Anthony stood at the fence and watched Lily go by, holding her mother’s hand. Lily’s smile was made of sunshine, but Anthony forgot how to smile sometimes. He waved, a little wave. There was something in the way she turned her head and peered back at him that told him she was sorry, sorry he wasn’t like her, sorry his dad didn’t look after him the way he was supposed to. Trailer trash, that’s what the schoolboys had said when they had seen Anthony standing at the fence that way. But it was alright. Lily didn’t wave to them. She waved to him, every Saturday when she walked with her mother. Anthony watched her hair swish from side to side and thought about the way her mother didn’t look at him, just pretended he wasn’t there; but Lily looked, Lily cared. If only she would turn around just once more. He kept watching until ten seconds after she had gone round the bend in the road before running back to the caravan. Next time he would not forget how to smile.

#microfiction

I was hired as a new actor for a nationally ranked haunted house attraction for the Halloween season. I came to get acting experience and make some additional money to pay the bills with. I mean, who wouldn't want to be paid to scare people for fun? I had no idea what I was getting myself into until it was too late....

I was cast as a zombie in a graveyard room. I had arrived for opening night of the haunted house's 30th season, and was directed to a side door entrance by a friendly security lady. I went upstairs to a costume room where I was given my outfit, which consisted of ragged, ripped clothes a zombie might wear. I was called in for makeup, and they made me truly look like a member of the undead. A veteran actor directed me to where my scene was located in the haunted house, and my manager stopped by to make sure I was ready. She told me a breaker would come by once my break time began. I smiled and gave a thumbs up, ready to begin my career as a scare actor.

Scaring people was so much fun. I lost count of the number of screams I had caused, which was so incredibly addictive to do. Eventually nature started calling, and I wondered when my breaker would come. Hours seemed to go by, and no breaker, security, or even my manager had stopped back to check on me. I had been told in training that if I truly couldn't wait, I could rush to the breakroom, then return to my scene. I stealthily followed the last group I scared out of my scene, looking for the emergency exit that would take me to the hidden hallway that led to the breakroom. When I had first toured the house during my training, I remember being told that the emergency exit was right about.... here!

There was no door there though, just another wall. I could have sworn the door was in this spot. Undeterred, I continued through the haunt, passing through a dangerous toy room, a sinister circus, a sewer, and a bloodied up office room. I remember being told there were multiple emergency exits, but I hadn't seen any of them in this trip through the house. Oddly enough, the people I had followed were no longer around either. Could they have run ahead that fast?

I proceeded to where the end of the haunt was, concluding that I could exit, then find the breakroom from the outside. But when I reached the end of the house, I was greeted by another wall. I quickly backtracked to the beginning of the attraction to seek the stairs I had used to enter the haunt from the makeup and costume rooms. Where the stairs should have been was another wall. What was going on?

Not sure what else to do, I headed back to my scene. Maybe someone would come by and then I could ask for help. I still heard all the sound effects, and the animatronics were all running too. But I hadn't seen any other actors while searching for the exits, and I hadn't run into any other guests either. I was essentially alone in this actively running haunted house, without a soul to scare. A few hours later I returned to the bloody office room, and found the ancient typewriter that I am writing this message on. I will leave it around where a guest may find it, should this place ever open back up to the public. Maybe then I will find someone that can show me how to get to the breakroom....

Believe it or not, I very well may actually related to the guy who wrote the famous classic,

The Wizard of Oz. My grandma states that a relative of my grandpa, has a cabin back in the woods with one of the original copies of The Wizard of oz. My last name even matches his, Baum is not one of the most common names after all.

Woke up feeling excited

As my children will visit me

Spent my first minutes listening

To the music of the past.

While I read the newspaper

Sitting in my rocking chair

I wait for breakfast to be served

And when the time came, I stood up.

Guiding myself to the dining room

I walked slowly, but steady with my cane

And when I came to the dining room

I see decorations, a surprise party for me!

I was the oldest among my friends

In the nursing home that I lived in

While I waited for my children to come

I celebrated my birthday with my old friends.

I was laying in my bed listening to the wake up call of my annoying alarm clock, urging me to get out of bed from somewhere deep in my closet where I had thrown it two seconds earlier. It was the weekend and I wanted to sleep in but clearly my alarm clock didn't know that.

