Tag: Allen Kopp

In a Cemetery on Halloween Night ~ A Short Story

In a Cemetery on Halloween Night
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story was published in Creaky Door magazine.)

When we were younger, the three of us were fascinated by the subject of death. We had lengthy discussions about the possibility of a continued existence after life has ended. We all wanted to believe in such an existence. Since Halloween is the one day in the year that the veil between the living and the dead is supposed to be at its most transparent, we decided to put all talk aside and conduct a little experiment.

There were no fewer than eighteen cemeteries in our county, some of them tucked away in forgotten corners. Each of the three of us would select a cemetery to spend the night in—the night of October thirty-first. We believed it was important for each of us to be alone, as spirits were more likely to make themselves known to an individual rather than to a pair or a group. We would meet the next evening and discuss our experiences. We hoped that at least one of us would have the proof we longed for.

I chose the Cemetery of the Holy Ghost because I remembered my grandmother telling me when I was a child that some of her family were buried there, and I also had a vague recollection of being there a time or two with my grandparents when I was in grade school.

It was a once-fine cemetery that had fallen out of vogue about a hundred years ago. It contained many interesting mausoleums, above-ground crypts, stones and monuments. Some of the illustrious (but now forgotten) inhabitants of the cemetery included governors of the state and their “consorts,” a United States senator or two, a celebrated writer (all of his books out of print for fifty years), several war heroes, an actress who appeared on the stage in both New York and London, and a notorious multiple murderer. In checking the records, I discovered that the cemetery had not received a newly deceased person in almost fifty years.

In the early evening of October thirty-first, I drove my car out into the country. I made sure I knew the way before I started and found the cemetery without any trouble. I parked the car in a low spot where it couldn’t be seen from the road (if anybody happened to be passing by, which was unlikely), and went in. There was an iron fence all the way around the cemetery that had fallen down in places. Nobody who wanted in was going to be kept out. I walked around for a while, taking in the sights as much as I could before it was too dark to see.

I found a good place under a big maple tree to sit down where the ground was covered with fragrant, dry leaves. The spot had the advantage of making me feel safe from anything or anybody that might approach me in the dark, so I planned on staying there most of the night until daylight when I would get back into my car and go home again. I took the things out of my backpack that I had brought—a flashlight, some drinking water and snacks, a lightweight blanket, a paperback book in case I became bored with the whole scene—and as I made myself comfortable on the ground under the tree, I realized just how peaceful and lonely an abandoned country cemetery is on a beautiful autumn evening.

I sat with my back against the tree as night came on. I wasn’t especially afraid of the dark but I had to admit that every sound I heard made my heart beat a little faster. Was the snap of a twig or the crunch of leaves someone—or something—coming toward me? What if I really did have an encounter with a spirit of some kind? Would my nerve fail me? Whatever happened, I promised myself that I would leave and go home if the situation became too unpleasant.

Once when I heard a sudden rustling sound right above my head, I jumped up with a little yell, ready to defend myself. When I realized that it had only been an owl—in fact, a pair of owls—I felt a little foolish and was glad nobody was there to see how skittish I was.

I sat underneath the tree for what seemed several hours. I had to get up several times to get the circulation going in my legs and to keep warm. The balmy evening had turned into a chilly night. I was a little disappointed—but not altogether surprised—to see that a country cemetery on Halloween night is the same as on any other night. The dead are sleeping peacefully and there is nothing to be seen or felt. The only thing I was sure of was that it was without a doubt the loneliest place I had ever spent a night in.

When I looked at my watch and saw it was only a few minutes before midnight, I longed to go home and go to bed, but I didn’t. I just didn’t want the night to end that way, with my leaving long before I was supposed to because I wasn’t having any fun. Instead I wrapped myself in my blanket like a cocoon and laid down on the bed of leaves with my head a couple feet from the tree. If I could spend a few hours sleeping, it would be dawn when I woke up and I could go home and have a good breakfast and sleep until noon.

I was more tired than I thought and lying on the ground was more comfortable than I expected it to be. In a very short time I was lost in sleep.

I woke up long before dawn to what sounded like the strings being plucked on a musical instrument. I gasped, believing for a moment I was choking, and sat up.

“That’s Edith playing her ukulele,” a male voice said.

