Risen for a Tower

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  Follow the Turners’ twisted family tree.

  More stories featuring the Turner boneshakers are available at Flatland Fiction. Consider these tales of those who bump in the dark.

  An excerpt from “Guarded Keepsakes,” available from Flatland Fiction...

  “How is anything in this barn still that white?”

  A glimmer from the barn's dim center attracted Jay's attention. He crawled through a shelve unit filled with oil cans and breached an inner circle of open space, a small sanctum free of accumulation. A paraffin lantern sat upon the floor. While dust lay deep all around the lantern, not a mote of grime blemished its white lamp. Jay had noticed no prints in the dust as he had made his way into the center of that barn, no indication of the path any soul might have taken to polish that antique. Yet the glass of that lantern's lamp remained pure and clean, bearing no trace nor patina of the years.

  Jay knelt in the dust to peer more closely at the lantern. An intricate mosaic of glass colored in subtle shades of pearl and grays depicted the myth of Persephone's winter abduction and spring resurrection. Small, embossed pomegranates adorned the copper ring that joined the lamp to a white, ivory base.

  “Something to help see the light.” Jay grinned. “It's just the piece to bring back home to Kelly. Just the thing to show her that there's treasure in the middle of all these piles. It looks ready to burn once I get it a new wick. This place is a goldmine.”

  Wind drifted through the barn's open spaces. Dust swirled as a strong breeze whistled through the scattered piles. Something rattled, like windchimes, further ahead in the shadow.

  Jay's eyes pulled away from the paraffin lamp and squinted at the darkness.

  Someone grinned back upon Jay Logan.

  Jay stumbled into a retreat. His frantic movements threw clouds of dust into the air and hampered his search for the path back out of the barn. He went to his knees and crawled between tractors and machinery. He lost his bearing and painfully wedged himself between jutting iron and metal. He was lost and stuck. He could not think clearly. His heart raced as he panicked.

  Jay screamed in the shadows and prayed he would not be forgotten like so many pieces of junk surrounding him. He screamed and hoped that Gus would hear. He did not know what else to do. So Jay screamed and refused to look back behind him into the shadow, towards that thing which grinned upon him.

  An excerpt from “The Dusty Dead's Revenge,” available from Flatland Fiction...

  Gabe squinted through the flames at the Turner cabin while the posse formed behind him. His eyes struggled to adjust. His keen sight could not see anything past the fires. Darkness choked the Turner cabin. Gabe could not distinguish a window or a wall. He could not see the roof nor the front step. Gabe squinted and wondered how so much dark could so shroud the home no matter that the fires burned so close. Gabe squinted as he thought he saw a black snake, a cord of utter darkness, coil about the cabin. He worried that a gun was not the proper weapon to bring to that fight, no matter that a gun was the only weapon he knew.

  The darkness surrounding the Turner home prevented Gabe from seeing the cabin's door open. Light flashed from no window to betray any sign of escape. Rather, the darkness expanded from the cabin, rolling towards the posse like black smoke tumbling across the ground. Gabe's left hand felt heavy as stone as he watched shadows expand from the cabin.

  None in the Harlington posse made a noise as the black rolled towards them. Darkness blanketed the flames so that, strangely, no hint of light wavered through the shadows. The posse still felt the fire's heat. The men still heard the fires crackle towards the Turner home. Yet not a soul gathered to claim revenge from the Turners saw a trace of flame as shadows blanketed the fires. Though his left hand felt so heavy, Gabe lifted his pistol and aimed at the center of that darkness, however he doubted his gun's power against what might lurk in such shadow.

  The darkness engulfed them.

