The Wind Chime

      Frank Bauman did not receive a lot of fan mail but he got some. He was not that kind of writer and, frankly, he was proud of the fact. He didn't have a new book out every month. He was never on the New York Times Bestseller List. He was an underground hit, he liked to think, a cult classic. And with the fans he did have, mostly middle age, always strange, he had built firm relationships. In fact, he had married one, at least for a little while. The fan mail he got was often deeply personal. Often artwork, caricatures of his own creations in his stories. Hideous recreations of monsters or dismembered body parts, self published fan fiction, paintings and the occasional nude photo. Each package was sent with love and received with equal amounts of love. Frank Bauman was unafraid of his dear fans, he felt a communion with them.

      One afternoon on a brisk autumn morning in October Frank received a package. He did not recognize the address. It was unusual for a fan to send such an unassuming gift. It was just a normal UPS box, the return address was a PO box in the Illinois area, nearby. He took it to his kitchen, laying it on his gray granite counter top next to a few wine bottles and a bottle opener in the shape of a human skull. He pulled out a mini samurai sword from below the counter, his box opener, another fan present, and cut the box open with a few skillful swings.

     Inside the cardboard box, among the Styrofoam peanuts was a narrow case, closed and wrapped in leather, with a light blue sticky note. Frank pulled the case out of the box and pulled off the sticky note. “Every time a bell rings. . .” it said. Written in black sharpie. A line from It's a Wonderful Life and also the name of Frank's first novel about a cursed bell in a church. Jack frowned and opened the box. Inside was a wind chime, shiny and metal. 6 bells hung from strings which fed into a second layer of 6 which fed into a third and final layer of 6. At the very top holding all the bells was a thin metal panel painted black.

Frank pulled the box closer to see and in the shifting angle of his kitchen lights he caught sight of a shape moving in the black of the panel. Barely visible, black upon black, subtle and strange. He liked the style. It was some kind of creature the size and shape of a bear. It's fur was given a jagged unrealistic feel etched on like teeth. It was bent over on all fours and looking over its shoulder at Frank but instead of a snout or teeth like a bear it had more of a face like a man. A man that seems utterly aware of its own deformity, seeming angry, terrified and helpless.

      Frank pulled the chimes out of the case for a closer look and a piece of paper fell out onto the counter. It looked like a scrap piece of notebook paper. Folded up many times into the size of a dime. He put the box back down and the picked paper up and unfolded it. Another message written in a different style. Much more messy and with a dull pencil. Don't let it ring! It said. Frank laughed. A good touch, he thought. He even noticed a drop of blood on the paper. A little overdone but sweet.

He pulled the chime out from the felt inner casing and the bells swung back and forth together. No sound came out. He frowned and shook the chimes again. Still no sound. He pulled up one of the bells and inspected the inside. There was no clapper init. There were no clappers in any of the bells. They were permanently silenced. He shrugged and looked for a place to hang it. In the entrance way from his kitchen to his living room there was a nail protruding from the head of the doorway so he hung it there and stood back. Just a temporary location, he thought while opening a beer with a skull. He sat back on one of his black bar stools and sighed.

      As the Wind Chime swung back and forth, finding a comfortable hang in its new location, the golden evening sunlight streamed in from the kitchen window and caught the shape etched in black. As it swung, the light picked up the shape of the creature etched there and the creature seemed to move unnaturally with each swing. Frank laughed to himself and took another swig from his beer and headed to his study to write.

      After several hours of light progress but heavy drinking. Frank crouched over his computer screen leaning on a half empty bottle trying to think of the word for when you are trapped into staring at something. He knew it was kind of like hypnotized but different and not so hard to say. Suddenly he heard a soft ring coming from behind him. He turned around in his swivel chair.

      He had been so engrossed in his drinking and his writing that he had forgotten to turn any lights on in his house. Just the soft blue light of his computer screen lit the surrounding area. The door to his living room was open ahead of him and as he sat looking out into the blackness thinking about what could possibly have made the noise he suddenly felt very cold and uneasy. He picked up his bottle and, clutching it to his chest, stood up and flipped a light switch on his wall all the while looking out the door as if sure something was there watching him. The light came on and for a brief moment he froze at a dark shape motionless in the distance but he soon realized it was just his living room arm chair. He went to the door of his study and flipped on the light in the living room giving the room a quick glance. He looked over towards his kitchen. Also nothing there but hanging over the doorway was the wind chime swaying slightly. He frowned and wandered over to the chime. Looking up he scanned each individual bell, still empty inside every one. He flicked one of the bells with his finger but only received a dull hollow clink in response like a coin being placed on a counter top. The chime swung more violently now in complete silence. Frank drained his bottle and put it on the counter top and walked back to his study. His heart was still beating hard and he smiled at his own paranoia. He had a great idea for his story.

      He sat back down to the computer and started typing away furiously. Transfixed! That was the word he was looking for!

Jasmine stood transfixed, gazing into the eyes of the beast. Its teeth dripping with the blood of her lover who now lay groaning on the granite steps behind it. There was a smell of decay and of death and she could see bits of hair and a fingernail on the beast's tongue. Jasmine's shirt clung to her supple body and heaving breast from cold sweat. Every part of her being was telling her to run but she could not move she was frozen in panic and in terror. The dark priest stood to her left with his ebony staff raised above him laughing at his dark creation. The hellish portal, cast in a swirling gray cloud, began slowly to shrink and before her the beast inched ever closer to...

