Out of the Cave (and Other Stories)

OUT OF THE CAVE

An anthology

Compiled by MacKenzie Publishing

Contributions by:

Chantal Boudreau, Chiara De Giorgi, Kevin M. Folliard, Heron Greenesmith, Alan Kemister, S.L. Kerns, Matthew D. Laing, Rod Martinez, Stephen Millard, Val Muller, A.W. Powers, Kathy Price, Kristin Roahrig, Tom Robson, Katherine Sanger, A.P. Sessler, E.F. Schraeder, Paul Stansbury, Jeff C. Stevenson, Randy Whittaker, Cassandra Williams

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Out of the Cave

Copyright ©2016 MacKenzie Publishing

Halifax, Nova Scotia

August 1, 2016

Edited by C.A. MacKenzie

Cover image: Phia Beach, New Zealand

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imaginations or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Each author retains copyright to his/her story. All stories contained herein are published with permission of the authors.

Trademarks are denoted throughout by use of proper capitalization or stylization.

Canadian, British, or American spelling has been retained in each story.

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Contents

Foreword by Steve Vernon

Preface

Out of the Cave

Cassandra Williams

Proper Method

Stephen Millard

I Wait

Chiara De Giorgi

Becoming Clarissa

A.W. Powers

Danger Street

Rod Martinez

The Grip

Val Muller

Down the Myrtle Tree

A.P. Sessler

Takers

Paul Stansbury

The Legend of Poutine

Randy Whittaker

The Monster of Beinn Leitir

Kristin Roahrig

Bearing Witness

Alan Kemister

The Gravedigger

Tom Robson

In Tents

Heron Greenesmith

They Came From Ogijima

S.L. Kerns

Unintended Consequences

Kathy Price

The Fourth Floor

E.F. Schraeder

No Deeper

Chantal Boudreau

Tim and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Reanimated Animal Attacks

Katherine Sanger

The Stone Fountain

Matthew D. Laing

Measured in Minutes

Jeff C. Stevenson

Midnight Man

Kevin M. Folliard

About the Authors

About Steve Vernon

Social Media Links

MacKenzie Publishing

Foreword

I have been writing scary stories for over forty years, and over those forty years I have probably sat at about four hundred tables stacked with my books, selling and signing copies for the book-buying public. If you want to grab a piece of paper and a pen and do the math for a minute, I’ll be more than happy to sit here and wait.

Are you done now?

Good.

Then let’s move on.

At each of those four hundred or so book-signing tables, I have had about fifty people out of the two hundred or so that came and visited one of my book signing tables on any given day of the year walk up to me and say something along the lines of Brrr…scary stories. Those look way too scary for me, or else Brrr…scary stories. Those look way too scary for my kids.

Bushwah, bull-puck and balderdash, says I.

Scary stories are good for kids.

In fact, I am going to clamber right out onto the highest limb of the tallest creepy old tree in the darkest Nova Scotia forest that you can find and start sawing away with my rustiest and most blood-stained handsaw bravely—on account of I believe that it just isn’t healthy to be scared of being scared.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good scary story.

Take a moment and think about it.

You drill right down into the very heart of storytelling, and you are going to realize that stories are about people solving problems.

You take the story of Frankenstein. At the heart of it, Frankenstein is the story of a man dealing with his child. Old Doctor Frankenstein created this big old bolt-necked monster with the idea that he was building himself a brilliant future—and then all of a sudden he realized that he had created a monster.

How many parents out there have raised a child thinking to themselves that little Tommy or little Amy was going to grow up to be just like them, only better—and then, by extension, people would look at little Tommy or little Amy and think to themselves, By golly, what a wonderful parent they must have. And then all of a sudden little Tommy or little Amy starts knocking down villagers and windmills and wandering pitch-fork-and-torch-wielding mobs and Poppa Frankenstein suddenly has to figure out how to deal with the seven-foot-tall, corpse-stitched, lightning-charged monster/ kid that he has built.

Or—if you want to get away from the booga-booga horror genre—how about the World War 2 story of Anne Frank? That, at the heart of it, is the story of a young girl attempting to learn how to cope with the idea of her family having to hide in an attic from a regime of genocidal Gestapo agents who at any moment in time might come kicking down the door of that attic and drag her family off to a concentration camp.