Since it was too dark for me to see anything, I reached for the flashlight but wasn’t able to find it. “Who’s there?” I asked.

“I’m right here,” the voice said.

I squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. Then, as my eyes seemed to adjust a little bit, I could see what seemed to be the blurry outline of a person. After a few seconds I could see the features of a face—nose, eyes, a mouth—but they were very faint. I seemed to be looking at a person who was there and not there at the same time. Lit from within, he seemed to be, as when you put a small lighted candle inside a large paper sack.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I belong here,” he said. “You don’t.”

“Who’s Edith?”

“She’s my daughter. Ukulele player extraordinaire.”

As soon as her name was mentioned, a small girl “lit up” beside the man. Apparently they were able to turn the light on and off at will.

“Is there anybody else here?” I asked stupidly, running my hand across my eyes.

“My son Tom is here and several others who are just now hearing about you.”

A boy of about fifteen made himself known to me the way Edith had done. Then several others behind him did the same thing. As I looked out at them over the man’s shoulder, I saw that they were not quite touching the ground but “floating” above it.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked. I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Do you know what day it is?” I asked.

“Time doesn’t mean anything here,” he said.

“Well, it’s Halloween,” I said.

“Oh, that,” he said, as if disappointed.

“So you understand the significance of the holiday?”

“Yes. And you are one of those who believe that Halloween is the one day in the year you will be able to see for yourself that we exist.”

“It sounds rather silly when you put it that way.”

“Are there others here also?”

“No. I’m by myself.”

“Are you some kind of medium between the world of the living and the world of those who have passed over?”

“No! Oh, no!”

“Then why are you seeing us right now?”

“This isn’t really happening. It’s just a dream. I’m afraid I’ve fallen under the spell, the romance, of being in an old country cemetery on Halloween.”

There was a murmur among the spirits behind the man. He listened to them for a moment and then turned back to me.

“They’re saying we can’t let you go like this,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“They think, and I agree, that you’ll go back and spread the word that you’ve seen proof of life after death and then this place will never be the same. There’ll be people coming out here in droves—curiosity seekers like yourself and newspaper men and the like. I haven’t been dead so long that I don’t remember what people are like!”

“I won’t tell a soul.”

“No, indeed, you will not!”

I couldn’t help noticing that the spirits had increased in number. Before there were just a few but now there were dozens and behind them dozens and maybe hundreds more. I began to feel a little afraid at what they were going to do to me.

“Why are there so many of you here?” I asked.

“They all want to get a look at you,” he said.

“That’s not what I mean. Why haven’t you moved on in the spirit world? Do you have to stay here because this is where your bodies are interred?”

I heard faint laughter but couldn’t see who was doing the laughing.

“Of course not,” he said. “We’re everywhere. We can go wherever we want. There are no restrictions. That’s what being a spirit is. Some choose to stay here because their loved ones are here; others don’t want to leave because they’ve been here so long they don’t remember any other place.”

“You don’t like living people like me coming around bothering you, do you?”

“Most spirits choose to remain solitary or with other spirits. We would prefer that you left us alone. Nothing good comes out of it for us when you try to prove that we exist.”

“So, are you going to scare me to death so I won’t go back and tell people that I’ve seen you?”

“No, I have to tell you that a spirit can’t kill a living person unless it’s by suggestion. I’ve also heard of spirits causing heavy objects to fall on living people, but that doesn’t happen very often.”

“Well, I think I’ll get into my car now and drive home, then, if it’s all the same to you. And I promise you I’ll forget I was ever here.”

“You’ll go back to sleep. You’ve never really woken up. At dawn you’ll wake up and leave this place. You’ll forget any of this ever happened. You’ll have nothing to report to your friends.”

“I won’t remember any of this,” I said, “because it’s a dream and I never remember dreams after I wake up.”

Just as the sun was coming up I awoke to the enthusiastic singing of birds. As I stood up from my bed of leaves and folded my blanket, I was relieved that morning had arrived, I had survived the night intact and it was time to go home. I had done what I said I would do, which was spend Halloween night alone in a country cemetery. I wondered if my friends had fared as well as I had.

I walked to my car, started the engine, and turned on the heater. By the time I got out to the highway, morning was well on its way and the sky a brilliant autumnal blue.