     There was a crash. Frank jumped from his seat at the sound. He ran into the next room only to find the wind chime now lying on the ground. He strode up to it this time a little less confidently. Laughing uneasily to himself he looked up at the doorway guessing the nail had fallen out from the weight but the nail still hung there as if nothing had happened. He reached up and tried to pull it out but he couldn't move it. He stepped over the chimes and went to the window of his kitchen over the sink. Guessing that there had been a gust of wind but the window was closed. He had closed it yesterday because the October winds had become too brisk and uncomfortable at the sink. He walked back to the chime and bent to pick it up. He walked to the counter where the chime's case still lay and he placed them gently back inside the box trying to talk himself down from his building terror.

     Lowering the chime back into the box he glanced back up at the solid black, metal paneling. He could no longer see the etching of the beast. He tilted the box to catch the light again but still there was nothing. It was just a solid black piece of metal. He frowned and pulled the chimes back out of the box and held them over his head as close to the light as he could. Examining both sides. Still nothing. Had he only imagined the horrific beast? Was it a trick of the metal? Some kind of time release screen that faded in the low light?

As he held the chimes out at arms length above his head, pondering to him himself, he heard again the soft rustling ring. A chill ran down his back. Before him he held the chimes completely still and there was no breeze in the house but there in front of him the bells of the chime began to ring. Softly at first and then harder as if caught in a thunderstorm but they were not moving and neither was he. And then behind him on his neck he felt a soft bristle of fur and the sour wet heat of breath. He dropped the chime and swung around. The chime crashed onto the tile counter top, slid down and dropped again onto the floor. In front of Frank there was nothing but his empty kitchen and the doorway leading into his living room and office.

      Cold sweat beaded on his forehead and his heart was again beating so hard he could hear the rushing of blood being pumped through his veins. He was keenly aware of the chime lying at his feet but he made no move to pick it up or even touch it. He was breathing hard now, glancing around the room in the kind of frantic searching manner of a man who doesn't want to find what he is looking for. Suddenly, making up his mind, he ran through his living room towards his closet and swung open the doors. At the base of the closet was a small wardrobe. He wrenched the cover open and pulled out the heavy winter blanket and sheets inside and running back to the now silent chime threw the pile on it.

      ″That will silence you!″ He said. His eyes now glazed with maddening terror. He bent down and picked up the bundle of sheets with the muffled chime inside, ran back to the closet, threw the whole mess inside the wardrobe and shut it. Running into his office he picked a couple old hardback of his first novel, ″Womb Wombats,″ and placed them on top of the wardrobe for good measure. He slammed shut the closet door and looked around. Noticing the couch nearby he grabbed the closest arm and slid it over with much effort until it stopped against the closet door and then he backed up. All the moving around had calmed him down a bit more and as he stood looking at the closet and breathing heavily he began to chuckle again to himself. Half out of amusement and half to hear his own voice.

      He thought of calling someone just to tell them the story and hear them laugh. He checked his watch, 2:53. He knew someone would be up but whomever he called at this hour would know that Frank was really shaken up about the whole thing and he was not sure what that would do to his reputation as a horror writer. He took a deep breath and suddenly felt exhausted. Perhaps it was time to go to bed. He did not really want to go back into his office to shut down his computer. He didn't want to explore any other dark corners of his house. In fact, he did not even want to turn any of the lights off. Better to leave them on and just go to sleep. He headed to his bedroom at the opposite end of his kitchen and shut the door. Taking off his shirt and straightening out his dark red comforter, still unmade from the night before, he sat down on the bed rubbing his eyes. The lamp next to his bed was an antique with a stained glass shade and was held upright by some gothic style talons. He shivered a bit in spite of himself at the sight of the thing and then chuckling lay back in bed. He thought of the chime buried deep beneath the sheets in his wardrobe. It would make for a great story tomorrow morning when his panic would be ebbed by the morning light. He reached up, clicked off his lamp and closed his eyes.

      He was very tired and it did not take long before he was drifting off into the world of his dreams. He was in that sweet spot, the limbo between waking and dreaming when the ringing started again. For a moment he lay still as his mind slowly made its return from the edge of the dream world and back to reality. There was another soft rustling ring. He shot up in his bed. Straining his ears. There it was again. Muffled but undoubtedly the same ring as before. The ringing of a light summer breeze. The ringing that would make one think of sitting on a porch in summer drinking coffee and watching the sunrise. And then the wind picked up and the ringing became more constant and he felt his heart begin to beat faster and the hairs on his neck stand up. The ringing was no longer peaceful sounding but now harsh and panicked. As if the chimes were trying to free themselves from their trap or trying to warn Frank of something. Frank sat in his bed listening in stillness praying the sound would stop. Praying that it was just a dream or some automatic speaker system. Some practical joke from one of his fans. This was the kind of thing they would do, he told himself. It was clever and artistic and right up his alley. He would appreciate it if it were not so late and if he were not so alone. And the ringing was so endlessly annoying. Sooner or later the batteries would run out or something. It could not last forever like this. And then he saw something move.

