Playground After Dark
folder
Horror/Thriller › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
3,369
Reviews:
3
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Horror/Thriller › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
3,369
Reviews:
3
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Playground After Dark
Playground After Dark
By Ami E. Bowen
She stood still, devastatingly still, in the center of the circle. Pink chalk smeared across her pale brow, across her cheek in a handprint marking. The pastel circle was carefully, painstakingly drawn and her knees, peeking from beneath the pleated gray skirt of her uniform, wore the cuts and scrapings of kneeling for hours against the hard concrete of the school playground.
A slight breeze sent the leaves of the maple trees around the schoolyard dancing and twirling in the dark. The hair at the nape of her neck prickled with growing excitement. A scrap of faded yellow paper skittered past her feet, attached itself to her ankle for a moment before rolling away again. She paid it no mind. Nor did she pay heed to the sound of metal ringing gently against metal as two children played carelessly upon the swings across from her. She could hear they’re tinkling laughter. Briefly, for it mattered nothing to her really, she wondered what they were doing out so late. For that matter, they may be thinking the same of her. She did not care.
Raising her arms above her head, she shivered to feel the wind pick up and caress her bare legs as it darted past the fabric of her skirt and underthings. Making its path upwards, towards her childish breasts, shoulders, arms, and fingertips. All the while swirling about her, lifting her hair and blowing her skirt almost far enough up to show off her panties. She giggled as the wind tickled her beneath her arms and felt the hard ground beneath her fade slightly from yielding to hard. Looking down, she realized that her feet were a fraction of an inch off the ground. Wriggling her toes within the black patent leather shiny dress-shoes, she smiled in delight, for she had no idea what would happen next, and held her breath.
Just this afternoon, as she had been walking home from school, she chanced to take a wrong turn and had found the strangest woman. The woman, with greasy silver hair streaked with red and piercing eyes of milky jade, had sat with her arms full of priceless junk from other people’s trash. Her body bent with the ailments of old age, the old hag had been chewing on her fingernails and spitting out the dirt encrusted particles as the child walked by.
\"’Ere, girl!\" the old woman screeched, grabbing hold of Corrine\'s soft young hand with her own knarled and brown-spotted one. \"Stop a moment. I have something for you.\"
The girl wanted to pull away, for the eyes, the old woman’s eyes, frightened her in a way she could not begin to explain. But she could not pull free and in the end had been forced to kneel beside the old woman who had newspapers wrapped around her feet and an old maggot infested piece of chicken beside her that she claimed was her leftover dinner.
\"You’ve the look about you, all right.\" She sneered, her rotten breath escaping from that black maw of cracked and brown teeth. \"What is your name, girl?\"
\"I...\" the girl started, looking away, and back at the old woman. She stuttered not because she was stupid and could not say her name, but because she was afraid of what her father would do to her if he caught her speaking with a stranger.
\"Come now, girl.\" the old woman said. \"It’s not so difficult. Surely you have something people call you by? Oh, fiddlesticks! I’ll go first then. My name is Kharai.\"
\"Corrine.\" She said and waited for this woman, Kharai, to say what she had to say.
\"Corrine....girl.\" she said, digging through the pile of trash in her lap, seeming to search for something. \"Ah...here we are....\"
\"I have to get home...\" Corrine pleaded, glancing at the swiftly darkening sky \"I fear a storm is coming...\"
\"Yes, child...\" the old one grinned, cackling laughter like a thousand black crows, \"A storm is brewing....ah! Here it is!\"
Corrine felt the old woman’s hand wrap about her own and something hard and smooth as glass was suddenly resting in the center of her palm. She looked down and saw a piece of amber rock with black speckles coursing through it nestled in the soft flesh of her hand. The old woman closed the girl’s fingers tight about the stone with her own filthy hand.
\"I don’t understand....\" Corrine began. \"Why are you giving this to me?\"
\"It is yours, my dear.\" She whispered. \"I’ve held it for far too long...now it’s right where it’s been waiting to be...it’s home now.\"
\"But, what is it?\" Corrine asked. \"I mean...I know it’s a rock...\"
\"It is more than a rock, my child!\" Kharai sighed. \"It is more than a rock.\"
***
It was more than a rock, Corrine mused. Her thoughts were drifting back from the old woman and her wonderful stories....to now....to the chalk circle she stood within, to the lightning as it lit the dark skies, the thunder as it rolled mercilessly across the heavens and shook her to her core. The children near the swings screamed as the sky was overcome once more with jagged crisscross lines of fire, and the roar of thunder sent them all scrambling home like frightened rats.