I didn’t see the deer that came rushing out of the brush toward me like the angel of death. All I saw of it was its back legs as it sailed over the hood of my car. I suppose I had been thinking too much about bacon and pancakes and wasn’t paying as much attention to my driving as I should have. I swerved the car sharply to avoid colliding with the deer. Since I was going about sixty miles an hour, I lost control and ran the car off into a deep culvert that, lucky for me, had no water in it. I hit my head and was knocked out cold.

Somebody passing by on the highway saw my car in the ditch and called for help. An ambulance came and took me, still unconscious, to the hospital. The police had my car towed into town.

While I was still unconscious, I could hear a song being played on the ukulele. I didn’t know what the song was, but it was the same song over and over. A ukulele is not an instrument I’m used to hearing or would expect to hear. It forced me to recall in vivid detail the dream I was supposed to forget. When I regained consciousness, I asked for a pencil and some paper. I knew I had to write it down while I remembered it or risk losing it forever.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A Mate for the Monster

The mate for the monster.

A Mate for the Monster
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

The monster is seven and a half feet tall and as strong as ten men. He walks in a frightening, slow-gaited, halting manner. He has a bolt in his neck; his face is stitched onto his enormous head. He probably doesn’t know that he is made up of body parts from dead people (and if he did know he wouldn’t care). No matter where he goes or what he does, he scares people without even trying. That’s what makes him a monster.

He lives in a lonely castle on a mountaintop. He has no friends and his days are empty and pointless. His brain is not so addled that he can’t ask himself why he was ever created in the first place. He has recently taken to talking a bit and, when he’s not smoking cigars, drinking wine, or running around the countryside scaring people, he says things like, “Love dead—hate living.” This is not a good sign.

The mad scientist who made him, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and his equally mad colleague, Dr. Pretorius, see that the monster is not happy. He is not fulfilled and is not living up to his full potential as a monster. After much thought and deliberation, the two mad scientists decide that the monster needs one thing above all others: a mate who will appreciate him for what he is and won’t be repulsed by the way he looks or by his crude manners. They toy with the idea of creating a male mate but that just doesn’t seem the thing, somehow, so they decide they will create for him a female mate.

Dr. Frankenstein sends his hunchback assistant, Fritz, out on a midnight graveyard run. From the graves of the newly dead, Fritz will gather the body parts needed to cobble together a female mate for the monster. He knows just the place, he says. Leave everything to him.

Now, Fritz has never been overly scrupulous about where he gets what he needs. He isn’t above going to the village and, seeing a lone woman standing on a corner singing a song, hitting her in the head to subdue her and then strangling her. When he makes sure she’s dead, he puts her in a burlap bag and throws it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and goes back to the castle. He knows Dr. Frankenstein will never ask questions as long as Fritz delivers the goods. The woman was just a nobody anyway. She’ll never be missed.

Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius spend about two weeks creating what they think is a perfect mate for the monster. They take as much time as they need without rushing; they want to get every little detail just right. When the next violent thunderstorm occurs, they will be ready to harness the lightning.

They don’t have long to wait. All day long the next Saturday the sky is turbulent and dark. Finally, at night, a fearsome storm comes down the mountain, tearing at the castle walls. The wind howls and the rain falls as if a spigot has been opened in the sky. The lightning seems to be exactly on top of the castle, as if made to order. The two mad scientists place the as-yet lifeless body of the female mate on a table, connect the conductors that will attract the life-giving lightning, and hoist the table upwards through a hole in the ceiling.

The monster knows what is going on in the laboratory and paces his chamber nervously. Dr. Frankenstein has told him he must stay away until they are ready for him to see his mate. He combs his hair; he tries on several suits of clothes but nothing seems just exactly right. He fears that his mate will be afraid of him and will try to get away. He wonders if he will have to tie her up or club her in the head to be able to get a kiss from her. He lies on the bed and watches the storm out the window until there is a knock at the door; it’s the hunchback Fritz telling him that Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius are ready for him to come to the laboratory.

When the monster sees his mate for the first time he is a little disappointed. She is standing between Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius and she’s swaying from side to side as if she might fall over. Her hair is very high off her head and frizzy as if electrified; white strands on both sides resemble bolts of lightning. Dr. Pretorius has dressed her in a flowing white gown that goes all the way to the floor.

