A Halloween Story: Testimony

[Jamie Hogan]

Flythe turned off of Abernathy and onto Sunset and cracked the window and flicked the cigarette out, Simon and Garfunkel listing herbs through his speakers and the night coming on like a testimony, like the first sound struck from a freshly minted silver bell.

 

It could be that song and no other song, the song they had played every Halloween through every speaker in the house. The memories were woven in those wispy melodies, he a boy in a black house and the horrible things that lept out of the soupy dark, his dog drugged near to death and covered in fake blood, his parents laid out on the kitchen floor in a mock slaughter and then sitting up and laughing at his tears. Each year more elaborate and more sick and always ending with their hysterical laughter, until the year it ended with their screams and teenage Dominic tossing a knife in a lake.

 

He turned off Sunset and onto Turrentine and switched off his lights just to be sure, the clubhouse filling his windshield and the stars above its angled face, all dead years ago, their crystal white eulogies only now flickering into view. He pulled around back and opened the rear driver's side door and dragged the bound, half conscious man from the back seat and hefted him onto his shoulder and carried him inside.

[Angela]

Holy cow.  The herbs and the silver bell captured me right away.  Then the second paragraph!  Talk about dysfunction.

You have a bit of a knack for the psychology of monsters.

[Stephen Torelli]

A fearful tale and everlasting testimony...

[bolton carley]

you and bill are giving me nightmares.  but i get to focus on your white eulogies and soupy dark and freshly minted silver bell instead of the guy being carried like a feedbag.  your word usage is second to none.

[Gita]

I think this description of a windshield at night is simply brilliant. the stars above its angled face, all dead years ago, their crystal white eulogies only now flickering into view.

It is so Jamie -- poetic and scientifically accurate. He is our C.S. Lewis.

[Paul de Denus]

Scarborough Fair as Halloween background music?- that truly is frightening- I like where this is going.

[Michael Brown]

If I didn't read it here with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed you'd ever write something like this. It's eerie good. Dominic is a made man, and what a pair of makers!

What happened to the poor dog?