Can you smell the fear that is hiding in that story?

Or—how about Gary Paulsen’s young adult novel Hatchet, that tells the story of a young boy who crash lands in the heart of the deep Northern woods and has to figure out how to survive with nothing more than a hatchet and a handful of hope. He almost starves, he faces wild animals and he learns how to overcome his fear.

Each of those stories—in their own way—is a scary story about learning how to deal with fear.

And that—more than anything else—is what a good scary story teaches you.

And that—more than anything else—is why good scary stories are important for young kids to read.

Kids of all ages CONSTANTLY live in the shadow of fear. Am I going to be good enough? Are my parents going to get divorced? Am I going to be popular enough? Will Dad lose his job? Can I pass that darned math test? Will those bullies leave me alone?

Fear—kids live in it constantly—and a good scary story teaches a kid how to deal with fear. And THAT, more than anything else, is why you ought to let your kids read all of the scary stories that they can get their hands on.

So let’s do that today.

Pick up this book and buy it and give it to your kid.

Let’s drag scary stories out of the darkness of the cave.

Yours in Storytelling,

Steve Vernon

June 11, 2016

Preface

This is MacKenzie Publishing’s first anthology, and I’m pleased with the calibre of stories submitted. Unfortunately, there were many good stories I had to decline.

The stories herein are a mixture of fantasy, supernatural, and suspense, with dabs of horror tossed into the mix. Though adults would enjoy these stories, they are geared for youth as young as thirteen. My goal for this book is to instill the love of reading in teenagers. Alas, my sweet grandchildren will too soon be at that stage, and I hope they’ll still be reading.

Seasoned writers know the beginning of a story or book should hook the reader. Similarly, the writing should end on a high note. I believe I have accomplished this feat. The foreword by Steve Vernon, Nova Scotia writer, storyteller, and master of the booga-booga, is amazing. And in the back is a special treat: one of his flash fiction stories—a mere 172 words—an excellent close to this book. (Check out Steve’s profile, too, and his other great reads.)

This isn’t to say the stories compiled here don’t deserve merit on their own. They do—all of them!—or they wouldn’t have been selected for this book. Read them, and you’ll agree with me.

On the last page, check out the links. Follow MacKenzie Publishing to keep apprised of other projects and like the Facebook pages.

Two Eyes Open (horror stories for adults) will be MacKenzie Publishing’s next anthology. Hmmm…which famous horror writer should I approach for that foreword?

As always, any errors are mine.

Cathy MacKenzie

MacKenzie Publishing

August 1, 2016

OUT OF THE CAVE

Cassandra Williams

Jamie has never known his grandfather to lie, but the boy still wonders whether trolls exist. And he is determined to find out once and for all.

Gramps insists trolls don’t live in the cave by White Rock Bridge, but I don’t believe him. I’ve never seen a troll—not that I want to. He hasn’t either, so how can he say none exist? Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Trolls live in caves. Everyone knows that. And there’s that Three Billy Goats Gruff story, I say.

Gramps laughs. I’ve been in that cave many a time when I was your age. Never saw tail nor hide of no troll. And that goat story is just that—a story, a fairy tale.

But Gramps, sometimes fairy tales are real. And couldn’t the troll have come after you left?

Gramps moved from Beaconsville when he was a teenager and returned to marry Grandma. Anything could have happened in the years he was gone—more than enough time for a troll to materialize.

But no, he shoots down that theory, too. I hardly think trolls have come in the last fifty years.

But trolls eat people. Maybe that’s why no one has seen them. No one is left alive to tell about it. I picture stubby trolls jumping on people, tearing off their limbs, yanking flesh from bones. But are trolls that strong? From pictures I’ve seen, they look old like Gramps, and I don’t think Gramps can do stuff like that. Plus trolls are smaller than him.

Gramps laughs again. His gnarled fingers mess my hair. Trolls don’t exist else’n I would’ve seen one by now. Besides, trolls turn to stone when the sun hits them. So if’n such a creature existed, you’d never see it unless you have cat eyes and saw it before it hardened.

