everyone away. I'm sitting here alone, gazing into the flickering embers of the campfire - my arms round my shins and my chin on my knees. I'll go and find some more wood in the hope that someone comes back and tells a story worth listening to. The ghost stories were scary but it's even more scary sitting here on my own, with the fire creating moving shadows.

I'm too jittery to go more than a few paces into the thicket.  Ah ... this small bundle of dead wood will bring the fire back up and, hopefully, someone will return and tell another tale. Good, it's crackling now ... I wonder if Dragon has any marshmallows left … “golden brown and hot and squooshy in the middle” … mmm!  What a relief that midnightpoet made it through the town traffic … the homemade peanut brittle was excellent ... and she tells a good story.

I don't even mind if puzzler croons, just so long as she comes back. Hopefully, stevedover will play a lively tune on his alto-sax. I wouldn't mind joining Normal in a reel … someone else can play the paper and comb. A few hours ago Qsilv got us all dancing around the campfire. Seeing her dance is like watching swirling petals. She had previously trickled the chocolate covered candied ginger into our eager, sticky palms … it was intended to lure Baldur out of the gopher hole but we offered him the Saskatoon berry pie, instead (don't know why we did that … I'd love some of the pie right now). He looked good in his kilt … after we'd brushed the mud off him, straightened his tam-o'shanter and refilled the wee flask that he keeps in his sporran.

The belly dance that danila taught us was a hoot (now where have I picked up that funny word). We were carried away with the dancing and we all forgot about the leftover fireworks that mdawrcn was saving for later. Brigsis had a whole repertoire of jigs to show us. They would go down well now, accompanied by mebu playing the spoons. I'm still humming the song that Lynnspotter sang to us … lot-dah-dah-dah (lot-dah-dah-dah) lot-in-dah-dah-dah … but I can only remember the chorus.

Didn't Lizzi have a whole case of Yellow Tail Shiraz?  Maybe I can persuade Sheftali that I'm old enough to imbibe some of her fine brandy, although I expect she'll offer me hot chocolate as I'm so young (almost).

I never did work out why marg came dressed in a sackcloth shirt, penitential hat and no shoes … she was mumbling something about herbal cigarettes … funny, I'd never thought of her as a hippie … rather tall, slim and elegant was how I'd imagined her. Perhaps she thought it was a fancy-dress party. Oh, where is she …

There were dozens more people, all good fun and lots of cheerful banter; good story tellers such as inked_gemini, Dragon, Doug, giraffe ... and many more folk, their names tumbling through my mind … I can hear their voices now, all enjoying themselves somewhere over there, in the direction of the music.

Darn that picture!  I'll never, ever, ever mention it again.

Comments

Little hoots of laughter mixed with irregular yelps and the occasional magical incantation (aka cuss-word) float through the bramble-filled woods..............

You catch a few glimpses of someone, thrashing at low-hanging branches, smacking her torch against hefty corrugated tree-trunks, disappearing suddenly into clumps of ferns....

...reappearing moments later...  pretty thoroughly bedraggled... Q?!?!

...and you begin to ponder... mmmm... do you reeeeeeeeally want to share the remnants of that berry pie??

..

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Very cool, articulate and creative.  It's a big interesting question mark for everybody.

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Yes, yes ,yes ... I reeeeeeally, reeeeeeally want to share the remnants of the berry pie. 'So glad you came back, Q ... and giraffe, too.  Maybe more will follow you ... here, have a sup of this Gewürztraminer with your remnants ...

Answer 10

"Mist" by Ron

The very first reports came in from Manhattan; an unexplained mist at a hospital – it was investigated as a gas leak.

But soon there were more reports: hospitals, old-folks homes, battlefields and even street corners. This mist was everywhere.

Literally – it was everywhere.

No nation on earth was without incident. Stationary mist was reported across the globe.

And the reports continued to pour in as daylight crossed the planet.

Investigators were baffled. The standing mist was visible to anyone; a shapeless, still form. The aggregate was always at hospitals and battle fields.

Across the planet hospitals shut down as the mist gathered and thickened; except new hospitals. They all seemed immune.

Doctors and nurses were all over the evening news – speaking to the strange fog of their establishments. One Surgeon reported “It was so thick you couldn’t see across the hall.” And another said “It was like London on a pisser ya know?”

Then suddenly, early yesterday morning, in Africa, a report came in of a solid-body mist. They called it first apparition.

She was obviously a woman. But she was short in stature and long in the jaw. Early reports said she was not, in fact, human, but something else entirely – something earlier.

Then everything changed.

All the mist, everywhere, took form. And the first reports spread across the globe with an alacrity that surprised all pundits.

The mist took form – everywhere.

They were the dead.

All of the dead.

Do the math.

A lot of humans have died on the planet.

And here they all were. Everywhere.

There was a nearly un-noticed report of some whale and dolphin shapes in the ocean but it got lost in all the noise of the event.

The news and internet was abuzz with speculation. Cameras watched the forms. All eyes were turned to them. Religious groups said it was the beginning of the end. Scientists said nothing.

The figures stood, sometimes overlapped but always clear. A recent count put them at 75 billion – all across the planet. They stood. Still.

Humanity waited.

Comments

This is my best ever - I don't care if anyone disagrees. Yay!

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I agree with you Ron.  At first I was thinking, "Oh here we go again with another John Capenter "Fog" story, but you really put a warp on it that I didn't expect.  All of the worlds dead turned into a mist and visible, true genious!  Ok, so what happens next, there has to be a continuation.

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smiles...... this reads like cool water on a warm day. I think I understood it somehow from the start, but for certain at "visible to anyone; a shapeless, still form" ...and it STILL held me, lips slightly parted, eyes drinking in each line.  

imo, it'd be a pity to follow this one with just a cheap thrill, but if you have another layer to add that carries the same mood, I'd love to see it.

; >

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I have no idea what happens next. I had this idea, wrote this quickly and posted it. The idea has some more flesh to it which would just make the story longer. But as is so often the case I have no plot ideas. Doesn't matter tho. It stands up on it's own as is I think.

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Yes, it does stand well on its own,  but it would make for a good movie plot.  Well then again, it would probably just turn out like "The Fog".  Never mind.

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Unless.... It doesn't :-)

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Oh, it does ... but as with all good stories, we'll look for the sequel.

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Wow. That was great!!