She tries to pull away when she sees the monster standing in the doorway, but Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius hold her by the arms. As the monster walks across the room to her with a welcoming smile, she screams a piercing scream that rattles the castle to its very foundations. The monster is not put off by the scream but advances toward her. When he is face to face with her, Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius let go of her arms and withdraw to the dark recesses of the room. She surprises the monster by hissing at him like a snake, which he finds very arousing. When she screams again, he puts his enormous hands around her throat to get her to shut up. And so begins a great romance.

Dr. Frankenstein proposes a toast and they all have a friendly glass of champagne. They break the champagne glasses in the fireplace for good luck and then Dr. Pretorius, who is also an ordained minister, marries the monster and his mate so there won’t be any question of immorality going on in the castle.

They all live happily for many years to come in Castle Frankenstein on their mountaintop. Eventually Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius—even Fritz—all die because they are just ordinary men. The monster and his mate, however, live on and on. Through studying the writings of Dr. Frankenstein—and also Dr. Frankenstein’s father and grandfather—the monster has learned how to prolong his life and that of his mate for a very long time. The next thing he is working on is how to resurrect Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius from the dead. If he is able to do that, there will be no stopping any of them.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

All Hallow’s Eve ~ A Short Story

Halloween 2021 3

All Hallow’s Eve
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~ 

Mother stood over him while he ate his dinner of liver and onions. When she decided he had eaten enough, she told him he could go. He ran up the stairs to his room and put on his Halloween costume. A ghost this year, same as last year. Next year he was going to have to be something different. Wearing the same costume more than two years in a row was terrible.

His false face still had dried spit around the mouth, but it was his own spit so he didn’t care. He put it on and checked the entire effect in the mirror, costume, mask and all. Something was missing. Oh, yes, the old derby hat. It was the one thing that made his costume look just a little bit creepy and scary. Without the hat, the costume was just a cheap little-kid’s getup.

Mother was in the living room when he came down the stairs. “Come here, Buster, and let me take a look at your outfit,” she said.

“It’s a costume,” Buster said.

“Oh, don’t you look cute!”

“I’m supposed to look scary!”

“So, where are you going tonight? What are you plans?”

“I’m going tricking-or-treating, mother, the same as every Halloween.”

“Who are you going with?”

“I don’t know. Some of the kids from my class, I guess.”

“What are their names?”

“You want the names of all the kids in my class?”

“Of course I don’t. You’ll be careful, now, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

“Make sure you’re not alone. Wherever you go, go in a group.”

“I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I said okay, I’ll go in a group.”

“Be home by ten o’clock.”

“Mother! It’s Halloween and tomorrow is Saturday!”

“All right, then. Eleven.”

When he finally got out the door, he broke into a run. The evening air felt good after the stuffy house and smelled good, like leaves and burning candle wax. It wasn’t all the way dark yet, but trick-or-treaters were everywhere, mostly little kids accompanied by their mothers.

He met his friends at the corner by the park. Eric was a skeleton, Stan a hobo, and Squeamy the Lone Ranger. Squeamy’s sister, Oda May, stood apart from the others, smoking a cigarette and looked bored. She carried a rubber-and-fur gorilla mask loosely in her hand like a rag.

“What’s Oda May doing here?” Buster asked.

“My mother wouldn’t let me go out without an adult,” Squeamy said.

“She’s fifteen!”

“I guess that’s enough of an adult.”

“Let’s get going, you losers,” Stan said, “before all the good candy is gone!”

Oda May flipped away her cigarette and put on the gorilla mask and they headed for the neighborhood on the other side of the park where all the best houses were.

It was a lucrative neighborhood. Three-quarters of the houses had their porch lights on. When people took one look at adult-sized Oda May in her gorilla mask, their smiles usually faded.

The treats were good, Hershey bars and popcorn balls instead of stale jelly beans. After three blocks, their bags were starting to get heavy. They sat down on the curb to rest for a while.

“That’s how it’s done,” Oda May said, hefting the bag of candy appreciatively between her legs. “If they’re just a little bit scared of you, they’ll fork over the candy quick enough so they can get rid of you.” She lit a cigarette without taking off the gorilla mask.

“Where to now?” Buster asked.