She reached into the pocket of her school uniform, the left breast pocket, and brought out the stone. Holding it high above her, she laughed as the feeling of pure ecstasy filled her being...as though the stone were a receiver for such...sensation...perhaps it was.
The rain fell in a hard torrent now, soaking her to the marrow of her bones. She could feel herself growing lighter and lighter, as a feather or a piece of grass....so light she could float....float...far...far....away.....
Looking down, she chanced to see that the circle was much, much larger than it had been before and the rock within her hand has grown almost so large she had to hold it with both hands to keep from dropping it. She looked up and saw the old woman, Kharai, shuffling towards her from across the playing field...with a look of lust and excitement in her crinkled about eyes.
Corrine’s rock, the beautiful chip of amber, had grown so much she had to drop it, it was so heavy. Before she could understand fully what was really happening...she felt herself, her body...her essence...everything she was or would ever be...being sucked into the stone. Or rather, through a small opening in the stone that had grown..... Oh dear god no!....she realized too late that it had been her that had been shrinking smaller and smaller, not the rock growing larger and larger....to accommodate her size.
The last thing Corrine saw was the old woman smiling down at her, as she pounded on the walls of her amber prison, reaching one old, old hand down towards her....
***
Kharai held the stone her hand for a few moments, marveling at how easy this one had been to capture. How very simple to fill the child’s mind with stories of the first ritual of the stone....knowing all the while the hapless little girl’s curiosity would overtake her. She laughed and held the stone up to her eye, her good right eye, and stared at Corrine trapped within.
Then, as if nothing more was to be, she opened her mouth and threw the stone past her teeth, swallowing it down like a piece of sugarcandy on Sunday afternoon, giggling like child.
***
The little girl, dressing in her best for today was the day for school pictures, drew the wide toothed comb through her hair with ease. She glanced at the shiny piece of amber with the black lines coursing though it as it rested on her dresser, near her lamp. She reached out and picked it up, wiping a bit of yellowed vomitus from its smoothness with the tip of her very young hand.
\"Corrine!\"
She put the stone down, smiled and called with the lilting voice of a happy little girl.
\"Coming, Momma!\" She sighed. She would have to get use to her new nam.no .no longer would she be known as Kharai, it was difficult....she’d always adored that name. Ah, well...she knew there’d be some changes. She turned and tripped down the steps gracefully, laughing with childish glee.
~End~
By Ami E. Bowen
She stood still, devastatingly still, in the center of the circle. Pink chalk smeared across her pale brow, across her cheek in a handprint marking. The pastel circle was carefully, painstakingly drawn and her knees, peeking from beneath the pleated gray skirt of her uniform, wore the cuts and scrapings of kneeling for hours against the hard concrete of the school playground.
A slight breeze sent the leaves of the maple trees around the schoolyard dancing and twirling in the dark. The hair at the nape of her neck prickled with growing excitement. A scrap of faded yellow paper skittered past her feet, attached itself to her ankle for a moment before rolling away again. She paid it no mind. Nor did she pay heed to the sound of metal ringing gently against metal as two children played carelessly upon the swings across from her. She could hear they’re tinkling laughter. Briefly, for it mattered nothing to her really, she wondered what they were doing out so late. For that matter, they may be thinking the same of her. She did not care.
Raising her arms above her head, she shivered to feel the wind pick up and caress her bare legs as it darted past the fabric of her skirt and underthings. Making its path upwards, towards her childish breasts, shoulders, arms, and fingertips. All the while swirling about her, lifting her hair and blowing her skirt almost far enough up to show off her panties. She giggled as the wind tickled her beneath her arms and felt the hard ground beneath her fade slightly from yielding to hard. Looking down, she realized that her feet were a fraction of an inch off the ground. Wriggling her toes within the black patent leather shiny dress-shoes, she smiled in delight, for she had no idea what would happen next, and held her breath.
Just this afternoon, as she had been walking home from school, she chanced to take a wrong turn and had found the strangest woman. The woman, with greasy silver hair streaked with red and piercing eyes of milky jade, had sat with her arms full of priceless junk from other people’s trash. Her body bent with the ailments of old age, the old hag had been chewing on her fingernails and spitting out the dirt encrusted particles as the child walked by.
\"’Ere, girl!\" the old woman screeched, grabbing hold of Corrine\'s soft young hand with her own knarled and brown-spotted one. \"Stop a moment. I have something for you.\"
The girl wanted to pull away, for the eyes, the old woman’s eyes, frightened her in a way she could not begin to explain. But she could not pull free and in the end had been forced to kneel beside the old woman who had newspapers wrapped around her feet and an old maggot infested piece of chicken beside her that she claimed was her leftover dinner.
