Beyond the Abyss E-Book

Heather Silvio

• Herausgeber: Panther Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 209

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Ten supernatural stories await you.
Flash fiction to novella.
Light-hearted to terrifying.

Take a ride through this thrilling supernatural collection, including:
•In A Chain Unbroken, a composer’s new keyboard brings with it more than inspiration… something from beyond… or below.
•With unexpected humor, a student Inside the Ant Farm learns the truth about mankind’s existence in the universe.
•Three women set out on an epic journey to save the post-apocalyptic world in the novella, Illusion of Truth.
•Plus, alien abductions, life after death, and much, much more!

Also includes seven poems that will leave you questioning everything from the nature of sanity to existence itself.

Leseprobe

Beyond the Abyss

Tales of the Supernatural

Heather Silvio

Panther Books

Contents

Books By Heather Silvio

About this Collection

The Chain Unbroken

Emotional Suffocation

Family Time

Oblivion

The Experiment

The Knight

Taking

Ever After

God?

Revenge

Falling

Conversations with Myself

Dream within a Dream

Nothing

Inside the Ant Farm

War & Death

Illusion of Truth

Thank you!

About the Author

Books By Heather Silvio

DOCTOR DANGER MYSTERIES

Hazard in Hawaii (#1)

Spirits in Savannah (#2)

WILDCREST WITCHES ROMANCE

Love’s Misfiring Magic (#1)

Love’s Misaligning Magic (#2)

Love’s Misbehaving Magic (#3)

Wildcrest Witches Romance Complete Trilogy

PARANORMAL TALENT AGENCY

Lights, Camera, Action (Episode One)

Reset to One (Episode Two)

That’s a Wrap (Episode Three)

An Unexpected Sequel (Episode Four)

Jumping the Shark (Episode Five)

The Season Finale (Episode Six)

Paranormal Talent Agency Episodes 1-3 Collection

Paranormal Talent Agency Episodes 4-6 Collection

Paranormal Talent Agency Episodes 1-6 Collection

NON-SERIES FICTION

Not Quite Famous

Beyond the Abyss

Courting Death

NONFICTION

Special Snowflake Syndrome

Happiness by the Numbers

Stress Disorders: A Healing Path for PTSD

About this Collection

Take a wild ride through short stories and poetry ranging across the supernatural realm, including alien abductions and alien invasions, life after death, demonic possession, and epic battles between good and evil.

A collection of supernatural stories that can be read in those shorter in-between moments of the day.

The Chain Unbroken

“Damn,” Christine muttered to herself, flinging the offending piece of paper away. “What am I going to do?” she asked Fiona, her Siamese, in frustration. The cat looked at her and walked off, leaving Christine to yell after. “A fat lot of help you are!” Christine stood up and trudged over to the liquor cabinet. Opening the door, she reached for a bottle above her head. The squat green bottle with the wide neck was deceptively heavy, lending itself to the assumption it brimmed with an alcoholic beverage. In fact, it held something of a different nature. Pebbles at the base of the bottle gave it its weight.

Christine opened the bottle and withdrew a clump of money. She counted just over one hundred dollars. Christine’s rent was due soon, but she hadn’t retrieved her secret stash for that reason (as if that would pay her rent!) She had suffered from writer’s block the past couple of weeks. Unable to create salable music, Christine resorted to raiding her emergency money supply.

Determined to end her writer’s block, Christine collected her money and picked up the flyer on the table. A brand-new keyboard would start the ball rolling, she told herself. Symphonies, top ten hits, all kinds of rhythmic melodies were at her fingertips. The flyer advertised a musical flea market where anything and everything a musician could need or want would be on hand; and below retail value, naturally.

“You want how much for the keyboard?” Christine asked in surprise. She had begun to feel the entire trip was a waste. Unable to find a keyboard for her needs in her price range, Christine had entered the run-down instrument booth in desperation. She went over every piece in the room, it seemed, before she found the perfect keyboard. Fear almost kept her from asking the cost, thus she expressed shock at the quoted price.

“This keyboard is a one-of-a-kind around here,” the owner said, staring at her with wide, crazed eyes.

“You don’t have to sell me on it,” Christine assured him hastily. The man made her nervous, but the deal was too good to pass up. She stared after him as he shuffled to the back to get a box for her. His disheveled appearance and disjointed manner seemed odd. Not wanting to judge, Christine chalked up the man’s presentation to starving artist syndrome.