“I don’t know about you little turds,” Oda May said, “but I’m going to go meet my boyfriend.”

“What about us?” Stan asked.

“You’re on your own. I’ve played nursemaid long enough.”

“It’s all right,” Squeamy said. “We don’t need her.”

“And don’t follow me,” she said, “or somebody’s gonna lose some teeth!”

“Leave the mask on!” Squeamy called after her. “Your boyfriend might like you better that way!”

“What will she do with all that candy?” Buster asked.

“Probably give it to her boyfriend.”

“Who is this boyfriend, anyway?” Eric asked. “Why don’t we get to meet him?”

“He’s a criminal, I think,” Squeamy said. “She doesn’t want me to see him because she’s afraid I’ll tell on her. He’s twenty-three years old. I’ll bet he’s really terrible looking, like a convict.”

“I’d like to see him,” Stan said.

“Hey, I stole some of her cigarettes when she wasn’t looking,” Squeamy said, passing them around and lighting them.

“Boy, I like smoking!” Eric said. “I inhale the smoke deep down into my lungs and let it stay there.”

“Me too,” Stan said. “I’m always going to smoke for as long as I live.”

“My mother told me if she ever caught me smoking a cigarette she’d knock it down my throat,” Squeamy said.

“Doesn’t she smoke?” Eric asked.

“Of course she does. They all smoke.”

“Then why does she care?”

“Because I’m in fifth grade.”

“She’s a hypocrite,” Stan said.

Buster had never smoked before except for a quick puff off his mother’s cigarette when she wasn’t looking. He didn’t like the taste of it, but he wasn’t going to be the only one not to smoke.

Several times, he took the smoke into his mouth and quickly blew it out again. He wanted to have the others see him with smoke coming out his nose like a dragon, but he wasn’t sure how to do it without inhaling.

“Don’t you like smoking, Buster?” Squeamy asked.

“Yeah, I like it all right. I smoke all the time when my mother isn’t looking.”

“Well, finish your cigarettes, ladies,” Eric said. “We’ve still got a lot of territory to cover.”

They went over a couple of blocks to another neighborhood where the treats were bound to be good. They covered several blocks, both sides of the street, in just under an hour.

“My bag is getting really heavy,” Squeamy said. “I think I’d probably better go on home now.”

“Somebody gave me a guitar pick as a treat. Isn’t that weird?”

“Hey, it looks like it’s going to rain! If our bags get wet, they’ll bust through on the bottom and all our candy will spill out!”

“What time is it?”

“I think it’s about a quarter to ten.”

“I think we should call it a night.”

Some older kids, sixteen and seventeen, came up behind them with the intention of stealing their candy, so they began running furiously into the dark to get away from them. Stan knew the neighborhood better than the others, so they all followed him.

He led them around in a circuitous loop over to Main Street, where there were lots of lots of lights, people and cars.

“I think we outran them!” he said.

“Can you imagine the nerve?” Eric said. “We’ve been out all night trick-or-treating for our candy, and somebody thinks they can just come along and take it from us? What is the world coming to?”

Some of the businesses on Main Street were giving out treats. A lady at a bakery gave them day-old pumpkin cookies, which they devoured like hungry wolves.

A man standing in front of a tavern was giving out treats from a large plastic pumpkin. “You kids need to be home in bed,” he said.

“If we come inside, will you give us a beer?” Stan asked.

“Come back in ten years,” the man said.

There was a big crowd at the Regal Theatre, a long line of people waiting to buy tickets to the Halloween double feature: Bride of the Gorilla and The Terror of Tiny Town. Anybody in costume could get in for half-price.

“If we had enough money, we could go,” Stan said.

“Aw, I can’t stay out that late,” Buster said. “My mother would come looking for me.”

They were about to walk past the theatre, but Squeamy spotted Oda May in the ticket line in the gorilla mask and stopped. She wasn’t alone, either.

“She’s with a little kid and he’s a cowboy!” Squeamy said. “Her boyfriend is a child and a cowboy! That’s why she didn’t want us to meet him!”

From where they were standing, they all had a good look at the little cowboy. When he turned around to look at the line behind him, Buster saw his face. “That’s no little kid,” he said. “That’s a midget!”

“A what?”

“Oda May’s boyfriend is a midget and his face is all wrinkled! He must be thirty years old!”