I groaned and rolled out of bed, falling splat on the floor and feeling the cold wood push against my bare legs where my night gown had rolled up. Then being the natural human being I was, I crawled like a spider across the floor and into my closet to find the alarm clock and kill it.

Two minutes later, yes it took my sleepy brain that long to pinpoint the noise, I shut off my alarm clock and pushed to a standing position.

I started to push aside clothing on the rack, trying to find something I could wear, most of it had stains and rips from being human. I then came to a hot pink biker jacket that had never ever been in my closet. How I knew it wasn't mine you ask? Well first off I had never worn anything pink in my life, especially hot pink. Second It had no rips and stains like 99% of my outfits and last but not least it was stiff and tight looking, a very logical reason to why I was about to burn it.

I grabbed a bright yellow, loose dress that had minimum damage and walked into the bathroom. I stripped out of my nightgown and popped in the shower to wash my hair. The water felt good cascading down over my body and it was twenty minutes later I stepped out to dry off. I pulled the dress over my head and stood in front of the mirror, brushing my teeth and hair. Once I was done I grabbed the pink jacket from my closet and dashed downstairs.

I grabbed an apple and rushed out the door to my car and climbed in, throwing the jacket way in the back. I put the car into drive and pulled out of my driveway. I drove down the road to an abandoned parking lot I had found in the back of the woods a year ago.

I looked around then started piling wood in the middle of the parking lot, and then I lit a large fire. I walked over to the car to grab the jacket but I couldn't find it. I hissed, I must have only thought I brought it. I started walking back towards the fire when I heard another car pull up. I turned around to see a police car and a man getting out.

"What are you doing miss?" He asked walked over to me "You shouldn't be lighting fires in parking lots, much less this close to the woods, which are quite close to the woodworks."

I sighed then said "I had this..." I waved my hands wildly "I guess a jacket in my car that I was going to burn but now it is missing."

"And how could this jacket be missing if you put it in your car?" He stared at me buntly.

"I don't know!" I said my voice raising.

His hand went to his belt and he said "Why don't I take a look in your car, miss?"

He walked over to my car and opened the unlocked down and looked around. Then he strutted back over to me with, you guessed it, the pink jacket.

"This jacket?" He asked, holding it up.

I gapped at the jacket. "That wasn't there before!" I yelled, frustrated and annoyed as he pointed towards the police cruiser.

"Why don't you get in there and we can take a drive over to the station?"

"But I don't need to." I stated trying to keep calm.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way?" He said. "I for one would prefer for this to be easy."

I sighed and climbed in the cruiser, he climbed in the front and locked the door. He backed the car up and then headed towards the station.

At the station I was quizzed and my fingerprints were taken. Having no reason to hold me they did let me go an hour later. I knew I wasn't crazy but I would need to figure out what that jacket meant.

TO BE CONTINUED

A gift from God, handle with care!

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I’m not skinny but I’m not fat,

they say I’m easy to look at.

I’ve got curves in all the right places,

I’ll never be Einstein but my IQ is aces.

My brain a mass of beautiful neurons firing,

despite the chaotically intricate wiring.

My love is loyal, deep and strong,

qualities lost in the throng.

We’ll laugh each day together,

even as we age and weather.

Hold me too tight,

I will take flight.

I require care,

Isn’t that the way with things that are rare?

I am willful and stubborn,

a fact you may sometimes mourn.

I’m everything you never knew you had need of,

a precise mix of chemistry and love.

I’m not perfect, how utterly boring would that be?

I’m just me.

Horror movies aren’t my cup of tea, and I especially don’t like the cheesy ones made forty years before my time. I’m 13 now, and the year is 2013. Tonight was an exception because my aunt Jessica wanted to show me one on Netflix called ‘The Killer Vacuum’. What it is about is self-explanatory- a vacuum that, instead of sucking up dirt, dust, and tiny garbage- it sucks up people and kills them. And it wouldn’t keep me up for three hours if it wasn’t for the fact that the vacuum in the movie has a scary resemblance to the one that my aunt bought at a store called Tickle Your Fancy before I came down to visit her for the summer. I should know that there is nothing to worry about –because there isn’t- but I think I’m allowed to feel scared for just one night. Because of the insomnia I’m feeling, I decided to go out into the living room and watch some of my favorite shows on Netflix while I sat on the couch. My aunt’s dog, Franks, laid down next to me with his head on my leg.