As the man placed the keyboard in a box, Christine noticed his bruised hands. She startled when images of the man beating a woman to death flashed unbidden before her eyes.

Practically throwing her money at him, Christine grabbed her purchase and raced from the booth. Once outside, nearing her car, she felt foolish. Nothing concrete had happened to make her feel so violently threatened. Why then did she feel relieved to be away from the man and his booth? She shook her head at her behavior and started her car.

Christine was driving up the driveway to her apartment house, humming her last hit, when the voices spoke to her. Not complete sentences, just disconnected phrases that discomfited her. She chalked it up to a delayed reaction to the man who sold her the keyboard. She told herself the voices would go away. They did not.

The voices next spoke while Christine tinkered at her new keyboard. This time the sentence was complete. “We will make all your dreams come true,” the voices whispered. “All you have to do,” they continued, “is kill someone for us.”

Unlike before, Christine’s reaction far exceeded mere discomfort. She yelled as though another presence shared the room, then stilled and waited to see what would happen. When nothing did, she dismissed the voices, though not as easily as the first time.

Preparing lunch the next day, she heard the voices again. “Why try to fight us? We can make all your dreams come true. How high is too high a price to pay?” The voices sounded so real, so present, she actually whirled around to look behind her for the source. Nobody stood behind her.

Christine screamed at the voices to leave her alone, but they grew stronger and stronger as each day passed into the next. “They’ll go away. They’ll go away,” Christine chanted to herself, the mantra neither ending the madness nor quieting the voices.

Christine could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, visions of mangled, dismembered bodies appeared. And the voices. Voices that refused to grant her even a moment’s respite from their incessant chanting.

The insomnia becoming too great, Christine purchased ineffective sleeping pills. Instead of calming her and allowing her to sleep, she saw shadows where none existed, heard noises from invisible sources. All of Christine’s nerves were taut. She would snap soon, unless she submitted herself to the voices. She vowed to seek professional help if she couldn’t handle the voices herself.

Christine’s resolve broke about two weeks after her miraculous flea market find. Having a drink at a local bar one night, Christine invited a man back to her place. Once there, however, her mind filled with the voices’ request. A compulsion to kill the man. She felt endangered if she did not. Despite knowing her logic was flawed and fatal, she acted.

“Alex,” Christine purred, “would you like a full body massage?” Staring at her, he whispered yes. Christine wrapped her hands around him – then pulled back in fear. “I can’t do it,” she cried to the voices. Alex got to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said in confusion. “I thought you wanted to.” Turning to leave, he never saw what hit him.

Uttering a cry of anguish, Christine hurled a ceramic vase at Alex’s head. Had it been just her strength, he might have lived. But the voices filled Christine, screaming in ecstasy, giving her strength beyond human ability. Alex’s head imploded with the sound of someone stepping on rotting fruit.

Christine collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably. After a while, she pulled herself together and called the police to report a murder in self-defense. The voices inside her head quieted, content with the night’s events.

The police agreed the homicide resulted from self-defense; they’d file no criminal charges. Alex Calden, the “victim”, attacked the young lady with intent to commit sexual assault. The attacker pushed the victim close to the counter and she grabbed the vase sitting there. With the element of surprise, she smashed it into the back of his head. If anyone thought to wonder how his head imploded the way it did, what force would have been required, no one mentioned it aloud. It was self-defense. Case closed.

Christine slept well, untroubled by disconcerting visions and dreams. She awoke refreshed, with many new ideas running through her mind. At her keyboard, it was like someone had turned on a faucet. Christine wrote for hours, humming bits and pieces of music, stringing it all together. When at last she stopped, the piece before her was the greatest she had accomplished in her entire life.

Christine called her agent. After humming sections of the new song, she had more than piqued her agent’s curiosity. Christine rushed over to present the entire song.

“You are a genius,” Ben Dolleg gushed. Representing Christine from the beginning, the agent recognized the promise of the song before him now. Guaranteed top ten hit. “We’ve just signed a new singer. This song would be perfect for her. We’ll definitely use the song.”

Christine’s eyes lit up, but worry crept in as the agent continued.

