"Haunted ME"
Haunted ME is Dedicated to the Memory of Rick Hautala
Life After Death
Doris and Howard
Holly Newstein Hautala
The frantic barking woke Doris up with a jolt.
“What is it, Cletus?” She got out of bed and put on her robe and fuzzy pink slippers, with a stab of fear in her belly. Cletus pawed the rug impatiently as she dressed, his cropped ears pointed forward and muscled shoulders twitching. Doris sighed. Life was so hard these days for an old woman, especially now that she was alone in the house. Thanks to the zombie plague, things would never be the same. She picked up the length of copper pipe that she kept by her bedside, and started down the hallway.
Cletus ran back and forth between Doris and the kitchen door, barking and whining. Doris flipped on the lights and saw her husband Howard’s face pressed against the glass, staring in at her with his filmy gray eyes. A spiked collar circled his neck, and a yard-long dowel stick dangled from the leash loop.
Grandfather Death
Sybil Fogg
Corinna Washington stepped out of the apartment door and was greeted with a gush of hot air. It seemed summer had happened overnight or at least while she was shuttling back and forth between the small apartment and the hospital to provide milk for the newborn who resided in the NICU at Maine Medical Center.
The months since the birth were a blur of fear, blood, milk, and sterile overhead lights that seemed to draw away Corinna’s breath.
Her daughter was the largest infant in the NICU, a giant squirming amongst the premature babies hooked up to wires and machines. All needed (or wanted?) human touch – affection.
The Turnkey
Dave Lowell
Nuremberg, Germany
October 15, 1946
Footsteps echoed down the dark corridor of Cell Block C. Prisoner #848 stared straight ahead and hardly moved as he rested on a small cot that faced a rusted sink and toilet.
The changing of the guards seemed to take place every two hours, from what he gathered, although the exact time was unknown to him, since his wristwatch had been confiscated, along with his knee-high boots, uniform medals, and waist belt.
But he knew it was late. Well past any prisoner’s bedtime, that’s for sure. And peering beyond the ironclad bars, he could see a window at the far end of the second story balcony that displayed a blanket of stars and a cloudy full moon.
The Pebble
Corrie Calderwood
The old farm house sat square in the middle of four rural acres in Dresden, just down the road from Old Pownalborough, where you can visit the first courthouse in Maine, which was then still Massachusetts. Of the many stories surrounding the house, the best one to share involved an overnight stay in one of the four upstairs bedrooms by then attorney John Adams, who traveled to the wilderness to try a case concerning a land dispute.
Speaking in Tongues
E.A. Wilkins
Danielle sat up in bed and sniffed. The smell of last night’s dinner, chicken fried steak and peas, still hung in the air. Her mom was rustling around in her brother’s room, whispering, “Get a move on,” and she heard Darryl’s muffled “Oof,” as he tumbled out of bed.
The three of them dressed for church quietly, hurriedly, the way they would if they were leaving the house for good, and Danielle pretended they were. On the way out the door, she glimpsed something small and pink on the kitchen floor and put it in her dress pocket.
The Menace From Below
James Graham
Martha Guarnere snapped out of sleep with a start. Gasping for breath as she regained her bearings. She must have only been asleep a couple of hours. The windows still shown moonlight flooding the room.
Why had she awoken so abruptly? Sometimes she snapped out of sleep suddenly, but usually only when first falling asleep, her body’s natural reaction to the slowing of her heart rate.
Crimes Against the Woken
Rev. Deborah Ashe
I've been in this business for almost 50 years and of course it has changed over time. Life should be ever changing. Like fruit we ripen and once ripe, we rot. I can't remember where I read that, but I liked it. It was apt. I want to keep ripening. I can do without the rotting part.
It Came For Dinner
Micah C. Brown
I have been a housewife since we graduated college and got married. We hadn’t had children, but that didn’t change the fact that we had wanted to. Before the monster took his skin, Howard and I had started trying to have a baby. After all, he’d made it with his job and the little bit of freelance work I was doing from home brought in a little money as well. We’d even started clearing out the junk room so we could turn it into a nursery.
Those Witches
Marc Patterson
The moon draws me forward luring me under its spell, a full looming orb sitting low on the horizon, slowly rising in the night sky, illuminating the endless expanse in front of me. My hand twists the throttle and the engine responds, the bike thunders beneath me and I race headlong into oblivion. I turn off my headlight, as I’m prone to do on a clear night and wind my way through these familiar mountain paths with nothing but the stars and moon to light my way and guide me home, into her arms. Ancient pines sway in the wind, dancing to a distant pagan drumming all but indiscernible to my ear. Witches are chanting invocations naked in the forest tonight, casting ancient hexes with their dark magic. I howl with primal abandon into the sky answering their voodoo. Orion, the great hunter, smiles.
See the Clown Mommy
S.J. Galvin
“Good morning Angel,” the mother said in a soft, sweet voice as she approached her daughter’s crib just before sunrise on a cold December morning.
“See the clown Mommy! See the clown!” Two and a half-year- old Violet bounced up in her crib and pointed to her closet. Her large blue eyes surrounded by wild ringlets, as she pointed with one hand and sucked her thumb of the other hand. A silk scarf with a rose pattern draped out of her clenched thumb-sucking wrist.
Dead Air On The Mountain
Duane Bruce
Winter, 1986.
