RUSSELL JAMES: The One

THE ONE

Russell James

Copyright © 2016 by Russell James

Maurice bounced against the door as the subway hit the misaligned rails south of Charmatain station. He righted himself and hiked his messenger bag up on his shoulder. With a clumsy forefinger shove he pushed his heavy glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

He checked his watch. 5:55 PM. On schedule. The commute home across the city took 42 minutes, 49 if he had to wait at the transfer. Such precise measurements made him the butt of many jokes, but accountants lived for accuracy. Unaccounted minutes in his day were like cash missing from a register.

Maurice did not mind the commute. This was his time with the world, the hour and a half each day between his sterile loft in suburban Alcorcon and his quiet cubicle in downtown Madrid.

As always, he stood for the entire trip, partly because he had been sitting all day at work, but mostly because ladies should always be seated. Of course he could never stand and give his seat to a woman, afraid she might construe his chivalrous act as chauvinism. So he stood, even if seats were open, lest the surge of passengers in a station force him into the uncomfortable position of usurping a seat from the fairer sex.

The crowded subway rolled to a stop at the next station. Riders came and went like discards and draws in a round of passenger poker. A harried young mother slammed a baby stroller across the gap and into the car. The baby remained sound asleep. Overstuffed sacks of child paraphernalia hung from both handles like saddlebags. Two chattering toddlers trailed in her wake, fingers hooked in her belt loops. Stray strands of hair had escaped her pony tail and the summer heat had plastered them to her cheeks.

She took the open seat beside Maurice. The two eldest children gripped the outside edges of the stroller, their conversation about firemen uninterrupted.

Maurice thought the woman must have had a hard day. A mid-week recreational outing was unlikely for the family. It had probably been a day of errands, made more burdensome as a party of four. Trekking through the city in the cheap flip flops she wore couldn’t have the trip any better.

A baby bottle slipped from the stroller’s side pouch. It rolled past Maurice. The mother, head back against the window and eyes closed, hadn’t noticed.

Maurice stopped the bottle with the toe of his shoe. He turned his head in the opposite direction and then flipped the bottle against the feet of the child next to him.

“Mama, look!” the little boy cried. “Carla’s bottle got away.” He scooped up the bottle like it was found gold. “I saved it!”

“Thank you, Paulo,” she said without opening her eyes. “Put it in the sack.”

Paulo did and then shot his brother a self-satisfied smirk. His brother gave his head a sad shake.

The mother’s respite was only two stops long. At Los Banos she and her children left to complete her journey home. Another woman entered and took the open seat.

She carried herself like royalty. Her well-tailored tan suit bore a few creases from her day at work, but her makeup survived picture perfect. Her raven black hair curled around the back of her head like coiled silk. Her long black lashes framed the softest brown eyes Maurice had ever seen. She crossed one leg over the other and her skirt retreated to expose two shapely calves. His heart skipped into overdrive.

He turned away but scanned for details from the corner of his eye, lest he be caught staring. Her shoes and purse were an exact color match. The purse was high quality leather, but not a designer brand. She dressed well without following the crowd.

He liked her briefcase, mostly because it was a briefcase; solid, rectangular, professional. She wouldn’t have a backpack slung over her shoulder like some college student. She had tasks to complete that demanded the seal of quality that only a briefcase could stamp.

He chanced a quick glance at her hands. No wedding ring. No engagement ring. But she had rings on other fingers, so she wasn’t adverse to jewelry. Unmarried and unattached. Maurice figured that her success no doubt intimidated men.

She looked up at the metro map on the ceiling across from her. Maurice leaned back out of her field of view so he could take a long look at her face. Her profile was perfect; the nose of a Greek goddess statue, the hinted arch of her cheekbones.

His pulse raced. This woman beside him exuded magic. The metro car rocked around a curve and the hairs on his arm danced as he swayed closer to her.

Her life probably paralleled his with a professional job sandwiched between two long commutes. She had as little socializing time as he. How else could such a vision walk through life alone?