      A shadow eclipsed the kitchen light which streamed beneath his door. He could not move or even breath now but just sat in his bed looking at the shadow. There was a shuffle as the doorknob began to turn. Frank was now so terrified tears were streaming from his eyes. The doorknob reached it's final position and the door, slowly, crept open. The ringing of the chimes now grew to an impenetrable pitch. Ringing with terror or with victory, the sound enveloped the entire house and in its ceaseless noise Frank screamed and his scream rose in depth and in volume until the sound of his screams and the ringing of the chime could no longer be separated. And then, just as it had started, the ringing stopped and the house was again silent.

End.

By Sam Patwell.

Small Hands and Smaller Tendrils

     Sarah stood and ran to the next pool in the rocks with her yellow bucket and red net looking for minnows. She was annoyed. Her Dad had told her it was going to be exactly the same here in Massachusetts but there were fewer minnows. She could tell.

      Her Dad lay on the beach, lounging on a towel. He wore sunglasses and his nose pointed up towards the afternoon sun. His face was dry and wrinkled and he had a beard and wavy hair that was partially covered by a baseball hat. Beside him was a glass with some whiskey in it. He had been drinking more since they got there. That was something else that had changed. The minnows and the drinking.

      She found a hole in the rocky pier she was standing on and she looked down into the hole in search of anything interesting but she could not see. She tried to fit the net inside but it would not fit so she turned it around and prodded at the hole with its the handle. A crab climbed out and, scurrying sideways towards the edge of the pier, plunged upside down into the ocean. She watched the crab go but did not chase it. She was not interested in crabs, she wanted to find the minnows. She skipped over a couple of other rocks to another hole following the pier as it led out to deeper and deeper water. It was high tide and the water had almost reached the top of the final rock in the pier. She knew it was not the ideal time to find minnows, low tide was much better, but her Dad had not woken up in time to take her.

      She hopped over a small gap in the pier and looked back through the crack to see if there was anything interesting but there was only smooth red rock and some barnacles and a Smarties wrapper. She continued down the pier, peering into holes as she went but finding nothing of substance. When she reached the end of the pier she swiped at the surface of the water with her net in frustration and crouching, set her bucket down and looked at her reflection in the water.

      She had recently become very interested in her own reflection. It was odd, she did not really remember noticing, or even seeing it before. But now, every time she saw a mirror or a window she would stop and look at herself, trying to memorize the texture of her face and the color of her eyes and the shapes in the knots of her long blonde hair. As she looked in the water she examined her nostrils. One was a little bigger than the other, she thought, one was shaped like a perfect oval and the other had a weird sort of curved egg shape to it. Like the end of a finger with a protruding finger nail.

      As she stared she noticed some movement from behind her nostrils. It was small and it shimmered slightly in the sunlight and she thought excitedly that it might be a minnow. She reached down gently towards her reflection with the net and then took a quick shallow scoop. The end of her net dipped into the water smoothly and stayed there. She pulled on it but it didn't budge. She couldn't grasp it well enough from her crouched position so she stood up and, with all her might, yanked up on the handle and it came free. On the other end was a tangled mass that she first thought was a coil of rope, but then, when it began to move, she saw was an octopus clinging for dear life onto the end of her net. Its tentacles squirmed endlessly and its unusually large head hung down towards the ocean and with its big black eyes it stared back at her curiously. There was a brief moment in which the two of them stared at each other, both with their abnormally large dark eyes and then suddenly she heard her name being called. She turned around and saw her dad standing on the beach, his hairy gut and beard and the brim of his hat all sticking out trying to escape to the ocean. He was holding his empty glass and was yelling her name over the heads of two young women playing with a little boy. Sarah crouched back down and put the end of the net into the water again.

      “Sorry Mr. Tentacles I have to go.” The octopus let go of the red ring of the net and slid down under the shadow of the rocks. Giving an eight legged wave goodbye.

      From the edge of the rocky pier Sarah ran back with her yellow bucket and her red net towards her father who was now walking away from her up to the road back to their house which was easy walking distance from the beach but just far enough that you couldn't see it.

      Her father walked with his shoulders hunched forward. They too had been burned to a dark leather. She didn't remember him walking like that before the move. She figured it had something to do with the liquor and the smell. A lot of things changed about her father when his smell began to change. He used to smell good. Like a closet filled with stuffed animals mixed with the smell of sweat and bread. But now everything was covered by this one smell. It smelled like vinegar and cat pee. She had to hold her breath when he bent over her to kiss her on the cheek when she went to bed at night. She hoped that her mother would be coming soon. Her father had told her about the move to Massachusetts last minute. He said her mother could not go yet, she had to work, but she would meet up with them in October. Sarah's mother was a powerful and energetic woman. She was opinionated and angry and happy and she wore no makeup but she wore strong smelling oils that she bought at health food stores. Her dad was better when they were together. Alone, her dad was different. He was lonely, she supposed. He missed her and Sarah missed her too.

She ran up to her dad who was now several paces in front of her walking up the hill, staring forward in a bit of a trance. She took his hand.

      “I miss mom.” She said, “Do you?” She thought she saw his face twitch slightly at the edge of his eyes and he looked down at her and smiled through his beard but he looked more strained than happy.

“Of course my little mermaid.” He said and then he looked away and his hand went slack but she hung on anyway and they walked the rest of the way back in silence.

