A Halloween Story: These Abandoned

[Jamie Hogan]

They all three heard Theo and wheeled to see him clutching at his gut, both hands clasped over an area about a candy bar right of his navel, and then the first peeps of blood through his fingers and clouding his costume.

 

Flythe had propped up on his elbow and was struggling to gain altitude as Burke grabbed Theo around the shoulders and began to lead him toward the back of the house. "Where are you going," and Flythe managed to make it to his knees, "you haven't even bought your tickets yet, much less ridden the rides."

 

At that moment in the world somewhere a child rose, perhaps with a brother or sister, and walked down a hallway, the tender light of a Saturday morning whispering about his feet, and climbed into the bed of his mother and father, snuggling into clouds of down and pulled tight into the warm cocoon of his mother's arms. After dozing again, he will rise into a bright day and sit in a kitchen that smells of coffee and toast and safety and promise, and prattle on to his smiling, nodding parents about the zoo or the park or the lake or some other water color dream he wants to play in this day.

 

In the abandoned clubhouse of the abandoned development called the Acres, these four abandoned children looked through rays of moonlight and clouds of drunken manbreath and cold evenings alone and bare tables at a madman bumbling to his feet, and decided to kill him.

[Cita]

Jamie, that was a wonderful break from the action to soothe us and keep us reading.  Thank you.  And I ditto everything Gita said. 

[Gita]

I know what kind of childhood your kids are getting. They are getting "a bright day and a kitchen that smells of coffee and toast and safety and promise," and the way I know that is from how you write about the two different worlds. Like you know which one a kid deserves. Like you know the horrors behind Door Number Two.  You write the contrast masterfully.

 

[bolton carley]

holy crap.  when you go to side stories about kids watching cartoons, i am blown away.  and it all works so well.  plus, a candy bar right of his navel?  are you kidding me?  fan-tas-tic!  not to mention the manbreath.  all well done!

[Angela]

Wow.  Love that watercolor contrasting with the manbreath.  Supreme.

[Bill Floyd]

Fantastic.  I was wondering how you'd frame this but you far outpaced any expectations.  And once again, great jabbering dialogue from Flythe.  5 & 6 are perfectly pitched.  

[Paul de Denus]

ok- a hurt child, the bad guy going to need some real hurtin' in return- I'm there with the tin snips. The fifth and sixth sentences were quite soothing. Nice writing Jamie.

[Jamie Hogan]

No, just a plain ole slip. Thanks Diane!

[Diana E. Backhouse]

Justifiable homicide definitely!

Was the 'bother' in your third paragraph a Freudian slip?