The Middle Road in Skowhegan, Maine was populated with farm after farm. Lonely and somewhat desolate, it was the type of road where a driver could easily wreck and not be found for a while. The giant pines were thick and could hide a car. The embankments were sometimes deep and if it was snowing heavily enough, an overturned car could be covered in a very short period of time, easily fooling those searching for their loved ones that failed to return home.
Meet The Writers and Cover Artist
Rev. Deborah Ashe. Originally from England, lives in NH and officiates ceremonies in ME and NH. The winner of the 2013 Seadog Slam Poetry contest, her poems were featured at the Texas Renaissance Festival and in a Pirate Poetry anthology. Rev. Ashe has yet to officiate a Zombie wedding, but lives in hope.
Micah Brown was born in Fort Collins, Colorado and spent some time growing up next to the mountains. Since then, he has lived in Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington State, and has been back in Maine for the past decade. He is a connoisseur of good horror, his drive not in the gore, but the creep factor. He wants you awake at night wondering what that noise is, where the shadow is coming from, and if your loved ones are acting weird because they’re really something else.
Duane Bruce: Born in East Stroudsburg, PA, and raised in Skowhegan, ME, Duane Bruce grew up on a steady diet of three things; pop culture, horror and rock and roll. 'Dark Shadows' and 'The Exorcist' mixed well with Bowie and Evel Knievel. Yes, that was a young Duane in 1976, front row at the KISS 'Destroyer' tour, as it touched down in the Pine Tree State Capital of Augusta. By 1985, Duane was a full time air personality on WTOS-FM, a then alternative AOR radio station that broke new music in Maine. When the station was sold, he threw a public funeral and took his craft to WFNX in Boston, where he hosted an all night, free format show called, 'Radio Free Boston'. Duane Bruce was a staple in the clubs of Boston's famous Lansdowne Street for years. In the late 2000's, Duane hooked up with Burnt Reindeer Productions and voiced the lead character, a futuristic cyborg Santa, in the web series and feature motion picture, both titled, “Infinite Santa 8000”. Most recently, Duane Bruce can be seen in the film release 'We Want The Airwaves: The WFNX Story'. He currently resides in Massachusetts.
Corrie A. Calderwood lives in Brunswick, Maine with her family. She is a graduate of University of Southern Maine and USM's Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program. She published in The Maine Scholar and Portland Magazine.
Peter Cummings, MD is board certified in anatomic, forensic and neuropathology. He is the author of the bestselling text, Atlas of Forensic Histopathology (Cambridge University Press) and the recent horror novel The Neuropathology of Zombies and The Seven Stars (Sinister Press). He is originally from Maine and currently lives outside of Boston with his wife, son, and dog.
Sybil Fogg runs free through the frozen landscapes of her mind.
S.J. Galvin lives in the Dreamlands of Southern Maine.
James Graham lives in Brewer, Maine with his wife Sarah and son James Graham III. They are expecting another child this fall, and have a furry child named Leia. James came into his love for literature when his middle school English teacher introduced him to Edger Allen Poe, who remains a favorite of his to this day. He has written his first novel and hopes to get it published in the future, and has begun work on a second.
Dave Lowell is a Maine writer who has published both fiction and non- fiction. His adult novels include “Ghost Trap” and “Say Uncle.” He has also published a children’s middle grade novel, titled “Shadow Point” and a novel for young readers, titled “School-bots.”
Holly Newstein’s short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance Magazine and the anthologies BORDERLANDS 5, THE NEW DEAD, IN LAYMON’S TERMS, EPITAPHS: THE JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION, and EVIL JESTER DIGEST VOL. 2. Her collaboration with Rick Hautala, “Trapper Boy” appeared in DARK DUETS, an anthology edited by Christopher Golden, published by Harper Voyager in January 2014. Her story “Eight Minutes” was part of ANTHOLOGY II, published October 2013 from The Four Horsemen Press. She will be the featured author in the upcoming edition of LampLight Magazine, with her story “Shadows and Light.” She is also the co-author of the novels ASHES and THE EPICURE with Ralph W. Bieber, published originally under the pen name H.R. Howland. She lives in Maine with her dogs, Keira and Remy.
Mari Maxwell's work has been shortlisted in the 2014 Walking on Thin Ice Short Story Contest, [A short story contest where writers fight back against stigma and institutional power] Maxwell's work was longlisted in the 2013 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. Her writing has been featured in many online and print publications in the USA, UK and Ireland. Her work is also forthcoming in the Veils, Halos and Shackles International Poetry Journal on the Abuse and Oppression of Women.
Marc Patterson is a Maine writer and outdoorsman. When not paddling rivers, or hiking local mountains you can find him planning for his future homestead and working out fresh verses on the page. He still writes his rough drafts with pencil and paper and edits furiously with a bright red pen.
Meghan Smith is an emerging artist from the United Kingdom. Currently studying for a BA in Fine Art at Manchester School of Art (UK). Meghan has undertaken a range of work from interactive short films where she undertook the make up and styling to exhibitions of her own varied work. Meghan’s core work is influenced by the living form and interpretation of collage. Further examples of work can be seen at www.facebook.com/meghansmithart
E.A. Wilkins was a writer of fiction and non-fiction. She originally hails from the Midwest but now lives outside of Portland, Maine. We miss her more than words can express.
