Lazy Lion
Used Books & More
146 South Main Street
Fuquay-Varina, NC 27526
(919) 552-9639
info@lazylionbooks.com
Monday 10 to 3
Tues -
Wed 10 to 5
Thu - Fri 10 to 8
Saturday 10 to 5
Closed Sunday
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Fuquay
Fright Fest '04 Short Story Contest Winners
Second Prize Winner!
A Writer in the Woods
By Richard Spiers of Louisville, Kentucky
On the trail, Chad Spence found the faint opening to the lone grave in the
woods. He plunged through a sharp-fanged greenbrier field, pushed aside a sapling of dogwood and plunged ahead toward a
stand of ancient oaks. He stepped in some raccoon scat. Upset sooty-colored butterflies flew. Some spattered in his face
disturbed from their feeding frenzy, but he ignored them, focused only on the goal of the gravestone of the Confederate
Colonel Geoffrey Morris.
The familiar tombstone sat imbedded in the trunk of a hundred-year old tree. Only the top part of the marker was exposed,
but the inscription, "I'm waiting and watching" could clearly be made out, preserved all those years by the
dense old oak canopy.
The writer had sealed a book deal on the Colonel and needed the photo for the cover art. He focused his digital camera.
There, on the marble stone sat one of the gray butterflies. Amused, Chad zoomed in on it. In the viewfinder, the creature
moved its wings and seemed to stare right at him through the camera focus. Its eyes glinted red. Unnerved, Chad paused.
Aloud, he said, "What a bizarre thing. Well anyway, look old Reb, I'm no Matthew Brady, but I'm here to take your picture,
here goes."
He refocused and pressed the button. The camera's flash would not go off. Chad tapped it. It still did not work.
At that moment, the butterfly flew from the grave marker and landed on the edge of the camera. "Did I say it was alright to
take my picture?"
Chad, unable to move, watched as the smoky-colored butterfly turned into a puff of mist. The mist grew into a thick fog and
from that fog an animated, black-boned skeleton emerged, its skull grinning. The thing walked over and rested a bony right
claw of a hand on Chad's shoulder; its black eye sockets looking him square in the face.
"Spence, damn your eyes; you got me riled, boy. I been watching you on all these trips here in the woods. Listen up.
I leave my Tennessee business, fight for what I believe in, get shot in the back by some scared-shitless nineteen-year
old farm boy and I become some hero? You want to write my story, fine, but don't fancy it up. Here, get a taste of what
it was like."
Suddenly, Chad was in confederate gray in a field. Men ran to flee the Yankee ambush, but not Chad. His colonel ensign
and southern pride kept him planted firmly in place. He barked orders until a hot burn in his back took his breath away.
His knees turned to rubber and when he fell face first, blood spit out of his mouth leaving a rusty taste. Everything
went black.
Chad untangled himself from the undergrowth; the only witness to his fainting spell, the half-eaten tombstone-in-the-tree.
"Spence, you write it just that way, about the bloody uselessness of my death."
©2004 Richard Spiers
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