My friend is beside me. As I look into his face, I see all the imperfections that I had not seen since we last met. He’s older now than he used to be, of course. Years have passed. But he is still a young man. There are a few strands of silver in his dark hair, and one might think them blond if not looking closely. There is some pain in his eyes, though he smiles at me. These are his best feature, the thing that attracted me the most to begin with. Today they are a clear blue, but I have seen them a dark brown before. Fine lines hang between his brows, and lay like ghosts at the edges of his eyes.

He speaks to me, and I am drawn in by his words. More truly, by the sound of his voice. This familiar brand of gruff tenderness that is always in his tone. I recognize it. This is the way I’d always wanted a man to speak to me, and how I remembered it.

“Would you like this?” I ask.

He opens his hands. I avert my eyes from his.

I handle the rosary carefully, placing the string of beads in his palm.  The blue green of the beads reflects against my skin. I have words brewing in the back of my head, but these I cannot share with him.

If I am earth, these stones are sky and water, infinite things that only God could create.

Even worse, he may already know. I was never able to hide anything from him in the past.  There are secrets that only he knows, and in that knowledge, he has never found it neccessary to speak them between us.

He turns the rosary carefully.  I tell him in a rush of nervous words that I had no time to bring anything else, but I hope that he takes care of this.  I see him frown as he realizes that the crucifix is no longer attached to the beads.

But the cross itself is the most important piece, and the reason that I had not tossed it away. The symbol of Christ is separated from the whole. And yet I love this keepsake more for that.

 Here lies my heart. And the symbol of my battered faith.

The sadness in his eyes deepens, though he tries to hide it. He says comforting things to me. He speaks of the past, and of our favorite summer. How we were careless, but that he could never regret it, anyway.

In his car, we speed down the interstate. We travel over hills, and down into valleys, only to feel the pressure as the car winds upwards again. Even with my eyes closed, I knew this route by heart. We were going home.

We do not bother listening to music. Sometimes he sings beneath his breath, and it does not even bother me that the key is not quite right. The affection is still there, that bit of tremor. It sounds better than any melody I know.

His hand moves away from the steering wheel to clutch mine. His fingers are warm and familiar.

When we reach the sea, we climb out of the car.

The majesty of the ocean and the blue sky makes me feel insignificant. He falls into stride beside me. He is staring at his feet, but I keep my eyes averted from him as well. I feel the heaviness of the sand. With each step I feel a little  tired.

I can’t speak. There are tears in my eyes.

When he does look at me again, I feel his stare, and have no choice but to look at him. There are tears in his eyes as well.

“I love you,” he says. “I was wrong. But I thought I’d have a chance to tell you.”

I feel something inside me moving. Pulling me.

I turn away from him, and look out into the water. I am thin as air. I am part of this now, the sea and the sky, this spot where I drew my last breath. The place where I’d welcomed my death.

Time for me to return home.

My lover stands alone on the shore. He cannot follow me.

He stands with the remnants of my broken faith in his hands.

_____________________________

©2011 Lori Titus

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I don’t know about you guys, but this year was a mixed bag. Nothing seemed just okay. It was a year of really high highs and low lows.

That said, it made for a year that was not boring (ha!), will be memorable, and most likely have some long lasting effects. Yeah, I’ll let you use your imagination on that one.

There are some changes I can tell you about.

First off, Hunting in Closed Spaces should be out soon. Marradith’s first book!

I am also still working on my nanowrimo novel (which is at about 33K ), and should be finished at the end of this month. It’s called The Ancestors, and it has a nice creepy twist. This story is more dramatic than some of my other work, and I think you guys will like it.

Now, there are some things that I can only tease you about for next year. Tonia Brown and I have some big plans for our radio show, but nothing we can comment on.  I am working on closing out the second part of The Marradith Ryder Series (to make way for part three). I want to start work on the novel #2 for Marradith as well.

There are novellas finished that need a new home.  Other projects lined up. What a busy time.

Since the holidays are coming up (before we can bid this year farewell) everyone will be in a rush. I hope everyone finds a minute or two in there just to be content. I’m going to be looking for that, too.

Happy Holidays. And Happy New Year

 Eric smiled, turning off the ignition of his car. They were in the parking lot of a brick building, with an orange, electric sign blinking overhead:  Hallowed Emporium.