The house was quiet and dark and when they went in Sarah's father strode to the cabinet, pulled out a bottle, poured it and then he sat on an uncomfortable looking pink upholstered chair in the living room. The house was a vacation rental. Furnished by the old owner and her husband in the eighties. Everything was old fashioned and foreign and dusty smelling. The television had rabbit ears and there was a rotary phone and History Channel VHS tapes and frills on everything. The house was very dark compared to the brightness of the beach and it was also very cool and Sarah shivered a little in her bathing suit and knelt down on the carpeted floor of the living room and picked out a colored pencil from a clear and incredibly well organized plastic box.

      “I found an octopus today.” She said. But her father had fallen asleep so she started to draw it.

      The next day they were back at the beach. She ran back out to the pier with her bucket and her net. This time they were a little earlier and the high tide was a bit later and so the water was a bit more shallow around the rocks and she thought that surely some minnows would be caught among the holes and crags this time. But as she walked down the pier she did not get much better luck than she had had the day before. Soon she had reached the end of the pier seeing nothing more exciting than a discarded and rusted penny. She meandered along the stones at the edge, peering out into the brightness of the water which was lapping gently on the rocks and wondered if she would see the octopus again. She couldn't see anything but some seaweed sticking out from behind the rocks and she bent down to look under the water but still she could not see anything below the blue reflection of the sky and the steady rippling. The wind was blowing hard that day and it was quite cool and pleasant. Her father was back in the same position on the beach, with his baseball cap tucked down to shield the only hairless part of his face from the sun and his big gut hanging out from the end of his graying T shirt. He did not have a drink this time and this seemed to make him a bit uneasy as he kept scratching himself and swatting at imaginary flies. There were many people on the beach today which was partly why he wasn't drinking and also it was before ten O'clock and he had made a solemn vow not to drink before ten.

      Sarah looked out ahead of her at the small island that sat in the bay far out beyond the channel that weaved its way ahead of her and the rocky pier. Every so often a boat would motor by and she could smell meat grilling in the air and she could smell suntan lotion and salt and plastic and the usual beach smells. She reached her hand into the ocean and stroked one of the leaves of seaweed. It felt smooth and when she pulled her hand out of the water she found that it was covered in some gooey, clear slime. She wiped it off on the rocks and rinsed her hands in the water. The goo on the rock instantly dried into a white streak. She frowned and put her hand back into the seaweed this time reaching deep into it as far as she could, hoping to scoop up all the slime. Plunging as far as she could into the depths something grabbed her hand. Not firmly or abruptly but calmly like interlacing hands and she pulled back not so much in panic but in curiosity and at the other end of her hand was the octopus. She watched the octopus as it watched her and she felt a strange connection to it as it sat there again, just waiting and staring and content like a dog getting its head scratched.

Sarah had never had a pet before and she had never been much of a doll person but she felt an odd attachment to the octopus then that she could not quite explain. And the calmness of the thing seemed to rub off on her a bit as they sat there at the end of the pier and relaxed together.

      “You know” Sarah said. “You are a very odd creature. And you do not look so nice either if you don't mind me saying.” The Octopus stared back in reply.

      “I would like to take you home but I suppose you might not want that and plus, Dad would make me bring you back.” The Octopus lifted its head a little and pulled itself up her arm.

      “Dad's not been so good recently.” She continued. “He's been a lot more angry and tired. I think he misses mom. She's back home you know. She had to stay for work. She's coming in October. October 15^th. I can't wait. October is my favorite month, not just cause of that, also cause it smells so good and everything is orange(my favorite color) and I get to eat apple pie! I bet October must be your favorite month too!” The octopus continued to stare and climb up her arm now at her shoulder, half of its limbs were wrapped around her arm and the other half were stretched out towards her head and her long blonde hair. She kept talking.

      “People guess that my favorite month is May. That's cause my birthday's in May and cause flowers bloom then and cause it's almost summer so I must like May but I actually don't. I like October and I'm not just saying that because you're here.” The octopus was now hanging a bit off her face, enveloping her left ear and her head was bent over a bit with the weight of him and she giggled a little because she was very ticklish. When the octopus was finally seated and comfortable on the top of her head she stood up and it let some of her hair down that had bunched up in the move and now in her reflection she looked a bit more natural, except, perhaps, for the octopus on her head.

      “I suppose this means you want to come visit.” She said. “But don't be angry when we have to come back. I told you my Dad wont let you stay.”

Sarah walked back down the pier, the tide had come in a bit while she was busy with the octopus. She bent down instinctively to inspect the crack in the rocks again as she passed and the octopus wrapped its tentacles around her ears to keep itself from slipping off. There were no minnows in the crack and Sarah, discouraged, retreated back to the beach to her dad who, it looked like, had finally drifted off into a fitful sleep. When Sarah reached him she plopped down and started to dig a hole in the sand and the octopus blinked slowly into the mid-afternoon sun.

      Her father woke from what might have been a bad dream with a sputter and sat up suddenly with his baseball cap still pulled over his face, the brim pushed into his beard. He pulled the hat back onto his head and looked around panicked until he saw Sarah standing next to him waist deep in sand and pointing to her head.

      “Hey Dad look, I found an octopus!”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

      “That's nice honey. Let's get lunch 'kay?” He pushed himself up with a grunt and Sarah started digging herself out of the hole and the octopus, shaken by the sudden movement, was woken from its nap.