“In fact, we’ve got six more openings on Melissa – that’s the new singer – on Melissa’s CD. We’ll need the songs by the end of the week, though,” Ben stated. He smiled, misinterpreting her apprehension. “I have faith in you. Just go wherever you found this piece of magic and get some more. Good luck.”

With his words echoing in her mind, Christine drove home frightened and unsure. Today was Wednesday. That left her only two days to write six more extraordinary songs.

“I wrote one fabulous song. I could be satisfied with that and not try to press my luck. No, no, you can write the songs,” Christine argued with herself. “I don’t know what to do.” She made no connection between her wonderful new keyboard and the voices in her head. One couldn’t cause the other, could it? Could it?

“You can write the songs. You know what you have to do,” the voices whispered to Christine that night as she tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. She whimpered when the voices returned to their previous strength.

“Please,” she cried. “Don’t make me do this.” But the voices either did not hear her pleas for silence or ignored them. The next day she decided.

“Hi,” Christine cheerfully greeted her friend, Gina. “You’re the first to arrive. Have a seat, drink a glass of wine. I’ll tell you why you’re here when the others arrive.” Gina smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm and accepted the offered wine. Christine must have terrific news to share.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Christine gave similar rehearsed speeches to the other invited guests upon arrival. It was 7:20 P.M. when the last guest took his seat. Christine walked to the fireplace opposite the couches and chairs where Gina, Mike, Kathleen, Jenny, Ken, and Allan sat.

“Welcome,” she said. “I’ve asked you all here to help me celebrate the most important event in my life.” She looked at each individual face watching her. These were her best friends, not just random people off the street. And they dropped all of their previous plans to be here with me, she thought unhappily. I need them to create more exquisite music, she reminded her conscience, which, while not shutting it out, at least dimmed its nagging.

“Yesterday, I agreed to write over half of the songs on an upcoming album,” Christine said, glancing out the window over their heads. She seemed anxious for someone celebrating the happiest days of her life. That’s when the lights went out.

“Now stay calm everybody,” Christine instructed, her own voice eerily calm. “I have candles in the other room. Mike, could you help me, please?” she asked. Mike jumped to his feet to assist. She led him to the kitchen where she rummaged through one of the drawers. Mike started to ask how he could help when Christine turned around.

“I’m sorry Mike,” she whispered, and plunged the knife she had taken from the kitchen drawer deep into his chest. He made no sound as she twisted and turned the knife inside of him, feeling the warm blood rush onto her hands. Christine withdrew the knife and, before she could catch him, Mike fell to the floor with a loud thump.

“Everything okay in there?” a voice from the living room asked. “Everything’s fine,” Christine responded, a funny lilt in her voice. “I bumped the counter.” Stepping gingerly over Mike’s corpse, Christine reentered the living room. She could dimly see her friends, so she knew they could see her. She hoped they would not see the blood on the knife until it was too late. She did not need a scream to alert the others.

“Where’s Mike?” Gina questioned. Christine did not answer, but thrust the knife into Gina’s ribcage. Gina twitched and groaned before falling silent and still forever. Christine spun to face her other friends, only to find them gone.

How could she have thought she would get away with this? As if they would allow her to slaughter them? As if they would not see her kneeling before their friend and killing her, the voices and Christine berated themselves, indistinguishable now. She swore under her breath. They must be somewhere, she thought. They haven’t left. She worried one of the men might have their cell phone, however, and have already called the police. The remaining women were of no concern. Their purses with their cellphones rested beside the furniture in the gloomy room.

A tiny voice of sanity buried deep within her surfaced. “Christine, stop now,” it said. “These are your friends. They trusted you.” Christine grimaced and shut that voice out. “Not when I’m so close to winning the game.” She grinned into the darkness and searched for her prey.

Christine found Ken on the bathroom floor, foaming at the mouth, already dead. Good, she thought in delight. He drank some wine before the lights went out. They all should have been dead by now. The lights had been an unexpected, unpleasant surprise. No matter. Ken was stiff with death. Christine continued the search.

Jenny and Kathleen huddled together on the floor of Christine’s closet, praying for rescue. Their prayers went unanswered as the door flew open, revealing them to the madwoman who had been their friend. Christine allowed herself a smile. “Safety in numbers?” she quipped.