Val sighed. “Really? We drove two hours for this place? Aren’t the costumes here used?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but these are really great costumes.  Remember the party we went to at Brittany’s house last year? She got her costume here.”

He was lying through his teeth. He had no idea where Brittany had found her German barmaid/zombie outfit from. He only knew that every male in a thirty-mile radius was raving about it for weeks afterward.

Val’s  brown eyes narrowed. Brittany Ennis had been Val’s frenemy since junior high. Since they’d started college, nothing had changed. 

“Well, I guess I can see what they have. I’m not making any promises,” she said haughtily, undoing her seatbelt.

~*~

Inside, the Emporium was lit by white lights strung across the ceiling, draped with chains made of black construction paper and cut outs of black cats with red eyes and bloody fangs. A skeleton was strung up in the middle of the room, dangling from a chain driven through the skull, so that the feet almost touched the floor. The room was packed with rows of clothing. Two wooden signs divided up the store: one that read “Ladies” and the other that read “Gents.”

“Well how do you find anything in here?” Val fussed.

“Can I help you?” A girl appeared from around the corner of a rack full of animal costumes. She had a mass of curly, red hair, and wore lipstick the same fiery shade. She blinked, and her long, fake lashes fluttering like old lace.

“Yes,” Eric said, hoping the girl hadn’t heard Val’s comment. “My girlfriend here needs help finding a costume.”

Val always liked it when he addressed her as his girlfriend in front of other women. On this occasion, she seemed in a pissy enough mood not to care.

“Do you have something particular in mind?”  The salesgirl asked, turning all her attention on Val.

“Something sexy,” Val tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Not too much fabric.”

“No naughty nurse outfits,” Eric said. “You still have that one from last year.”

It was quick, but Eric saw it—the salesgirl, who wore a tag that said Cindy, rolled her eyes, but turned back to Val with a grin. “Oh don’t mind him,” Cindy took Val’s hand, pulling her towards the back of the store. “I have just what you’re looking for.”

~*~

Cindy led Val to the back of the store, which was actually much bigger than she would have guessed from the outside. There were period costumes (Marie Antoinette), superheroes (Wonder Woman and Cat Woman), female aliens ( a blue and silver dress that came with a blue and silver makeup kit and a silver headband with antenna). What Val found impressive is that the costumes weren’t cheaply made. Everything was either cotton, silk, or leather. There was nothing to be found in plastic or rubber.

“Where do you get all of this from?” Val asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Some of it comes from the old Hearthrob Studio Lot,” Cindy said, her heels clicking against the cement floor. “But over the years a lot of people have donated costumes they weren’t using anymore. We prefer to collect things that have…more of an authentic feel.”

“I see,” Val said, running her fingertips along the hem of a white dress.

“Everything here is dry-cleaned and steamed. Except for the very delicate pieces, such as that one, which was hand washed and then pressed after they are allowed to air-dry.”

“Really?” Val breathed.

Carefully, she picked up the dress, holding it in front of her in the mirror. She smiled, flouncing the skirt over her legs. “I don’t know why, but I like this one. Is there someplace I can try it on?”

Cindy crossed her arms. “You sure that you want that one? I have other dresses I can show you.”

“No. This one feels right.”

“Yes, you can try it on,” Cindy waved her into a dressing room. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.”

Eric roamed alone through the aisles of the men’s section, looking for something that interested him.

He couldn’t see either of the girls on their side of the store, but he heard them every now and again, giggling and speaking in hushed tones.

Until he knew what Val was going to get, he wasn’t going to buy anything. He didn’t want to risk getting a costume that wouldn’t match hers…and then having to hear about it for the next century.  It was his idea to find Hallowed Emporium, but now that they were here, his holiday spirit had diminished.

Perhaps it was the ambience of the place. It was a little dark for his taste. There was music playing somewhere, but it was the wordless, soft swell of a movie soundtrack. The lights blinked at intervals. Something white hung over the inside of the doorways, odd, straight shapes with rounded edges.

Chicken bones.

“Val?” Eric called.

He realized that he couldn’t hear the girls anymore. He only heard the music playing, and the air conditioning unit whirring above.

~*~

Val stared at her reflection in the mirror.

The white dress was so long that it dragged the floor.  I’ll have to wear heels with this, she reasoned, but she was sure that she could pull it off. The hem and the cuffs of the dress were decorated with thin, red lace. The neckline plunged in a dramatic “V”, showing off her cleavage.