Walking up to the house she didn't mention the octopus again. She knew how her dad got when she repeated herself and she didn't want to push her luck now that at seemed he didn't mind the guest. But it seemed odd to her that he did not even notice the thing. She walked a little ahead of him as they headed up the hill and the octopus bounced up and down with her stride, under the nose of her father but still he did not say anything. She figured that he was still a bit bleary eyed from the nap. She wondered how long the octopus would stay but she was not too worried about it. She liked the company. When they got home her dad made turkey sandwiches for them. She did not like her dad's sandwiches. They were “dad” sandwiches, made with a lot of mayonnaise and a lot of cold and unappetizing pieces of slimy lunch meat and no vegetables or anything else and on thick brown bread that was hard to swallow. She tried to feed some of it to the octopus but it did not take it. She did not blame him.

      While they ate the phone rang suddenly. They had been sitting in silence at the dining room table in the small kitchen of their home. It was very dark again and quiet and she could hear the neighbor mowing his lawn across the street and she could feel the octopus stretching a little and getting more comfortable on her head and her dad sighed and began to take a sip of his first drink of the day and just as the rim touched his lips the phone rang and he jumped and spilled it on the front of his shirt. Cursing he slammed the glass down on the table and stood up.

      “What!” He yelled into the receiver. He waited a beat and then his body seemed to deflate and he  glanced back at Sarah quickly and spoke again much softer.

      “Hi, um... I've been...” he coughed, “. . .we've been waiting for your call.” There was a long pause as he drew a line in the grout of the kitchen tile. “What do you mean. . .but. . .I. . .I thought you said you'd be coming in. . .you told Sarah. . .you told your daughter you'd be coming in October.” Another beat and her father picked up the gray rotary land line and walked into the next room but the cord would not let him go far so he could only stand awkwardly in the doorway holding the phone with his back to the dining room and to Sarah and the octopus.

      “I thought you said you just needed some time. . .I know. . .I know but. . .we've been just waiting here and I—. He turned around and looked at Sarah who was still trying to choke down her sandwich and was looking at him intently.

     “Hold on.” He said into the phone.

      “Sarah, go to your room please.” Sarah stood up without a word and she and the octopus headed back to her room.

      After the phone call they had stopped visiting the beach. Her father, at first had been possessed by a kind of dark energy and he would tear off into the night leaving Sarah and the octopus by themselves and then would return home early the next morning drunken and stumbling and would start some project like putting screens in the windows or cleaning out the gutters and then by the afternoon he would pass out in a chair and Sarah would make PB&Js and watch TV or color or read. Every so often she would take a quick shower so the octopus wouldn't get dried out. Mostly they stayed inside because she didn't want to leave her father alone but she could tell the octopus was getting antsy so she would go outside and sit in the lawn and the Octopus would stretch out its tendrils under the beating sun and vibrate softly in pleasure on Sarah's head as she sat still with her legs crossed. Her father soon lost his energy, and his will, and eventually he would spend whole days sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking.

      Sarah missed her mother too, though she knew better than to show it in front of her father. Some nights she would lie awake at night staring out at the ceiling, tears streaming down her face but soon a soft, slightly moist tendril would curl around her cheek and brush them away and then she would feel better. The days passed into weeks and then months. She knew her father would have to go back to work soon and she knew he knew it too. He had reached a third stage, the stage of crankiness, which would quickly devolve into rage and he would fly around the house yelling about how she always left her colored pencils lying around. Sarah tried to bear it as best she could with her head held high. The octopus was growing too. Its tendrils now reached past her waist and its body was having an increasingly hard time getting comfortable on top of her small head. She found herself being more careful as she walked. She tried not to lean in to any turn too hard or quickly and the action made her seem very calculated and mature. To her dismay, her father, far from questioning why she had such a ridiculous creature on her head all the time had become furious with the way that she walked as a result of the octopus. “Stuck-up” he had called her once, “just like your mother.”

      Sarah was not yet ten and the octopus was a big responsibility. She had long since given up on the idea that it would leave on its own. Sometime in the night when she was asleep she felt sure that she would wake up and it would be gone but it never left. No, it was there to stay, and she took care of it as best she could. She made a bath for it(and for herself since they were now almost never apart). She let it out for some fresh air at least once a day and made it breakfast lunch and dinner. This last part had become recently difficult since her father no longer cared enough to buy food and they were down to the very last bit of peanut butter and bread from the freezer.

      Sarah's father was hardly ever home now. Some days he would tell her that he had been out looking for a job. Other days he wouldn't bother and instead tell her it was none of her damn business. Regardless, Sarah made sure to make three sandwiches every night and leave the third one on the kitchen table before going to bed. The octopus was growing at such a rapid rate (Sarah thought perhaps from the new sandwich diet) that it could no longer wrap its large legs around Sarah's head so instead its legs hung down and brushed the floors as she walked, one tendril wrapped around her forehead for stability, like the brim of a giant baseball cap. September was approaching and Sarah often wondered where she would be going to school this year or if she would ever be getting back to Maine to see her friends. But the days went by largely uneventful and she lived her life and often went to the beach on her own now and felt happy to have a friend to talk to. Which she often did. She talked to the octopus about everything, about how much she missed her mom and how she missed her dad too. And that she wished they would get back together and she wondered if she was part of the reason why they had broken up. The octopus reassured her that it was not her fault.