  Gabe heard the men behind him gasp as the black fell upon Harlington's men. His hardened spirit unexpectedly pleaded with his mind that time remained to flee, unexpectedly pleaded with his feet that time remained to run away from the Turner cabin no matter that the darkness thickening around them erased any sense of direction. Only, fear weighed too heavily upon Gabe Henderson's shoulders and pinned the gunfighter in his stance. Gabe's mind fumbled through the confusion of such an uncanny collection of shadows surrounding him. Behind him, Gabe heard the posse fumble with their guns. Gabe Henderson remained a gunfighter no matter the dark, and so his left hand aimed his pistol at the invading shadow.

  Gabe heard broken, shuffling footfalls as the hairs on his skin stood upright. Gabe felt something move in the dark behind him as it brushed against his throbbing right side. The sound of scuttling upon the ground turned Gabe to his left, but the darkness remained too thick for him to see any shape moving through the shadows. He wrestled to maintain his wits. He grunted to keep his shaking, left hand raised against the black as his courage wavered.

  “Un'ghhe' imnehst Arat'khen eenour Khuns Lleung Omthe!”

  Gabe's heart froze at the strange words screamed in the dark. The babble of syllables sounded like a growl. The incomprehensible words hissed like sands ground across rock.

  “Un'ghhe' imnehst Arat'khen eenour Khuns Lleung Omthe!”

  An excerpt from “The Warden's Mark,” available from Flatland Fiction...

  "Are those monsters any closer?" I grin as Charlie's teeth clatter.

  It is a muffled sound, but in the silence that suffocates the cellbock, a rattling noise echoes from the walls. Every cell throughout the prison hears the rattles that have whispered from the walls since the darkness descended. It is impossible for anyone to blame the rattle on his neighbors. The noise is not one made by a prisoner's hands. The rattle is a strange sound that seems to come from within the very masonry of the walls. It is a chilling sound, and so it is a sound the prison attributes to dead Mr. Turner.

  Charlie slumps onto the bottom cot and curls into a ball. "Why do you torment me, Mr. Greene? What has poor, blind Charlie ever done to you?"

  It's nothing that Charlie has done to me. It's what I know he will do.

  "Are they still talking to you, Charlie?" I ask. "Are they still hissing behind your back?"

  Blind inmates throughout the prison claim they hear words accompanying those rattles whispering in their cells. The blind say they hear a strange language hissed into their ears, that they feel hot breath upon the back of their necks, that they feel the touch of teeth upon their spines. Those hissing tongues in the walls, and the lurking fear that calls those sounds company, drive the blind mad. They strike their heads against the walls. They shake their prison cells and beg to be beaten out of their misery. The blind wail like caged rabbits awaiting the fangs of the jailer wolf.

  Old and blind Charlie is no exception. He has nibbled at his nails until his fingers bleed. He jumps at every noise. He is certain that monsters will fall upon him the moment he sleeps.

  "Oh give me a little peace, Mr. Greene," Charlie sobs. "I only want a little quiet. I only want to listen and make sure whatever's hissing in the walls doesn't sneak up and eat me."

  Jackson Murphy's shadow rises from the floor. I feel his breath upon my face. Hatred emanates from his muscle like heat. I have no doubt of those desires Jackson Murphy cultivates for me. The dark shrouding our prison keeps me alive. It is because of those rattling noises from within the walls that Jackson Murphy has not taken the initiative to torture and murder me with his own hands. It is the fear that, somehow, Mr. Turner can still enact vengeance from the grave that prevents Jackson Murphy from simply snapping my neck right now in the dark.

  For I am the most special of all of Luke Turner's disciples. Upon my skin alone twirls and twists the tattooed runes and symbols that define me as my master's most precious disciple, and it will take a mob's courage to murder me, to further challenge the power of my master three days ago shoveled into the g
round.

  "You've tormented Charlie enough, Wilson Greene," Jackson growls. "You leave him be to the dark."

  "Since when have you concerned yourself with a blind and old man like, Charlie?" I ask. "I think I must torment you too, Jackson Murphy. Did your Brotherhood think they could murder my master without there being a cost?"

  Neither of my cellmates respond. The rattles within the walls grow louder.