Ugly Little Things Read online




  Copyright 2017 © Todd Keisling

  All Rights Reserved

  Property of Crystal Lake Publishing

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  Layout:

  Lori Michelle—www.theauthorsalley.com

  Edited by:

  Monique Snyman & Amelia Bennett

  Proofread by:

  Paula Limbaugh

  Amanda Shore

  Sammy Riddle

  Lila Pretorius

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

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ALSO BY TODD KEISLING

  A Life Transparent

  The Liminal Man

  The Final Reconciliation

  OTHER COLLECTIONS BY CRYSTAL LAKE PUBLISHING

  Whispered Echoes by Paul F. Olson

  Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest by Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier

  Tribulations by Richard Thomas

  Wind Chill by Patrick Rutigliano

  Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast by Jonathan Winn

  Flowers in a Dumpster by Mark Allan Gunnells

  The Dark at the End of the Tunnel by Taylor Grant

  Through a Mirror, Darkly by Kevin Lucia

  Where You Live by Gary McMahon

  Tricks, Mischief and Mayhem by Daniel I. Russell

  Samurai and Other Stories by William Meikle

  Stuck On You and Other Prime Cuts by Jasper Bark

  Or check out other Crystal Lake Publishing books for more Tales from the Darkest Depths

  This one’s for my parents.

  COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  “Radio Free Nowhere” first appeared in Exquisite Death, copyright © 2013 by Todd Keisling; “When Karen Met Her Mountain” first appeared in Miseria’s Chorale, copyright © 2013 by Todd Keisling; “The Otherland Express” first appeared in Robbed of Sleep, copyright © 2014 by Todd Keisling; “House of Nettle and Thorn” first appeared in Dead Harvest, copyright © 2014 by Todd Keisling; “Human Resources” first appeared in Journals of Horror, © 2014 by Todd Keisling.

  Excerpt from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. Published by F. Tennyson Neely, 1895.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  A MAN IN YOUR GARDEN

  SHOW ME WHERE THE WATERS FILL YOUR GRAVE

  RADIO FREE NOWHERE

  THE OTHERLAND EXPRESS

  SAVING GRANNY FROM THE DEVIL

  THE DARKNESS BETWEEN DEAD STARS

  HUMAN RESOURCES

  HOUSE OF NETTLE AND THORN

  WHEN KAREN MET HER MOUNTAIN

  THE HARBINGER

  THE FINAL RECONCILIATION

  -TRACK 1-

  -TRACK 2-

  -TRACK 3-

  -TRACK 4-

  -TRACK 5-

  -TRACK 6-

  -TRACK 7-

  -TRACK 8-

  -TRACK 9-

  STORY NOTES

  FOREWORD

  Well, reader. Aren’t you in for a delightfully disturbing ride?

  I first met Todd Keisling years ago on a rather uncomfortable broadcast. We were being interviewed about a book we were in. The interviewees eventually banded together to form our own online series, Awkward Conversations with Geeky Writers. Todd is our host.

  He’s gloriously deadpan. His sense of humor is wicked and dry. Nothing gets past him, and when he laughs, it’s the most splendid thing. It’s like watching a mountain weep. There’s a sense of awe in seeing a force of nature moved.

  He’s the slow, creeping thing that is older than his years. He’s the Green Man in the old fairytales that presents you with the bag of gold that never empties, or tells you how to defeat the monster. How does he have this knowledge? It’s never revealed, but he simply knows. He’s somehow privy to more than we are, understands things on a deeper level than most. It’s a blessing and a curse for him.

  You’ll see that in this book. You’ll read tales that will move you, will frighten you, and will literally take your breath away. Todd Keisling exposes our wants, wonders, and fears in this collection. There’s the desire for acceptance in “House of Nettle and Thorn,” and the loneliness in my personal favorite, “The Otherland Express.” There’s tongue-in-cheek humor in the soul-crushing story “Human Resources.” You’ll see old men who dance with the dead, the gorgeous horrors of space, and the disquiet that comes when you see a strange figure outside. These stories are unsettling. They’re spun of everyday experiences and then infused with something else, something primitive and frightening and wondrous. There’s a clean elegance to the written word that is so very much at the heart of Todd’s work. The deeper emotions are uncovered with clever care. Even when there is bloodstained infection, it’s conveyed with refinement. You’ll want to wipe your filthy paws on your pants and then sit with a glass of wine. How can such a thing be?

  The short stories are ugly little things of beauty, but then there’s something more. Again, this is typical of Todd’s fiction. Fathoms below the surface of the story, things breathe and writhe.

  Let me introduce you to one of the most thrilling, most brilliantly paced takes on the King in Yellow mythos I have ever read: “The Final Reconciliation.” This novella will catch your attention from the second Aidan reveals his fingernail-sized scars and won’t let you go until you close the book and stare at the wall. The characters are fictitious, yes, but they’re so very real. You’ll be able to hear the beats of the music and be swept up in the delicious madness. The chapters themselves are presented as music tracks and that lends to an even more immersive experience. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Todd himself standing behind you, strumming a guitar while you read. That’s the type of personal and unsettling touch I’ve grown to expect from him. Most people look for monsters in their closet. After reading this collection, you’ll imagine Todd tucked away behind your clean clothes, working diligently on his new book. This visual is equally comforting and terrifying.