      And then one day her father came home angry. It was late afternoon. Only about 5:00 O'clock and she heard the door slam from her bedroom. It was very early for her father to come home, he spent most days out past midnight if he came home at all, and she went to the door to ask what was the matter. She walked down the beige carpeted hallway towards the living room. It was only 5:00 but the light was very dark. There were storm clouds overhead and everything was blue and gray and the air had that moist tense feel to it of a coming exhalation. Her father stood by the window holding an empty glass. He had untied the curtains, they had never been used before, but he stood in between them awkwardly letting the furls lean against his head. Very quietly Sarah said “Dad?” across the living room from the hallway and he spun around in panic but looked more relieved when he saw who it was.

      “Oh. Sarah.” He said lamely.

      “What's going on?” She asked. Her father looked back over his shoulder at the curtains and closed them carefully. A useless gesture given the fact that all the other windows in the room still stood uncovered. From the dull light of these other windows Sarah could see that her father's face looked very different. It was dark blue and black and red, more sunken and he hunched over a bit more than usual. Sarah noticed a red stain on the lip of his glass.

      “Look Sarah,” he said. “I'm in a bit of trouble here I-” Suddenly he straightened up and adjusted his jacket and set his glass down on the seat of the chair next to him with the faded pink upholstery and, fiddling with the curtain frills behind his back, began to search for his fatherly voice.

      “Um.... Sarah, look. . .I know that. . . Well, we have both been going through some...stuff...anyway. Your mother left us, as you know, and I. . . well, I've made a few mistakes (who hasn't?) and. . .Sarah, I need you to get your stuff.”

The octopus, which had been taking a brief nap stirred. It had grown so big that Sarah's knees buckled a bit from the movement and her father, misunderstanding, took a step forward.

      “Sarah don't give me that drama. I need you to hurry!.” He rushed past her and into the hallway. Sarah noticed a piece of a muddy foot print stained the collar of his jacket as she watched him head to her room. She stood there in the hall and the octopus, now very awake, was moving its tendrils across the carpet, fidgeting out of late afternoon hunger. Sarah strode into the kitchen and, opening the refrigerator, pulled out a jar of Jelly. The last one. It was empty. She opened it and passed it up to the octopus who peaked inside and threw it on to the floor in frustration.

      “I'm sorry but we don't have anything else.” Sarah said. “We're all out.” The octopus began to swing its tendrils in annoyance. Slowly at first and then with more fervor. Sarah could barely keep her balance with the weight of the thing.

      “Don't!” She cried as she grabbed for the counter to hold herself upright. “I'm sorry but I don't know what you want! I can't feed you anymore!” The octopus began to take swings at the chairs in the room knocking them over, tossing old Tupperware and dirty glasses onto the floor. Sarah heard her father yell something from the next room but the octopus was swinging itself around so violently that she could only focus on keeping a firm grip on the counter top. Her father appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

      “Sarah! What in hell are you-” But he was cut off by the sound of a car door slamming. His face immediately went white and he put his finger to his lips.

     “Sarah don't say. . .just don't move okay?” He moved out of the doorway towards the front of the house. As soon as he left the octopus made one last mighty swing and Sarah, momentarily distracted by her father, lost her grip and sat down hard on the kitchen floor. The octopus, finally able to reach the ground began to pull itself along the floor with Sarah being dragged underneath. It made its way to the backdoor and preceded out onto the lawn and down the hill towards the water. Sarah tried to stand up but the thing had grown too heavy. She was still stuck underneath it.

      “Wait!” She cried and, looking back, she caught a brief glimpse of her father talking animatedly to three large men carrying baseball bats. She yelled again for the octopus to stop but it would not listen. The octopus was hungry. It had gone too long without a snack. It had been gone too long from the sea. Sarah wondered what it would eat.

      ″Minnows,″ She thought. ″Of Course! Maybe we'll be able to find some minnows.″

The End. 

By Sam Patwell 

Radio Silence

      Paul bent down to tie his boot laces. Sweat dripped onto the soil from the tips of his hair. He coughed as he stood and pulled his shovel from some loose dirt. The sun was rising and the sky stretched, heavy with thick red clouds. His shadow stretch as well, far from his shoes and hoisted the spade onto its shoulder. He turned back to the house, his boots crunching in the frozen dirt and the sound ran off, lost in the great expanse of his land; fifty acres of dark red earth. His small cottage stood before him like an old man alone in the desert. Clutching to the old man's cane stood a woman dressed in a ragged nightgown, the horror in her face voiced only through the frost of her breath. Paul limped towards her, rested his shovel upon the dark wood of the porch and wiped his brow with a rag. The woman had her hand to her mouth now but no sound came from her shaking body as she sank to her knees. Paul did not speak to her but his hands clenched into fists as he passed by. He opened the kitchen door and sat back down to his coffee.

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      Paul distrusted people, especially hospitals “cesspools of sickness” he would say spitting into the dust. He was a lonely, small town man and he preferred it that way. When Emily went into labor he calmly laid her in a bathtub and delivered the baby with his hands still caked in red earth. His wife pleaded briefly to be taken to a hospital “for the baby” but she soon went quiet and bore the pain. People grew tough in Idaho. When his son was born Paul held him upside down and cut his umbilical cord with a pair of garden shears. The boy's eyes were closed and so was his mouth and his chest moved up and down calmly. His wife thought something was wrong but Paul knew everything was perfect, only his boy could enter the world calmly with no cry and take in the sounds and smells with closed eyes and a faint smirk. After ten years the boy was still quiet and calm. He was called Luke.