“Oh, boy!” Squeamy said. “I’m really going to tell on her now!”

“I think we should go over and say ‘hi’ to her,” Eric said.

“No!” Squeamy said. “She’ll think we’ve been following her!”

They stood and watched Oda May and the midget cowboy move up in the line. When it was their turn, Oda May moved around behind the midget, put her hands on his waist and lifted him up so he could buy the tickets and then set him down again. Several people in line behind them laughed, but they seemed not to notice.

“Now I’m seen everything!” Squeamy said. “Can you imagine what their children will be like? I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Let’s go,” Stan said. “It’s ten o’clock and it’s starting to rain again.”

They decided to walk home with Stan, since he lived the closest. The interesting thing about Stan was that his father was an undertaker and the family lived above the funeral parlor. It was a subject of endless fascination to Stan’s friends.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” Stan said when they were at the corner near his house. “Thanks for walking me home.”

“Do you mean you’re not going to ask us in after we’ve come all this way?” Squeamy said.

“Do you have a body in a casket we can look at?” Eric asked.

“Stan’s right,” Buster said. “I should be getting home, too.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Squeamy said. “I don’t think I can wait until I get home.”

“Oh, all right!” Stan said. “You can come in but you have to wipe your feet first.”

Stan’s parents were out for the evening, so they had the place to themselves. Stan took them down to the basement to show them around but made them promise not to touch anything. First he showed them the room where the embalming was done with its white cabinets full of jars and bottles and then a separate room where bodies were dressed and prepared for burial. The most impressive part of the tour was the casket room, where more than fifty caskets were opened up so people could see inside them. Eric, Buster and Squeamy took turns taking off their shoes and getting into a casket to see what it felt like, while Stan closed the lid on each of them for a few seconds and then made them get out.

“My dad wouldn’t like it if he knew we were down here,” he said.

“Let us know when there’s a body so we can come back and see it,” Eric said.

“I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies. It’s people you don’t know. You don’t feel anything looking at them.”

“You are so lucky! I’ve never seen a dead body!”

“I need to get home,” Buster said. “It’s getting late.”

Buster walked part of the way home with Squeamy and Eric, but they left him at the corner by the church and he had to walk the last four blocks alone. He held his bag of candy in his arms because it was heavy and soggy and he didn’t want the bottom breaking through. He didn’t see a single other person on his way home. Everybody was finished for the night. Halloween was over for another year.

Mother was sitting on the couch in her bathrobe and slippers watching a Charlie Chan movie on TV. “Did you have a nice time?” she asked.

“Yeah, it was okay.”

“I’m glad you’re home.”

“Why?

“I always worry about you when you’re out by yourself.”

“I wasn’t by myself.”

“There’s an escapee on the loose killing people. I just heard it on TV.”

“We just missed him.”

“Now don’t eat all that candy at once. You’ll make yourself sick. You still have to eat your fruits and vegetables.”

“I know. I want to go to bed now. I’m tired.”

She was saying something else as he went up the stairs, but he didn’t hear what it was.

He weighed himself on the bathroom scale, first without the bag and then with it. He weighed eighty-four pounds without the bag and ninety-five pounds with it. Eleven pounds of candy. One pound for every year of his life.

He undressed and put on his pajamas and set the bag of candy on top of the chest of drawers where he could see it from the bed. He got into bed, took one last look at it, turned off the light. Before he could have counted to ten, he was asleep.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

In Memoriam ~ A Capsule Book Review

In Memoriam book cover

In Memoriam
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~

It has been said that the “Great War” (World War I) wiped out an entire generation of young men in England. We meet a few of these (fictional) young men in the novel In Memoriam by Alice Witt.

(Sidney) Ellwood and (Henry) Gaunt are students at a boys’ boarding school in England. (The students at this school go mostly by their last names.) Gaunt, it seems, joins the army at the beginning of the war with Germany because of his same-sex feelings for Gaunt. (We have to remember that homosexuality is a crime in England at this time.) Whatever feelings Gaunt has for Elwood, they are enthusiastically reciprocated.

Soon, Ellwood also “signs up,” along with many of the other “boys” (men) from the school he and Gaunt have attended. They cannot pass up the chance to experience the excitement and exhilaration of fighting in a war. They will all soon discover, however, that war experienced first-hand is not quite the same as they envisioned. The death toll mounts, as does the list of the grievously injured.