  I’m honored to write a foreword to a body of quality work that I found deeply enriching. Enjoy this now while Todd is still a relative newcomer to the scene. He won’t remain our unknown gem for long. Soon his name will be everywhere and we’ll have the pleasure of being readers, friends, and fans who knew him while he was still a secret treasure.

  Mercedes M. Yardley

  March 1st, 2017

  A MAN IN YOUR GARDEN

  There’s a man in your garden. You’re sure of it. You thought you saw him as you stumbled your way to the bathroom. What was it that made you look out the window? It’s dark, raining, and the streetlight illuminates a billion water droplets across your corner of the block. Why would you dare look out on a night like this? No matter—you’ve looked already, and there’s a man out there. You’re sure of it.

  You pause and look back at the window, trying to peer through the hazy stupor of a late night with friends, a late night at the bottom of not one bottle, but several. You look out, but now you can’t see anything because you’ve changed placement. The dim hallway nightlight casts a reflective glow, but rather than try to find that magic place where you can see outside, you tell yourself it was your imagination, a phantom conjured from the tomb of sleep, given life by the bourbon soaking into your li
ver. You tell yourself it’s just the booze whispering its wealth of dark secrets. It’s just the curtain of sleep pulled oh so sharply away from your eyelids. All those ghosts summoned from the murky sludge of your mind.

  So maybe there’s nothing out there in your garden. No man. No phantoms. No monsters. It’s just you standing foolishly here at your window with a screaming bladder, so you do what you clumsily climbed out of bed to do. You wander into the bathroom and piss for a thousand years. Outside, the rain falls in heavy gusts, pattering against the glass of the tiny window over the toilet, and here in the dark, as you drain the last of your evening with friends, those beads of water look like bright, unblinking eyes. Millions of them, all staring back at you as they wriggle and slide across the glass like little slugs.

  From outside, you’re a pale face hidden in shadow, blanketed by a storm that rages forever. You’re a lonely soul in a big, empty house. You went out with friends, hoping to return home with a warm body to keep you company for the night, the week, forever. Instead, you returned home alone, and now there’s a man in your garden—

  But there isn’t. You tell yourself it was all a dream, that you were half-asleep as you stumble-walked down the hall. The shape was a trick of light and shadow, nothing more.

  Awake now, your bladder quieted and empty, you decide that maybe you should eat something to soak up all that booze. Drinking always gave you an appetite, and though you know that you’ll pay for it in the morning, the prospect of rummaging through your refrigerator is too enticing to pass up. You walk by the window again, refusing to look out this time because there is no man in the garden. And why would there be, anyway? It’s just an old garden, one left by the previous owner, and you don’t have a green thumb. You were going to tear up the old trellis and build a patio under the pergola. Maybe put one of those giant propane grills there instead of all those dead, withered plants.

  So no, there’s no one in the garden. No giant, hulking shape of a man, his neck as thick as a log, with arms tattooed like the fellow you pissed off at the bar while you were out with your friends. You’re certain he wasn’t there in your garden, looking up at you, the rain flattening his cropped, black hair. No, he wasn’t there. Of course not. He was still at the bar, laughing and having a raucous good time, while your friends dragged you away.

  Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was the guy you knew in college. The one whose tires you slashed because he slept with your girlfriend. He was big, too, just like the guy at the bar tonight. He never did figure out it was you. Not that it matters, really. That was fifteen years ago, and you haven’t thought about him in nearly as long. You tell yourself you’ve lost your mind, shaking your head and snorting at your paranoia as you stumble downstairs to your tiny kitchen.

  You stand at the sink and look outside, and—

  Christ, there is a man in your garden. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, built like a garbage truck, and could probably lift one too. He’s got a clown mask over his face and an axe in his hand. He looks just like something from your nightmares. Not any recent nightmares, either, but the one from your childhood, when you were still in elementary school and your stepfather let you stay up late to watch that slasher film on TV. You can’t remember if the film actually had any axe-wielding clowns, but you remember the nightmare, you remember the hulking monstrosity dragging the axe down the mirrored hallway of a funhouse, laughing hysterically while your legs refused to function, your bones suddenly gelatinous, rubbery, unable to support your body. You remember the teeth, the notch in the axe blade, the bloody red nose, the teeth, the piercing white eyes, you remember the teeth—the teeth.

  Blinking, you realize you’ve been staring at the old trellis in your garden, and your throat is parched. You turn to the sink, reach into your cupboard, and fill a glass. You drink, washing down the metallic taste in the back of your mouth. Staring outside into the storm, you think the trellis doesn’t look anything like that nightmare. You think, maybe, it looks more like a creature from one of your favorite horror novels. One of the slimy, slithery things with arms like ropes and snakes for a face, born from an ageless chasm beyond the scope of human understanding. A thing indescribable yet standing eight feet tall right there, right there, in your dying garden, its feet coiled with dead foliage.