      Paul was a proud father but he was not the type to show it. He was an Old Testament potato farmer like his father was and his grandfather before that and his son would know the paddle and respect. Luke took from his mother's side. He had dark leathery skin and black hair and he was thin but tough and he was smart. On his eleventh birthday Paul bought Luke a radio. It was an old one that he picked up at a yard sale. It was silver and stained, it only received AM radio and the tuner knob was missing so Luke had to tune it with a pair of pliers. It had a long antenna that had to be propped up by the wall or a chair and Luke loved it. It was the first thing he had owned that was truly his and he would sit up at night and twist the tuner with those silver handled pliers and listen to Baseball games and screaming Christian ministers and fuzz. Mostly Fuzz. Every night he would play with it for a few minutes, tuning it to the most satisfyingly dead channel, and fall asleep as a hundred voices whispered “Shhhhhhhhh” into the darkness. Paul liked to sleep with his fan running, he understood white noise and Emily bore it like she bore everything.

      Five years had passed since the radio. Paul was growing older and more tired with each day. His back ached and his once nimble hands had been touched briefly with arthritis at the knuckles of his smallest fingers. Luke was almost fifteen and he was finally becoming strong enough to work in the field. They worked together in the sunset, raking weeds out of the thick red dirt and clay. They worked in silence. Paul watched his son as he tilled the earth. His eyes were cold and unreadable and they focused solely on the task at hand and he was very quiet.

      Paul had awoken a few days earlier from a dream. He was a child again, about Luke's age. He was sitting in a tree with the young girl who lived in the farm next door. He could not remember her name. They had run from their family and their chores and were bathing in sunlight from the high branches of an oak tree, the sun beamed through the swaying summer leaves. He heard the girl laugh and he touched her face with his hands, already they were dark and callused from digging. She brushed her hand through his hair and he smelled dry dirt and honey suckle and he felt calm and he felt love. He woke from the dream with a start. It was 4:00 A.M. He sat at the edge of his bed and looked back at Emily sleeping with her knees tucked up to her chin. Her face was grimaced even in sleep. She was a good wife, he thought. The dream had unearthed an ancient memory of his childhood, of his teenage foolishness. He remembered the hatred of his father and his potato farm and this dead-end town and Idaho and he remembered wanting to be free and wanting to love and wanting something else. Paul stood and walked to his son's room and opened the door. The radio “Shhhhhhed” beside his bed and Luke sat with his eyes open staring at the beams of his ceiling. When he heard the door creak open he turned his head and smiled emptily at his father, standing in the doorway in his boxers and Paul felt a rush of sadness for this boy and his broken radio and his inevitable future.

      Paul groaned as he set down his hoe and raised a muddy, plastic gallon-jug of water to his lips.

      “Luke.” He said

      “Yes Father?” Luke stopped raking but he did not raise his eyes.

      “Do you need anything?”

      “No sir.” This was always his answer.

      “I mean. . .I was thinking about inviting the Daniels over for dinner.” Paul squinted into sunlit mountains which sat behind his son. His words felt awkward and foreign in his red dirt sanctuary.

      “Yes Sir.” Luke's eyes still gazed down at his feet.

      “I mean...Alex must be about your age now.” Luke did not respond and Paul left it at that.

      Paul hated having company. Truthfully, this was the first time since he and Emily had been married. He felt uncomfortable sitting around his dinner table with his shirt tucked into his jeans, thinking of kind words to say as he stared into the dark wood of his table and then up to the dark beard of his guest. Jim Daniels was a single father who grew soybeans about five miles south. He was a big man with a booming voice and he was about the only person in the area that Paul could stand speaking to. Jim had a daughter named Alex who grew with strong influence from her father. She was a tough tomboy with blond hair that she only ever kept tightly held behind her head. She was thin as a rail with a pale narrow face and large white teeth. She wore jeans and a worn-out gray T-shirt and a pair of brand new pink running shoes. She was feisty and talkative, just like her father.

      “Well Paul I must say I was surprised to get the invitation. Not that I'm ungrateful but I took you to be the solitary type.” Jim boomed across the table as he shoveled mashed potatoes through his beard. Paul looked up, wiped his mouth and smiled.

      “Well, truth be told, I think Luke it getting a bit sick of us.” He laughed lightly and looked over at Luke who did not acknowledge his father but continued to stare into his potatoes with that unreadable quiet smirk. There was a brief awkward pause as everyone watched Luke eat and Jim shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. Alex sat up, her knees bouncing endlessly under the table and addressed her father.

      “Hey Pa, Luke showed me his cool old radio. It's kind of broken but it looks like a real antique! Like something you would've used when you were younger!” Jim looked up and smiled, thankful for a new subject.

      “Lord Paul, you bought your son a radio? Least you could do is get him an Ipod or something!” Paul smiled.

      “Maybe when he's older. Besides he likes to go to sleep with the static. Been like that since he was little. Right Luke?” Luke looked up from his plate for the first time that night and smiled at his father.

      “Yes Sir.” Paul smiled back at his son, vaguely aware of the judgmental look he was getting from Jim. Emily too was smiling at Luke and for a moment the three of them were unified. Paul was a different sort of father and a different sort of husband but he needed moments like this to prove to himself that he was doing something right. Outside it had become dark and the wind had picked up, whistling through the banister of his porch. Luke straightened a bit.

      “And I like to listen to the voices,” he said. Jim looked up and smiled at Luke.