I picture the brutes exiting dark caves, the sun hitting them and turning them to stone. Does that mean we’re safe when the sun shines? Stones don’t hurt people unless we throw them.

Gramps is fed up with me. Run off and play now.

I go to my room and plop to my bed. Those stupid trolls won’t leave my mind.

My friends and I play around White Rock Bridge, but we stay clear of the cave. We’ve all read the tales of trolls. Isn’t a cave near a bridge too coincidental? Even though I’ve told my friends that Gramps says trolls don’t exist, they’re still not brave enough to enter the cave. Not even me, and I trust Gramps. But we’re still curious, always wondering.

The next day after school, Calvin, Brian, and I saunter down to the river. We don’t mean to veer as close to the cave as we do, but suddenly there we are, still and solemn before it as if paying respects to a dearly beloved at a funeral. And I’m positive deadly fangs line the peripheral, the blackness a wide yawn that threatens to chew us to bits.

I eye my friends, hoping they don’t see me trembling. What are we doing? Who’s going to speak first?

We going in? Brian asks.

Calvin shakes his head. Nope, not me. What about you, Jamie? You said your grandfather doesn’t believe in trolls. You gonna prove him wrong? You gonna prove him right? Which is it?

I wish I’d never repeated Gramps’ words, but Gramps knows everything. If the old man says nothing lives in the cave and trolls don’t exist, then that must be true, but it’s still scary, and I don’t want to look like a sissy. It doesn’t matter that none of my friends want to enter the cave either.

I fiddle with my hat. Nah.

Brian’s looking at me. Double dog dare ya.

Despite my ball cap, the sun hits my face. In my nightmares, trolls hold me hostage or chase me through woods. How can I dispute their existence? Will the sun really turn them to stone? But what happens in the cave? There’s no sun inside, and I won’t be able to see. I hear Gramps’ words: Trolls don’t exist.

Calvin and Brian chant and cajole and point at me. Come on, Jamie. Be a man. Don’t you believe your grandfather?

Do I believe Gramps? Trolls don’t exist. I glance from one sneering face to the other and shiver despite the heat. I’ll be the butt of jokes the next day at school if I don’t do what they want.

How deep is the cave? Can I dart in and out before the troll notices?

I move one foot. Can I move the other? Should I turn and race home, let Ma protect me? Pa won’t, but my mother will. Pa will laugh at me, call me a sissy. What will Gramps do?

I take a step. A few more and the ordeal can be over. Sweat soaks my T-shirt. I rub my arm across my clammy forehead.

Okay. I shuffle toward the cave. Calvin and Brian cheer me on, their voices ricocheting from the cliff to my ears.

At the entrance, I stop and stare into the gaping, endless black hole. A huge shadow sweeps over me, and I’m covered in darkness as bleak as I imagine the inside of the cave will be. The troll!

I scream.

My friends scream.

And we all run, speeding as fast as we can alongside the riverbed to the relic of the rowboat, up the bank to the bending birches, and across the field to the playground. Once there, we fight for our breath. We butt fists and go home.

At school the next day, no mention is made of the day before. Calvin and Brian can’t say anything, really, since they fled as I did. At the three o’clock bell, I wave goodbye to my friends and stroll to the river, toward the cave.

Last night in bed, I pondered shadows and how the sun possesses an uncanny ability to enlarge objects into odd shapes different from the original. The shadow that covered me was massive, and when the sun threw the image against the cave, I thought I saw the engorged nose and squat body of a troll. But the shadow didn’t move—not once it covered me. Or didn’t I stay long enough? Did our shouting lure the troll from the cave and the sun turn it to stone? If so, I’ll be safe. But what if the shadow was something else? Something real?

The sun hangs to my left. Is it in the same position as the day before? We were there about four o’clock. In another half hour, the elements might align to precisely replicate yesterday’s shadow.

I don’t have patience, but I wait. I trust Gramps, who would never knowingly lie, but what if he’s wrong? Though he said trolls don’t exist, he talked about the sun changing them to stone. If trolls aren’t real, why would he say that?

And then the shadow appears. I know what it is—not a troll but the sun projecting a dying, podgy pine from across the cliff, and now the cave’s grim orifice isn’t so scary.