  A thing so indescribable, so impossible, it infects time and space. You think, maybe, it infects perception as well because you realize you’re still standing at the sink, the water is still running, and there is nothing out in your dead garden except the old trellis, husks jutting across the failed flowerbed, withered old hands slick with rain and clutching for the sky to pull it down around you.

  You blink, roll your eyes, and tell yourself to stop. You take another drink and shut off the faucet. The water gurgles as it rolls down the drain, and you reach for a towel to wipe your mouth. As you do, lightning shatters the sky, illuminating the entirety of your backyard, and there, standing not under your trellis but just beyond it at the edge of your garden, is the darkened shape of a person. Male or female, you can’t tell, but it doesn’t matter because there is someone in your garden. Your heart climbs into your throat and pulses so hard you can barely breathe. The shape is there, it’s standing right there, and what is that in its hand? You can’t tell, but it’s certainly holding something, beckoning to you from beyond the safety of your home, daring you to step across the threshold into its domain.

  This impossible phantom, this formless beast, it wants you to come outside. To come and play. And somehow, beyond all manner of reason, you decide you’re going to. Never mind the games your imagination is playing with your head. Never mind the itchy fear lurking at the back of your throat, pushing you away from the backdoor and toward your phone to call the police, the fire department, the National Guard. No, dammit, it’s time you make a stand and confront this intruder. How dare they climb your fence and trespass on your property. No, you’ll show them. You’ll make them sorry that they ever set foot in your domain.

  Heart racing, your mind still clouded from the booze of a night with friends that seems as though it happened years ago, you step into a pair of flip-flops, grab the flashlight from the top of the refrigerator, and head out into the storm.

  Rain beats at your face, punishing you for even thinking about stepping into the night, but you push on, into the garden. Grass and mud seep between your naked toes as you follow a pale beam across the yard toward the phantom shape. It’s still there, refusing to move, defiant even now as you approach.

  You clear your throat and raise the flashlight. The beam is filled with sheets of rain, each one a universe of tiny stars falling to earth in unison, and beyond the light is the shape, the intruder, standing before you.

  As you prepare to speak, you realize you haven’t thought this far ahead. What can you say? What should you say? So you blurt out the first thing to come to mind: Can I help you?

  The intruding shadow says nothing, and for the first time, you realize your flashlight isn’t illuminating its features. It’s a void in the shape of a person, holding something in its blank hand. You raise your free hand to shield your eyes from the rain and discover you’re shaking. Even on a warm summer night like this, you’re freezing in the rain.

  The shadow says nothing. You take another step. You say: You need to leave!

  Another step. Another. You’re nearly face to face with the shadow—and you realize it’s just that. A shadow. There is no shape. No monster. No beast and no evil clown dredged from your nightmares.

  Relieved, feeling extremely stupid, you chuckle to yourself and catch your breath. It’s the booze. Of course it is. Why else would you be out in a storm like this, walking through the garden in the middle of the night?

  Just before you turn, something catches your eye. A glint of light caught in the naked beam of the flashlight. Something metallic at your feet. You reach down and pick up the hatchet. There’s a notch in the blade. You can’t remember owning a hatchet, and even if you did, you wouldn’t le
ave it lying in the grass to rust in the rain.

  Confused, you turn back toward your house, and your heart stops. Upstairs in the window. A pale face pressed against the glass. Looking down at you.

  Standing in the garden, you peer up at the intruder, wondering why they would dare look out on a night like this. You wonder what makes them think they can break into your house.

  How dare they break into your home and trespass on your property. No, you’ll show them. You’ll make them sorry they ever set foot in your domain.

  You frown, tributaries of rain running down the contours of your pale face.

  It’s a good thing you found this axe.

  SHOW ME WHERE THE WATERS FILL YOUR GRAVE

  The rain’s come again, and this time Jonathan is ready. He’s spent weeks preparing for this moment, days and nights glued to the fancy thin television his son bought him last year for Christmas, endless hours watching the pretty young lady on the weather station. He’s learned to tune out the commercials and advertisements. Though his body is withered and spent, Jonathan Crosby’s mind is still sharp. He still has his wits, knows how to define right from wrong, and determine safety from danger. He’s cognizant of his choices and fully aware of their repercussions.

  So today, when the weather alert buzzes across the screen in a thick red band, bisecting the pretty girl talking about the non-stop rains in the northeast, Jonathan doesn’t pay attention. He doesn’t have to. He knows he’s in danger. The promise of doom and rainfall is what he’s been waiting for all summer long.

  ***

  Last time the waters along the river rose high enough, he was still submerged in a different kind of mire. Glenda’s passing had filled his head with the worst kind of depression, the sort that seeped down into the roots of the heart and stayed there. She’d been gone less than a week, and he’d spent the following days in a kind of stupor, wandering the rooms of their house, noting the lack of color, the absence of warmth. His joints sang together in a chorus of misery, a funerary ode to the moisture in the air.