            In the middle of the second episode I watched, I hear it. Frank does too because he lifts his head. It’s the sound of the vacuum- like someone had turned it on.  I know it’s not coming from the television because the two main characters are in a car, and vacuums don’t just make sounds in a car. Just like they don’t suddenly make sounds at three in the morning. My blue eyes looked towards the right corner near the door, where the vacuum was. Then the noise stopped. I saw that the cord was unplugged. I just imagined it, I thought, relieved. Yet I wasn’t too sure it was my imagination.

 I breathed out, not realizing I was holding it. My body felt shaky as I hesitantly pressed play on the remote and continued the episode. Eventually I fell asleep on the couch, but not before I heard the vacuum noise again.

            “Good morning, Elise,” my aunt greeted, already eating, as I stepped into the kitchen. It was small and had a folding table with two plastic chairs.

            “Good morning Aunt Jessica,” I replied, and took a seat on one of the chairs. I filled my plate with eggs and started eating.

            “What were you doing sleeping the couch? Is the bed too uncomfortable?” she asked. I shook my head.

            “I was watching some tv and fell asleep before I could back to my bed,” I answered.

            “Did the movie scare you?”

            “Not really.” What I wanted to say was no, but the noises your vacuum made last night did.

            “I have to go work soon. You’ll be okay without me right? Don’t forget to walk Frank.” I nodded, and watched as my aunt rose from the table and put her plate into the sink. I finished up soon after and waited for my aunt to leave before I grabbed my cell phone from by bedroom and dialed my brother’s number. When he answered, I told him about what my aunt and I had been up to and was listening to him talk about his latest soccer match when I heard it again. The vacuum. I pretended it was my imagination until it happened again after my brother and I ended the call. That’s four times, I think as I walk out the back door of the house, located in the middle of one of the kitchen walls between two counters.

            I walked next door to where my friend Isaiah lived, and knocked on the door. He was the only person I could tell who would think I was crazy, but would give me a chance to prove I wasn’t. I knocked on the door and he was the one to answer.

            “Hey Isaiah!” I greeted. “I think my aunt’s vacuum is haunted.”

            “Hi Elise,” he replied. He looked at me with a surprised expression. “Why?”

            “We watched a movie last night about a murderous vacuum, which looks almost identical to the one my aunt has, and it keeps making noises but it’s not plugged in and no one was touching it.”

            “You’re imagining it.”

            “Probably.  Will you come over and help me figure out if it’s a vacuum out to kill me or not?”

            Isaiah agreed and the two of us walked back over to the house, going in the front door this time where the vacuum was sitting in the corner next to us. It was still unplugged like last night.

            “I’ll plug it in,” I said as I unwound the cord from around the vacuum and took the plug and plugged it into the nearest outlet. The switch was off so it didn’t do anything. “Can you flip the switch?”

            Isaiah nodded and flipped the switch. Slurp! I watch in trepidation as my friend was sucked in the vacuum, and immediately pulled out the cord. This didn’t stop the vacuum from chasing me around the house. I ran to my room, which was out of range for the vacuum cord- I still shut the door- and I called my aunt. I could hear the vacuum ramming against the door of my room. Whack! Whack! Whack! I told her what was going on and she would be here in ten minutes. I looked for a way to escape. The window. There’s only one floor to the house, so I didn’t have to worry about injuring myself much.

I went back to the front of the house and waited anxiously for my aunt. The vacuum was now just inside the door. It didn’t pound against the door, but I could hear it- like it was taunting me. My aunt arrived a few minutes later and ran to the door. We were going to do what they did in the movie to stop the vacuum and save everyone. She would open the door and I would quickly as possible flip the switch to reverse -which is a strange option for a vacuum. We did this successfully, and Isaiah came out, covered in dirt and dust. He coughed ferociously and had to rub the dirt out of his eyes.  My aunt went inside and got him a glass of water. I turned off the vacuum and unplugged it. The three of us got rid of the vacuum and wondered where Frank had gone to. After searching the floor with no luck, we tried the basement and found him in a corner, obviously scared by the vacuum. Isaiah, Aunt Jessica, and I all took him for a walk to get out of the house and away from the horrible vacuum.

Mary had a little car

Little car, little car

Mary had a little car

And the car ran over her.

Mary had a little wolf

Little wolf, little wolf

Mary had a little wolf

And the wolf just ate her up.