The subway slowed for the Aviacion Españiola station. Maurice’s stomach roiled as he dreaded her first movement, that twitch that telegraphed that she would rise and depart. The metro stopped and the doors slid open. To his relief she remained seated.

A preteen girl boarded the train. She wore the light blue blazer and plaid skirt of a private school. Her hair trailed down her back in a long braid and she carried a violin case. An afternoon lesson must have kept her so late in the day.

The woman saw the girl and smiled a vibrant smile bright enough to light up a room. Maurice rejoiced. The woman must like kids, or music, or both. It was a win either way.

He imagined the bliss of seeing that blazing smile when he came home each day, a smile for him. It would be perfect. This woman was The One.

The subway left the station. There were only a few more stops on the line. At Puerta Del Sur, the line ended. He would transfer to Line 12 and she would be gone. Forever. He’d never seen her before and would never see her again. Time broke into a sprint.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot. He wiped his sweating palm on his pants. Cuatro Vientos station approached. The woman uncrossed her legs.

No! Not so soon. He needed time. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. The connection was undeniable. If this chance slipped away he’d regret it, immediately and for the rest of his lonely life.

She got up and stood by the door. Her skirt caressed her calves with a curling sweep. Her hand hovered over the button to open the door.

In seconds it would be too late. He had to speak. He had to act.

His tongue stuck to the roof of his cotton dry mouth. His feet felt encased in cement. His hand froze in the car’s ceiling strap.

The subway slid to a stop at Cuatro Vientos. She pushed the button and the doors opened with a whoosh. The humid station air rushed in against Maurice’s face. She crossed to the station platform. The doors closed.

His paralysis broke. He rushed to the door as the subway took off. In abject misery, he watched the diminishing picture of his dream woman riding the escalator to the bright surface world. He rested his head against the cool glass and closed his eyes.

That night, thoughts of her enveloped him like a thick fog. His dinner had no taste, the television gave no diversion. He tossed in his sagging bed until well after midnight, plagued with visions of the rapturous beauty on the subway.

Maurice fueled up the next morning with the usual eight ounces of bran and a hard boiled egg at 7:13. He boarded the 8:03 at Puerta Del Sur. His eyes lit up as he spied the woman in the corner seat, an angelic vision in a white dress and black boots. He held his breath. Could she be The One?

This morning it was a blonde with green eyes.

GIVEAWAY

WOO HOO!!!! Great day for a stalking, don’t you think?!!! And to prove it, we have a great giveaway for you!!! Today it’s ONE PRINT COPY OF DREAMWALKER to ONE LUCKY WINNER!!!

BECAUSE THIS IS A PRINT COPY, THE WINNER IS LIMITED TO THE US AND CANADA!!!

To win: go to the Official FB Event Page; find the post announcing  today’s giveaway; and comment, “I WANT TO WIN” in that post and you just might!!! 

OFFICIAL FB EVENT PAGE

Two realities. One hope.

What if you lived in two worlds, and could die in either? Pete Holm can. He is a dreamwalker, able to travel to the realm of dreams, including the devastated world of Twin Moon City, where an evil voodoo spirit holds living souls in terror with his army of the walking dead.

In the waking world, drug lord Jean St. Croix knows only the power of the dreamwalker can stop him, so St. Croix vows Pete must die.

Pete is the only hope to rescue the lost souls in Twin Moon City…unless St. Croix kills him first. Can anyone survive when two realities collide?

AUTHOR BIO

Russell R. James was raised on Long Island, New York and spent too much time watching Chiller, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and Dark Shadows, despite his parents' warnings. Bookshelves full of Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe didn't make things better. He graduated from Cornell University and the University of Central Florida.

After a tour flying helicopters with the U.S. Army, he now spins twisted tales best read in daylight. He has written the paranormal thrillers "Dark Inspiration","Sacrifice","Black Magic", "Dark Vengeance", the collections "Tales from Beyond", "Deeper into Darkness", "Outer Rim" and "Out of Time". His novels "Dreamwalker" and "Q Island" both release in 2015.