I’m glad I remembered to bring a flashlight. It’ll lead the way and keep me safe. But still, can I go in?

Gramps words float around me: There’s no such thing as trolls. I hear my father’s voice, Be a man, and my mother: Be careful, young man. But, of course, my parents’ warnings are generalizations and have nothing to do with trolls.

What if my theory is wrong? I shudder. Clouds threatening showers stray overhead. The shadows are gone.

I look around for new rocks or boulders, but too many exist to know whether any of them have changed.

I turn on the flashlight, take a deep breath, and enter the cave. The musty, dank smell confronts me.

A few minutes into the cavern, the flashlight reveals a rough, curving wall. The ground is splattered with small, loose stones but not a speck of anything out of the ordinary.

Gramps is right, I mutter.

While leaving the cave, an idea comes to me. I race home. In the kitchen, I shove several chalk pieces into my back pocket. From the shed, I grab Pa’s rabbit trap and small shovel, and I speed back into the woods, where I set the trap. The forest is full of small animals. It won’t take long.

After searching the ground for several minutes, I find my dog’s grave. Rover. When I buried him a few months ago, I stuck a branch deep into the ground for a cross. I dig a couple of feet until I reach bones and haul them up. I shake off as much dirt and rotted flesh as I can and drop the bones in my knapsack. I return to the trap, where a squirming, squalling squirrel greets me.

I head back to the cave. The storm clouds have disappeared, and the sun beats down.

When I enter, the cave swallows me. I creep to the cave’s end, the flashlight leading the way. Holding the light in my left hand, I scribble primitive figures and animals on the walls. I arrange the brittle bones in a pile, like logs primed for a bonfire.

The squirrel’s pitiful, pleading eyes bore into mine. I thrust the serrated knife into its fur. Blood gushes across my fingers and down my shirt. I sever the head and, holding the body, drip crimson over the floor and fling guts against the walls.

I breathe deeply. Done. Perfect. I giggle. I’ll be a hero when I’m the last man standing.

***

Calvin and Brian, always eager for adventures and hearing of my uneventful trek into the cave the day before, follow me back to the cave. We stare at the looming black hole.

Did you really go in? Calvin asks.

Yep.

Brian shivers. It looks dark.

Darker than I remember, Calvin says.

I have a flashlight. I pull it from my pocket and brandish it in the air. Let’s go.

Ya, let’s, Brian says. I’m not scared. And your grandfather says it’s safe, right?

Calvin adds, And you said you went in yesterday, eh Jamie?

Yep, I did. And that’s why I went in. Because I trust Gramps. And there was nothing there.

We enter the cave. I’m in the lead, controlling the flashlight. I shuffle, waiting for the others to catch up. Come on.

And then we’re at the end. I keep the light away from the items I planted and shine it on my friends’ faces. They’re standing shoulder to shoulder, about to cling to each other like frightened little kids. I kinda giggle inside.

I swing the light to highlight the bonfire of bones and the cakey blood on the dusty floor and the chalk images on the pockmarked wall.

I quickly swerve the beam to Calvin and Brian again. Their mouths are wide and rounder than their eyes. They stand still for several seconds until they jump as if a busted wind-up toy was given sudden life.

I aim the flashlight on their disappearing backsides and snicker. Sissies. My shriek echoes. I click off the light, but by then they’re gone.

I switch on the flashlight and head out. When daylight hits me, I gulp unspoiled air. The cave stinks of decay and must and mould.

Above me, storm clouds have returned, dark and menacing. And then an immense shadow as black as my father’s too-small funeral suit slowly spreads over me.

I’m rooted like a tree trunk. Can I break free from limbs and leaves? I quiver. Is it a troll? More than one? I hope I look as inconsequential as a maggot on a cadaver.

Gramps’ words blast in my ears: Trolls don’t exist. But if not a troll, what is it? I can’t breathe. I want to scream, but leaves are stuck in my throat. My heart thunders up to my clogged throat. There’s no escape.

It’s a troll!

The hooked nose juts from the edge of the shadow, crashing upon the boulders. I inhale a great breath, and then the air is sucked from me when the nose moves like it’s sniffing at something it’s never smelled before—me, a human—and