\"You’ve the look about you, all right.\" She sneered, her rotten breath escaping from that black maw of cracked and brown teeth. \"What is your name, girl?\"
\"I...\" the girl started, looking away, and back at the old woman. She stuttered not because she was stupid and could not say her name, but because she was afraid of what her father would do to her if he caught her speaking with a stranger.
\"Come now, girl.\" the old woman said. \"It’s not so difficult. Surely you have something people call you by? Oh, fiddlesticks! I’ll go first then. My name is Kharai.\"
\"Corrine.\" She said and waited for this woman, Kharai, to say what she had to say.
\"Corrine....girl.\" she said, digging through the pile of trash in her lap, seeming to search for something. \"Ah...here we are....\"
\"I have to get home...\" Corrine pleaded, glancing at the swiftly darkening sky \"I fear a storm is coming...\"
\"Yes, child...\" the old one grinned, cackling laughter like a thousand black crows, \"A storm is brewing....ah! Here it is!\"
Corrine felt the old woman’s hand wrap about her own and something hard and smooth as glass was suddenly resting in the center of her palm. She looked down and saw a piece of amber rock with black speckles coursing through it nestled in the soft flesh of her hand. The old woman closed the girl’s fingers tight about the stone with her own filthy hand.
\"I don’t understand....\" Corrine began. \"Why are you giving this to me?\"
\"It is yours, my dear.\" She whispered. \"I’ve held it for far too long...now it’s right where it’s been waiting to be...it’s home now.\"
\"But, what is it?\" Corrine asked. \"I mean...I know it’s a rock...\"
\"It is more than a rock, my child!\" Kharai sighed. \"It is more than a rock.\"
***
It was more than a rock, Corrine mused. Her thoughts were drifting back from the old woman and her wonderful stories....to now....to the chalk circle she stood within, to the lightning as it lit the dark skies, the thunder as it rolled mercilessly across the heavens and shook her to her core. The children near the swings screamed as the sky was overcome once more with jagged crisscross lines of fire, and the roar of thunder sent them all scrambling home like frightened rats.
She reached into the pocket of her school uniform, the left breast pocket, and brought out the stone. Holding it high above her, she laughed as the feeling of pure ecstasy filled her being...as though the stone were a receiver for such...sensation...perhaps it was.
The rain fell in a hard torrent now, soaking her to the marrow of her bones. She could feel herself growing lighter and lighter, as a feather or a piece of grass....so light she could float....float...far...far....away.....
Looking down, she chanced to see that the circle was much, much larger than it had been before and the rock within her hand has grown almost so large she had to hold it with both hands to keep from dropping it. She looked up and saw the old woman, Kharai, shuffling towards her from across the playing field...with a look of lust and excitement in her crinkled about eyes.
Corrine’s rock, the beautiful chip of amber, had grown so much she had to drop it, it was so heavy. Before she could understand fully what was really happening...she felt herself, her body...her essence...everything she was or would ever be...being sucked into the stone. Or rather, through a small opening in the stone that had grown..... Oh dear god no!....she realized too late that it had been her that had been shrinking smaller and smaller, not the rock growing larger and larger....to accommodate her size.
The last thing Corrine saw was the old woman smiling down at her, as she pounded on the walls of her amber prison, reaching one old, old hand down towards her....
***
Kharai held the stone her hand for a few moments, marveling at how easy this one had been to capture. How very simple to fill the child’s mind with stories of the first ritual of the stone....knowing all the while the hapless little girl’s curiosity would overtake her. She laughed and held the stone up to her eye, her good right eye, and stared at Corrine trapped within.
Then, as if nothing more was to be, she opened her mouth and threw the stone past her teeth, swallowing it down like a piece of sugarcandy on Sunday afternoon, giggling like child.
***
The little girl, dressing in her best for today was the day for school pictures, drew the wide toothed comb through her hair with ease. She glanced at the shiny piece of amber with the black lines coursing though it as it rested on her dresser, near her lamp. She reached out and picked it up, wiping a bit of yellowed vomitus from its smoothness with the tip of her very young hand.
\"Corrine!\"
She put the stone down, smiled and called with the lilting voice of a happy little girl.
\"Coming, Momma!\" She sighed. She would have to get use to her new nam.no .no longer would she be known as Kharai, it was difficult....she’d always adored that name. Ah, well...she knew there’d be some changes. She turned and tripped down the steps gracefully, laughing with childish glee.
~End~