Christine entered the room. She plunged the knife into Kathleen, killing her instantly, and used the other hand to rip one of Jenny’s eyes free from its socket. Pulling the knife from Kathleen, Christine transferred it to Jenny, already consumed with agony, clutching her ruined eye. Christine closed the closet door and went after her final victim. She knew where he would be.

“Allan, it’s no use.” Allan spun around in surprise. His back now to the door he had been trying in vain to open, he racked his brain for something, anything that could save his life. He knew she already killed the others. He tried to stall for time while he thought of a way out.

“How did you plan all of this?” Allan asked in desperation, not really interested. Christine took a step forward. At first, he thought she wouldn’t respond. She focused her insane eyes upon him.

“It was easy,” she said. Her voice sounded triumphant, like she had won some unspoken contest. “I poisoned the wine. Only Gina drank any and apparently not enough to make an impact. I guess I’m no chemist,” Christine joked. “Then the power outage ruined that idea, anyway.” Her voice hardened. “It would have been so much simpler if you had all poisoned yourselves.” She beamed, an ugly smile that distorted her once beautiful face. “Actually, Ken drank some and helpfully died,” she corrected herself. “Since the rest of you didn’t cooperate by dying that way, I went with Plan B. Stab all of you.”

Allan looked for a way to escape. He saw none and faced his would-be murderer squarely, prepared to battle to the end, wishing he had thought to arm himself with something. Never again would he laugh at the dumb victims in the movies. (Well, obviously, never again, the voices chortled. Could they know his thoughts?) Christine advanced slowly, seeming to hesitate, and he wondered if she was having second thoughts.

“Yes,” Christine blurted, almost in response to his thoughts. She smiled wistfully and, for a second, the real Christine shone through – a terrified look in her eyes. Then she vanished, and the hideous murderess returned to finish what she started. The final sound to reach Allan’s ears was satisfied laughter, not coming from Christine’s mouth, but seemingly from her mind itself.

Christine set about disposing of the bodies in the most efficient manner she could think of. She collected the lifeless bodies into a heap on the floor of her living room. Then she abandoned the task and left the bodies there once her creative juices began to flow.

The flow became a geyser of ideas for her music. It didn’t stop until she had six more songs as beautiful as the first, if not surpassing it. She wrote one commercial masterpiece for each life she stole.

The songs complete, Christine called her agent. “Ben, I finished. These songs are amazing. One-of-a-kind,” she gushed into the phone. Her nearly palpable excitement infectious, Ben demanded she bring them over at that moment. She obliged, changing from her blood-stained clothes before gathering the sheet music and heading for the recording studio Ben used. The bodies of her dead friends didn’t merit a glance as she rushed out the door.

Ben ushered Christine right in upon her arrival. Not easily impressed, her songs shocked him. He stared at her in admiration. She blushed under the scrutiny of his gaze.

“You like them?” Christine asked, the answer evident. As he replied that, yes, indeed, he liked them, Christine clutched at her throat. Ben, who had been leaning on the back legs of his chair, fell to the ground in surprise. He leapt back to his feet.

“Christine, are you all right?” Ben asked, despite the obviousness of her distress. She tried to speak, words struggling to push clear of her throat and mouth.

“I was wrong,” Christine managed to speak, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “I shouldn’t have killed them.” She struggled to breathe.

“Killed who?” Ben asked in confusion.

Christine, the real Christine, looked at Ben, tears welling in her eyes. “Allan, Ken, Jenny, Kathleen, Gina, and Mike. Even Alex, I suppose. They were my friends. They trusted me. I left them in my apartment,” Christine babbled, her voice still barely above a whisper. Ben picked up the phone, called for an ambulance, and, just in case, reported the possible crime. “I can’t fight them,” she whispered.

While Ben watched in horror, Christine’s face turned faintly blue from asphyxiation. Every time he approached to help, she lashed out and sent him reeling. Christine convulsed and died as Ben looked on helplessly. The police arrived within minutes after Christine’s life expired. Another team had found the bodies in her apartment. The deaths of the people in the apartment were obvious. Christine’s mysterious passing? The coroner finally concluded Christine had died, in laymen’s terms, from an unexplained lack of oxygen to the brain.

Christine had no family to leave her things to, and her will requested every item be sold wherever convenient, with all proceeds going to her listed charities. A week after the sales, a young man in search of an inexpensive, yet high quality, keyboard questioned a woman setting up a booth at a flea market.