His wife reads what he writes, rolls her eyes, and says "There is something seriously wrong with you."

Visit his website at http://www.russellrjames.com and read some free short stories.

Author Page

AN IMPRINT IN TIME: Kevin G. Bufton

When I agreed to pen this guest post for Wendy, I had no idea what the topic was going to be. I made my pitch, showed her the sort of stuff I write, and waited for her to come back to me with a yes or no. She said “yes.” Then she said, “Do you believe in the paranormal or the supernatural?”

See, this is why you should always set the parameters before you offer to write a column. It’s a reasonable question to ask a guy like me, especially at this time of year. After all, I’m a writer – a horror writer, no less – and my work is filled with vampires and zombies, ghosts and ghouls, and things that go bump in the night. If you had to make a wild stab in the dark you’d probably guess that I was all about the paranormal.

And you’d be wrong.

The idea of the paranormal just doesn’t sit well with me. As far as I’m concerned, we have our time on this planet, and we’d best make the most of it, because once it’s gone, that’s it – we’re worm food, baby! No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation and definitely no wandering the earth in ghostly torment.

I’m an atheist. That means there is no afterlife, and that’s a very comforting thought for me. Certainly, it’s more comforting than the alternative – that there is some all powerful being, with the attention span and wilfully destructive personality of a five-year old kid strung out on an overdose of Halloween treats, judging me for my actions. Or, worse, that when I die, I’m going to walk the Earth, my spirit occasionally breaking through to some middle aged medium (well, probably a large, to be honest) to tell my loved ones where I buried the bodies money.

Think about that, for just one minute.

The tradition of the ghost story is a long and noble one, predicated on the fact that a regular guy or gal is being haunted by some ineffable being from another plane of reality; the soul of a long departed human being, doomed to trudge around somewhere he called home for the rest of eternity. In the stories, it’s always the living who are scared, by these encounters, but what of the ghost? If we are to believe that these are spirits, with an intelligence and a sentience to call their own, then surely theirs is the worst form of torment?

They are eternally trapped, without form or function. On the rare occasions that they manage to make contact – to reach out to another human being, for the first time in decades – all of a sudden they are treated like the bad guy. Hated and despised, and with no way to argue their case, ever since Waddington’s stopped mass producing ouija boards.

So, yeah, the idea of an afterlife is an affront to me.

That said, I have no problem in believing in the existence of ghosts – I just don’t think that they are trapped souls. Rather, I take the view that they are a recording of sorts; an imprint of someone or something, trapped in the fabric of their own surroundings. So many ghost sightings are tremendously dull, and remarkably repetitive. They always seem to involve the ghost doing the same thing, over and over, regular as clockwork – rather a dull way to spend an infinity, I’ve always thought. It makes perfect sense to me that a particular set of physical conditions can result in the shadow of a person being left behind in the atmosphere, absorbed into the wood or the stone of the place that they spent the majority of their life.

I have my own tale of this sort of thing. As well as my thoughts on the paranormal, Wendy asked me about the time in my life that I was most scared, and the two intersect very neatly. I’ve had a few scares in my life, mostly for perfectly rational reasons – I once slipped down between two massive bales of hay in my nan’s farm, and thought I was going to suffocate before my brother came and pulled me out, for instance – but I’m guessing that’s not the sort of scary moment that Wendy had in mind, this close to All Hallow’s Eve.

My great grandmother died at the ripe old age of ninety, blind and bedridden. She was a wonderful woman, and I used to love sitting next to her on the couch, holding her hand and listening to her talk. Sometimes, I’m not even sure if she knew I was there, or whether she knew who I was if she did, but that didn’t matter. I would cradle her wrinkled hands, with skin as thin as tissue paper, and just listen. Towards the end, she was confined to her bedroom, as she could no longer even make the journey downstairs, but that’s not how I choose to remember her.