      “You mean like those Christian ministers?” He asked.

Luke shook his head.

      “No, I mean the voices in the static.”

      “Oh? And what are they saying?” Jim continued, his smile growing.

      “I don't know they're not from here.”

      “Not from Idaho?”

      “Not from earth.”

      The table went silent. Luke put his head back down and continued eating. Paul stared at him for a minute not sure what to do. Emily's face had gone neutral again and Alex had stopped bouncing. Jim was sitting straight up in his chair with his fork hovering over his plate, his smile had faded. He looked briefly at his daughter and snapped back into focus.

      “Well. . .ehm. . .Luke that's. . .very. . .interesting.” He put his head down and finished his meal in silence.

      The Daniels had left pretty soon after that. Jim saying something about having to get up early the next day and Paul was relieved when their truck finally pulled away. He stood on the porch and untucked his shirt, watching the cloud of dust rise up from behind the receding truck. Emily walked out of the house. She stood next to him but she did not touch him and he could feel her stare.

      “You need to go talk to him.” She said.

      “I know.” Paul kept his eyes looking forward.

      “He's just lonely.”

      “Yes.”

      “He's almost sixteen.” Paul nodded. It was nearing the end of October and it was cool on his porch. There was a fall breeze and he smelled the wood and it reminded him of the stinging sweetness of his father's old cigars. From the open window above he heard the familiar buzzing of the radio being switched on and the soft Shhhhhhing sound. Paul glanced over at his wife but she was now looking forward. Gazing into the impenetrable darkness that stretched before them. Her dark brown, graying hair flowing around her shoulders in the cool wind. She did not shiver.

      Two weeks before it happened Paul had woken up in the middle of the night to pee and from the bathroom window he saw a strange light rising up from the middle of his potato field. Grabbing his hat and coat and his gun he ventured out into the field only to find Luke there under a blanket, the radio perched on his chest and a flashlight in his hands pointing directly up into the stars. Luke had told him that he got better reception out there and that he was trying to help because he thought the voices sounded lost. The next day Emily pleaded with him to take Luke to the doctors to get help but Paul absolutely refused. A few days later Paul broke his ankle after getting his foot caught in an iced-over muddy boot print. He tied a splint around his leg to keep it straight. He would not see a doctor and neither would his son.

      It was a late November morning and Paul rose before the sun like he always did in winter and he limped down stairs for coffee. After a couple of minutes Emily followed wearing a tattered nightgown and began making some eggs. As the sun rose through the mountains in the East, Paul, sitting in his dining room chair behind a steaming mug of coffee, became dimly aware of a figure standing in the middle of his field. It was Luke and he was holding the radio high above his head staring into the skies. He was half naked and bare foot but he stood stock still with his left hand propping the antenna in place and the radio resting against his head. Paul swore under his breath and rushed out the door onto his back porch. He grabbed a shovel that was leaning up against the railing nearby and, using it as a cane, limped out onto his field.

When he reached Luke he put his hand on his shoulder and turned him around. He stumbled back a bit in horror. Luke eyes were wide and his face was pushed into a large maddening smile.

      “They're coming dad!” He said, his eyes growing wider with each word.

      “They're coming here! They finally found me and they're coming!” It took Paul a few minutes to register what was happening and what had happened to his son. The Shhhhhhhhing noise echoed through the frozen field; that unending roar, that omen, that indicator of his son's growing madness. In one furious tug he grabbed the radio from off Luke's head, smashed it to the earth and proceeded to plunge the shovel blade into it over and over until the radio, whistling and screaming like a dying animal, went silent. There was a brief moment in which Paul stood straight again and looked back at his son. He noticed for the first time how tall his son had become and he noticed how out of breath he was from smashing the radio and he noticed too that his son's eyes, usually so impenetrable and cool, had grown narrow and mad. And then his son was on him.

      Paul did not really know what happened. He just knew that he was angry and that his only son had grown insane and that it was not fair that this was happening to him and his family who never bother anyone and keep to themselves. And then there was blood everywhere and from somewhere in the distance he heard screaming and the world spun around him like a painted vase which had been knocked off balance and, driven by its own weight, swiveled precariously until finally it toppled over and smashed on the cold earth and Paul became aware of the body at his feet and the shovel in his hand. In this moment of shock, standing with the shovel, Paul could only think of one thing to do. The same thing he had done everyday since he was a boy. He started digging. He dug through the frozen clay, hacking and grunting like a madman for what seemed like hours until he had dug a large hole and then he filled it back up again and the body was gone and he turned and bent down to tie his bootlaces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      Paul took a sip of Coffee. His hands were still covered in red dirt and blood. He smelled the wood and the coffee and the eggs which were now burning in oil on the stove. And he felt the complete and utter silence of his home. Through the kitchen door he could see his wife hunched down, shaking silently. The sky was very blue with clouds drifting lazily along. And suddenly there was a bright flash of light and then a crash. It rippled through the earth, setting off sand and ice and it shook the rickety wooden shack and Paul's coffee cup circled once and broke upon his boot and he looked up and she was gone.

“Emily!” He yelled and stood but she was already running, tears streaming as she went. Hysterical, she sprinted out into the fields of Idaho, bare feet crunching in the frozen soil, running towards freedom, towards the mountains in the distance and towards the 100 food ship which now jutted out from the red earth like a giant silver potato. 

End.

By Sam Patwell.