Your hair needs to be up for the work ahead.

Val flinched. She heard a voice.

Looking in the mirror, she saw the shadow a figure behind her.

“What ?” Val choked.

 She had no time to turn around.

She felt cold all of a sudden. She couldn’t move.

A moment passed. She smiled into the mirror. A laugh escaped her throat.

Val pulled her hair back, sweeping it up into a ball.

“Keep the hair up,” she whispered.

When she looked down, she saw bloodstains all over the white dress.

~*~

“Hi there,” Cindy smiled brightly at Eric. “Any luck finding your costume?”

He stepped backwards, and then smiled. Cindy’s eyelashes fluttered.

“No, maybe I’m not in the Halloween spirit. How is my girlfriend doing?”

“Oh, I think she’s found something. She’ll be out of the dressing room right now.”

Cindy turned away and went up the aisle.

He followed her, but at the end, there was nothing but a blank wall.

“Cindy?” he called. “Val?”

How the hell have I got myself lost in this store?  He thought. Cussing under his breath, he turned.

Val stood behind him, her face in shadow.

Or more aptly, shadows moved over her face.

He saw the white bloodstained dress. Her eyes were blank, dull.

“Val…?”

The lights overhead blinked out once.  When they came on, the knife caught the reflection of the ambient light.

Eric moved backwards, but she jumped at him. The knife sliced into his arm, and he went down.

Scrambling through the densely packed aisle, he ran, only to come face-to-face with a cement wall.

When he turned, Val was waiting with her knife.

~*~

Val woke.

She was standing behind the register, at the front of the store. She was back in her own clothes- jeans and a tank top.

A redheaded girl stood before her, arms crossed.

“What…what’s happened here?” Val demanded.

“You’re giving me back my change,” Cindy snapped.

Cindy, Val thought. How is it I know her name?

Val realized she indeed was holding money: four dollars and eighty cents.

Not knowing what else to do, she gave the woman the change.

Leaning forward, Cindy dropped her voice to a whisper.

 “The costumes here are cursed,” she said. “You’re going to be stuck here until you sell enough of them. Until the spirits attached to the place think you’ve sold enough people out. Make sure you clean that bloody mess in the back.”

“What?”

Cindy ran to the door. Val followed on her heels.

As Cindy walked out, the door closed behind her.

In the blink of an eye, the doorway disappeared, replaced by a brick wall.

Val screamed.

_________________________

©2011 Lori Titus 

Marradith Ryder has been listed with them for quite a while, but it wasn’t until recently that I found out the series is rated number one in both horror and suspense.

You can have a look at all the stories listed here:  http://muses-success.info/browse/listing/1/Horror/all

http://gawker.com/5852132/the-armys-plan-to-cure-nightmares

This yearly contest challenges writers, newbies and experienced, to try their hand at pumping out one whole novel in thirty days. There’s no money involved, it’s for the experience.

Now, for me, this is a departure from how I usually do things.  I can work on a deadline, and I have done it before. But a whole novel. In one month?

One of my friends is doing it this year, and after he talked about it, I thought it might be a good idea to join, too. I have an idea that has been in my head for a few weeks now, but I have the feeling it’s going to have to be laid out in an unconventional way. So what better way to start than attacking the page and doing the clean up later?

The thing that’s funny is you grow so accustomed to self editing every few paragraphs (and sometimes, every few words). It’s going to be hard to turn that off. But I am hoping it will also be liberating.

In the meantime, I will try to post here more often, and keep ahead a few episodes on the Marradith series.

And speaking of Marradith, I received the final edit of the novel this week. So now it’s a matter of getting together a book cover and formatting. Exciting stuff!

For any of you who are writers, are you signing up for this year? And if so, are you doing it for fun, or do you think you’ll make something of the manuscript when it’s done?

http://all-due-respect.blogspot.com/2011/10/issue-16-october-2011.html

He’s finishing up the final touches on his first novel, HIGH MOOR, and Tonia and I had him on the show this weekend to talk about the proccess behind his writing.

Listen to the show here:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashes-in-the-dark-radio/2011/09/18/graeme-reynolds-high-moor

Keep up with Graeme’s updates on his novel, short stories and other projects here:

http://www.graemereynolds.com/

http://thebackseatwriter.blogspot.com/2011/09/lickable-lori.html?zx=48fb9c4053f15962