I forget how old I was when she died, but I think about ten or eleven. She lived with my nan in an old farmhouse, just outside Chester. The house itself could be creepy at times, with its plethora of rooms, most of which were unoccupied, and twisting corridors and stairwells, in which a young lad could easily become lost. I remember we were visiting my nan, not long after my gran’s death, and I was wandering aimlessly around the house, for some reason or another. I passed the room that my gran had slept and died in, and I heard a distinct moan. This wasn’t the moan of a ghostly apparition, but the moan of my gran, as she lay in bed, her mind hazy and her body aching with the weight of years. The door was slightly ajar and I wanted to go in, to see what had made that noise, but I couldn’t draw up the nerve to do so. I didn’t need to. I knew what that sound was – it was Gran – I’d heard that same moan a dozen times or more, when she had still been alive.

I was eleven years old and a bright young thing, so I’m not saying it couldn’t have been my imagination playing tricks on me. What I am saying is that at the time, I knew that sound. It was real, a noise coming from a real throat, not from some trick of memory. I’d be prepared to swear that in any court in the land. To this day, I wonder what I might have seen if I’d have opened that door, or what else I might have heard if I’d have waited outside a little longer, but I didn’t. The door was open a crack or two and, even at that young age, I wasn’t fool enough to be tricked towards a part-opened door, no matter what might lie behind it.

I ran downstairs, and I think I got told off by my dad for running around the house like an elephant, but I didn’t care.

To this day, it remains my one and only brush with the paranormal – however you define the term – but once was enough.

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OCTOBER 29th GIVEAWAY: 

UPDATE: OCTOBER 29TH GIVEAWAY IS OFFICIALLY OVER!! CONGRATS TO OUR SIX WINNERS!!!  

Today We are giving away SIX ECOPIES of the awesomely terrifying SIX OF THE BEST: A HELLISH HALF-DOZEN. 

To win, simply visit the HALLOWEENPALOOZA OFFICIAL EVENT FACEBOOK PAGE and find today's post announcing this blog/giveaway. Comment in that post that "I WANT TO WIN." If you're one of the first six to do so, you've got A Hellish Half-Dozen thrills coming your way.  

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SIX OF THE BEST: A HELLISH HALF-DOZEN 

A baby's cry in the middle of the night...a family torn apart by a deadly force of nature...dark and ancient rites, performed in the dead of winter. Six of the Best: A Hellish Half-Dozen is the stunning debut collection from horror writer Kevin G. Bufton. Walk with him, through the twisted corridors of his mind, as he leads you into the dark places, where no soul is safe, nobody can be trusted, and nothing is as it seems. Within these pages, you will discover six tales of exquisite horror that will redefine the meaning of terror for you. "Kevin G. Bufton manages to evoke a sense of horror nostalgia and startling originality at the same time. Reader, read on. These six tales are worth your time." - Nathan Robinson, Snakebite Horror

THE WEEPING WOMAN: Susan J. McLeod

On top of a hill in North London sits one of the most famous —and haunted—of all the world’s cemeteries. Highgate was dedicated in 1839 and soon became the most fashionable place for High Society to be interred. The Victorians had quite a fascination with death, and it shows in this Gothic graveyard. There are numerous elaborate tombs and monuments, including the well-known Circle of Lebanon and the Egyptian Avenue. These exclusive sections are accessible and very popular with tourists. But large parts of the 37 acres are practically a wilderness, where the paths and markers are slowly being swallowed by Mother Nature. It’s a sanctuary for the living as well as the dead, with animals, birds, insects and wildflowers thriving. But what else thrives in Highgate?

There are many reports of ghosts being seen there and the cemetery has been the focal point of countless paranormal investigations. Ley lines are said to run through the grounds, intensifying psychic activity. The most notorious phantom is the Highgate Vampire, a tall, dark figure who appears and then vanishes, sometimes right through a gate or a wall. Animal carcasses drained of blood and even headless bodies were once found. No wonder the place has been referenced so much in literature, and used as a backdrop for British horror films, such as Tales from the Crypt. I can’t tell you if the rumors and legends surrounding Highgate are all true. But I can tell you what happened to my sister there.

