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| Anne Never had I seen such wisdom in a child's eyes, but my sweet Anne looked at me and I saw it there. It gleamed with a light unseen by anyone else but me and she would not look away as other children would. "Is mommy going to be ok?" Anne asked innocently and it broke my heart. "Yes sweetie, but mommy will be going away for a while. Don't be sad she will be going to heaven." I answered dreading what was to come next. "Mommy is going to heaven without us? " She questioned her eyes never straying from my own. "Yes my sweet she's going to go make us a place." I told her looking away from that dreaded gaze. Anne looked at me with such curiosity and then she took my hand, "Don't worry daddy you will be with her soon." She whispered smoothing my hand. The details of my wife's death were truly ghastly. She was strangled with her own chain, the very chain that held a small picture of Anne and I. I stared at the child questioningly, "What do you mean?" "I love you daddy." Anne blurted hugging my leg. I took the child in my arms and hugged her, she who was the only living rememberance I had of my dear Elizabeth. I took her to her room and put her to bed, "Sleep tight my sweet." I said wiping away tears in the dark. "Good night daddy." Three months after I had put my wife in the ground I again woke to screams, I had been in bed early for an appointment in the morning and it was around midnight. Quickly I ran to my daughters room hoping, no, praying everything was alright. As I ran in I saw my Anne screaming in her bed her covers still covering her. I looked in the direction in which she screamed and almost fainted at the sight of the nanny I had hired to keep Anne while I was away. She was mutilated beyond imagination, a pair of scissors open and sticking through both of her eyes. Quickly I phoned help, neighbors came to my aid hearing Anne's cries. I rushed over to her phone in hand and covered her face in my arms, her face was not wet at all. Not a tear stained it. And I fancied hearing her laugh instead of cry in my arms there on her bed. After all was once again quiet and Anne safely tucked into bed I was on my way to the kitchen when my foot caught on to her sheet. It wasn't on her bed but the floor as if...no couldn't be. Again three months after this incident I awoke to another scream. I had been dozing in my chair in the library when I heard them. I ran quickly to Anne's room but the screams were not there at all. They came from the bathroom. As I ran there I cut my foot on a shattered glass, the floor was wet too. In the bathroom my daughter was on her knees screaming, the well-to-do nanny I had hired was in the bathtub floating face down. I hurried over to her and rolled her over, a bar of soap bulged from her mouth as her eyes bulged from her sockets. She was blue and the look on her face gave me nightmares for weeks after. I was once again helped by neighbors and after all was silent and my daughter asleep in my arms my mind started to wander. Earlier that day my daughter had had a quarrel with the nanny about bath time. As I drifted deeper into thought my wife had not let my daughter see the pendant when she had asked, and the first nanny had not taught her how to sew. All those months after, yet again three, I could not sleep but stalked the halls with my only servant, Morts. The night of this murder Morts had turned in early for the festives of halloween. When once again the screaming occured I went to Morts room immediately, nothing. I ran to Anne's room and met Mort there holding my child who weeped softly into his arms. "Twas just a nightmare sir, go ahead to bed I'll take care of her." Relieved that this time I would not put another friend in the ground I went to bed and slept fitfully. In the morning I awoke late and was disappointed to find Mort had not started on the big day. My disappointment grew more so when I could not find my faithful servant. Anne was up and playing with her doll her mother had given her all those years ago. "Have you seen Mort my sweet?" I asked Anne. Anne shook her head and continued playing. I watched her act out a chasing and I turned pale when the chase ended up with the huinted thrown deep into the well. The well was then boarded and the victim left to thier fate. When I went to the kitchen to have some coffee I glanced out the window and the blood drained from my face, the well was boarded up. I ran to the well and uped the boards and at the bottom I found my faithful servant drowned. Never again did I hire a servant nor a nanny, not to be lost to that child, that demon! But in those last month's of my life I had fallen in love again. A sweet young lass whom will not be named captured my heart and I spent no happier days on earth than with that sweet angel. Then on the night of Elizabeth's death I awoke to a hand stroking my face. Anne stared me in the eyes for the final time and I asked why she had done all these things. When she answered it was not her voice but the voice of a thousand children: "Because you were not the father you promised to be." By: Ben Hammond One More Day It was on a summer day in the midst of a drought, I was outside sunning myself when a man had the indecency to step in my light. I opened my eyes and looked at him but he was outlined in a halo and I could not make out features. "You are in my light." I chided trying to keep the irritaion out of my voice. "It's time." was all he said and his voice drove a chill down my spine. "Time for what?" I asked putting my hand above my eyes to see who I was talking to. "Time for you to come with me and sleep." I gasped waking with a start, I must have dosed while I sunned myself. A cloud had moved over my sun and I blamed that for my dream. When the cloud passed I resumed sunning myself when I swear I heard some one behind me. I whirled around but saw no one. When I turned back to my beloved sun I glanced in the distance and walking towards me was a man, a man all in black. The heat radiating from the ground gave him the appearance of an illusion but I knew he was coming to take me to my bed. My life flashed before my eyes and when I came to he was even closer. "Please." I begged loudly enough to have him hear me. "Just give me a day, just a day!" I implored falling to my knees as he approached. Not a word he spoke when he stopped inches away, again the sunlight was behind him casting a halo so I could not see his face. "I know you hear these pleas all the time, and it's not that I don't want to be with you it's that..." I never finished, the words died on my lips as he reached out and touched my head. His touch brought me peace, if even just for a second. Then the ground opened up and swallowed me. The flames licked me blackening my soul and the crackle of the flames drowned out my screams. I watched as all my sins were brought to me. The time I ignored the mother, gaunt child in arms. The time I beat the slave for stealing food from my table to feed his family, mere scraps and I beat the life out of him. My own wife's last plea ignored because I was prideful. The beggar I had just repelled before I had sat down and enjoyed the sun. I snapped back to reality as the beggar boy I had last seen in my reverie tugged on my sleeve. "Would you please spare a coin for a starving boy?" Pleaded that poor soul. So I took him and gave him a feast. He wore odd clothes, his shirt and pants encompassed everything but his pale face and they swallowed all light. They were muck stained and he devoured his food greedily. Afterwards he bade me a walk in the park. I followed and he asked me to sun myself with him. Although curious at such a coincedence I sunned myself with him sitting on the ground. After a while I was again put into shadow. "You are in my light" I chided barely keeping the irritation out of my voice. "I just wanted to give you time to adjust to the darkness, I have given you the time you have bade me." and with this said I felt a child's hand touch my head and I slept. By: Ben Hammond |
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