“I know that I’m looking for a needle in a haystack. But I really need a new keyboard, and I don’t have a lot of money,” the young man said almost apologetically to the woman, her blood red fingernails catching his eyes. The woman sized him up and decided to sell him a new keyboard she just received.

“I don’t know anything about its last owner, but the keyboard appears to be in excellent condition,” the woman explained. “Of course, there is no warranty. And all sales are final. Take a look for yourself.” After scrutinizing the keyboard, the man knew he was getting a genuine deal. He paid the low asking price and went merrily on his way, unaware of the trouble he had bought himself.

The woman threw back her head and laughed, a maniacal, crazed laugh – and disappeared forever, the chain unbroken.

Emotional Suffocation

Rivers flow softly in my mind

Unconfined images of life.

Flutes play tenderly to my heart

Storms cut through the love like a knife.

I feel the love overflowing

But not enough to fill the space.

It kills my heart too fast to stop

I need something to take its place.

Who can ease the heavy sorrow?

Can my soul be saved from itself?

The blackness spreads despite the love

My friend, come save me from myself.

Family Time

I survey the room in silence, my heart beating thickly in my chest, the blood pounding in my ears. I stand in my childhood kitchen. My family sits around the table, alternately staring at me, and then at anything but, crying. No, wait. They aren’t staring at me. They stare at the TV/VCR next to me. You know, the kind on a tall stand, like the ones offices and schools use. Why would one of those stands be in the kitchen of my childhood? A better question – why am I? I hadn’t stood in this room in nearly twenty years. I turn to leave, to head toward the dining room, and it feels like moving underwater. The silence is oppressive and strange, the beating of my heart more a feeling than an actual sound.

Unexplainable fear blossoms in my body as I stare at the scene unfolding in the dining room. My family, again, only different. I stare at the faces, one by one, trying to make sense of what I see, trying to calm the irrational fear coursing through me. Softly illuminated by the flickering candles on two birthday cakes, the people sitting around the dining room table are indeed my family. From twenty years ago. They watch a spot below my face and to the right, looks of identical happy expectation on their faces while they sing. I cannot hear them, though I can make out the words. I have stumbled into a birthday party. Why am I so afraid?

I turn again, trying to head toward the bedrooms down the hallway, past the living room. The feeling of being underwater intensifies and I struggle for breath. I gasp, words trying to form in my throat, trying to come out of my mouth, but nothing happens. Finally, air pushes through me, and I find my voice.

“Mom!” I scream the word and then the world becomes silent, with only that strange feeling of my heartbeat in my ears.

Nothing. Nobody comes running. The silence remains as if I had not spoken at all. I realize I also have not moved toward those back bedrooms, but still stand at the head of the dining room table, surrounded by happy partygoers.

Unrelenting fear at the core of my being increases at an alarming rate. Somehow, I know I must figure out what is going on before I die. I stare at each of the faces around the table. My father, still singing “Happy Birthday.” How long is that damn song, anyway? My eyes shift to the woman seated to his right. Kind eyes in a middle-aged face. My aunt, looking 25 years younger than I knew her to be. To her right, one of my brothers, watching everyone sing. A lighted birthday cake before him. Seven candles on the cake tell me I am ten years old in this little… fantasy. To the birthday boy’s right, our older brother, recently (in this tableau) turned thirteen. Next to him… our mother. Mom’s lips move like the others, but her eyes are not smiling and carefree like the others.

I frown, trying to read my mother’s lips. Then I realize she is peering straight at me, and not where everyone else is looking. I focus on the words my mother mouths to me.

“Come back.”

Just those two words, over and over, as I remain paralyzed with fear. What is going on? The fear suffocates more than the silence.

Turning in the strange atmosphere, I return to the scene in the kitchen. The tableau morphs into my family in the present, but still sitting around my childhood kitchen table. A couple of them weep, some try not to. Mom, Dad, brothers, aunt.

Where am I in this picture?

I face the television to my left. That’s when I see the man in a business suit standing on the other side of the television. He stands stiffly, uncomfortable, as if he does not like the business at hand. He watches my family watching the screen.

I move to view the screen.

The fear that had subsided as I contemplated these bizarre scenes slams back, growing to the point where I feel certain the anxiety will kill me. Right this second.