Karen has lived in London for over twenty-five years. In the early 1990’s she was a resident of nearby Hampstead and led tours through the cemetery. She often went walking in there to learn all that she could. One day she and her friend Tina were on the Egyptian Avenue. This has two obelisks, one on each side, and then an imposing archway flanked by lotus blossom columns. You pass beneath it into a row of family vaults.

The two women had always felt comfortable here before, but that morning something oppressive was in the air. Karen had the odd sensation of someone following right behind them. She kept glancing over her shoulder, but the path was empty. Suddenly she heard the sound of a marching band. They were playing a funeral dirge. Startled, she opened her mouth to speak, and at the exact same time the words came out of her friend’s mouth: “What is that?”

They stared at each other nervously. The music was too loud to be coming from anywhere but within the cemetery itself. There were no burials scheduled and besides, marching bands weren’t in style anymore.

As quickly as it had started, the song stopped. But it didn’t leave silence. It was followed by a heartbroken sobbing. Karen and Tina turned slowly around, and froze.

A woman was standing not six feet behind them. She was dressed head to toe in black, with a wide hooped skirt and a heavy veil covering her face. Her head was bent, and an overwhelming feeling of sadness came over my sister and her friend. Before they could even think what to do, the woman vanished. She didn’t walk away‒she just disappeared.

To this very day, both Karen and Tina remain convinced that what they saw was a picture from the past‒a slice of time from a Victorian funeral. They’ve never had another paranormal experience in the cemetery, and no one else has reported seeing this apparition. So I suppose they could have imagined it. Who can say what really happens in Highgate?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan J McLeod was born in Rochester, New York, on October 22, 1957. She began writing at a very early age, when she discovered that she could invent worlds that were much more fun than the one she lived in. Worlds where candy grew on trees and rivers of chocolate milk flowed. Where adventures were always waiting to happen and no one had to go to school.

Over the years, Susan visited ancient Rome, medieval England, and resided for a long spell on a starship orbiting Orion. A recent stay in Pharaonic Egypt resulted in her romantic suspense novel Soul and Shadow, which won a silver medal in the 2011 Reader's Favorites contest. It has been published by Imajin Books. Fire and Shadow, the second story in the Lily Evans series, was released in October 2012.
Susan also writes short stories and poetry, and has won awards in both mediums.
She works for a non-profit family foundation that supports Zara's Center, a haven for AIDS impacted orphans.

U2 sums up her philosophy in life when Bono sings "We're one, but we're not the same/we get to carry each other, carry each other."

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OCTOBER 28th GIVEAWAY: 

UPDATE: TODAY'S GIVEAWAY IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED! CONGRATULATIONS TO THE THREE WINNERS!! 

Today's giveaway is THREE PRINT COPIES of the talented Susan J. McLeod's FIRE AND SHADOW! It's the second in her Lily Evans Mystery Series and is a perfect read for this time of year -- or any other time! It's part mystery, part suspense and all good! All I can say is that you're in for a real treat!

To win a copy, all you have go to HALLOWEENPALOOZA'S OFFICIAL FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE and find today's post that announces the October 28th post and giveaway! Comment in that post "I WANT TO WIN"! If you're one of the first three to do that, you will win a copy of this awesome thriller! 

Good luck and may Michael Myers never cross your path!!! 

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FIRE AND SHADOW

When the dead need to speak, she must listen…

Artist and Egyptologist Lily Evans struggles with her newly discovered psychic talents, while trying to get her life back to normal now that her mother is in a mental institution and the man Lily loves is far away in England. But "normal" is the last thing she finds.

When her best friend Katy takes her to a Celtic Faire, Lily meets a druid fortune-teller, who warns her that she can “never escape the Other.” Frightened and angry, Lily ignores his dire warning and stumbles across an eerie old portrait of a beautiful woman, who has something to tell her.

With the help of the enigmatic druid and his gifted friends, Lily embarks on a dangerous journey to unravel the mysteries of the portrait, the tarot card reader, an ancient book and whispers of witchcraft. She must discover the truth behind them all…or risk losing her very soul.