Ellwood and Gaunt are soon together at the front, but it’s not the same as it was at school, of course. Hell, even when experienced with one’s beloved, is still hell. Ellwood is present when Gaunt is shot in the chest. Ellwood is sure Gaunt is dead, but he himself is under fire, so he can’t stay behind to see. He runs for cover, believing that Gaunt has died.

So, Ellwood is left alone, to grieve for his beloved Gaunt. However, he has other, more immediate, problems on the front lines. He sees many of his friends and acquaintances killed or horribly injured. Soon, he himself is shot in the face. He loses one eye and part of his jawbone. Will he live, or will he join his beloved Gaunt in death?

In Memoriam engaged me fully, from the first page. It is a novel with an early-twentieth century sensibility. It might have been written in the 1920s or ‘30s by E. M. Forester or Evelyn Waugh. The gay angle of the story is downplayed and very tastefully handled. Homophobes needn’t be alarmed. In Memoriam is highly recommended, especially if you are interested in the War to End All Wars, as I am.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Mother Witch, Father Ghoul ~ A Short Story

Mother Witch, Father Ghoul
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Jock and Lena had been married for eighteen years when their first child came along, a boy they named Finley. They had resigned themselves to being childless, so Finley was something of a surprise. Lena was sick the whole time she was carrying Finley and she wondered secretly if childbirth was worth all the trouble and fuss. She had been happy without children and wondered if she would ever be happy again.

Always a reader, she read book after book on child-rearing and parenting, hoping that the words on the printed page would make her feel inspired, but they had no effect in that direction. She woke up every morning during her pregnancy hoping that the little thing growing inside her would—if not exactly die—just not be there at all.

When Lena told Jock she was going to have a baby that neither of them expected, he was so dismayed he couldn’t speak. He shook and felt weak and had to sit down. When he recovered his senses, he demanded a scotch and soda and a steak medium-rare and accused Lena of having a secret affair with the obese man who cleaned the carpets.

The birth was a difficult one and Lena thought she would die. When the nurse at the hospital placed Finley in Lena’s arms for the first time, Lena fainted and fell out of bed; the nurse caught Finley just in time before he hit the floor. When Lena woke up from her faint, she had temporarily lost her senses.

Jock and Lena readied an upstairs room in their spacious house for the baby. They bought all the requisite furniture and all the little things they thought a baby would like. They had the room painted a cheerful yellow color and bought new curtains with elephants and giraffes on them; they spared no expense.

On the day Lena brought Finley home from the hospital, a few curious neighbors dropped in to see him. Lena wore a tight smile and welcomed the visitors graciously. Jock locked himself in his study and drank whiskey and wrote atrocious poetry.

Finley was a beautiful, perfect child with abundant light-brown hair and a full set of teeth. It was his strange, green-and-amber eyes, though, that people noticed first. He looked searchingly at any visitor who came into the room, as if he were studying them and knew things about them that nobody else knew. When people talked, he moved his lips and smiled, pretending he too was talking. Frequently he pointed at something across the room and when people turned to look at what he was pointing at, there was nothing there except the blank wall. He was seeing things that nobody else saw.

At about three weeks old, Finley began moving objects around the room by pointing at them with his tiny index finger and pursing his lips. If a floppy yellow bunny was sitting on the chest of drawers, he could make it fall to the floor or float across the room and fall into his bed, at which time he would grab it and stick it in his mouth. When a wasp came into this room, he pointed at it and flicked his tongue and the wasp fell dead in mid-flight.

“I don’t see anything of myself in him,” Jock said. “Nobody in my family ever had eyes that color.”

Lena was hurt anytime Jock suggested that somebody else was Finley’s father. The marriage, which before had been tolerable, was strained to the breaking point. Jock went out of the room when Lena entered and spoke to her only when it couldn’t be avoided. He blamed her for Finley’s existence and came to see their marriage as a mistake. He tried to warm up to Finley but believed that the two of them would only ever be strangers. He couldn’t visualize Finley living in his house for twenty or so years until reaching adulthood.

Despite Lena’s misgivings about parenthood, she tried to be a good mother to Finley. She fed him, bathed him and spent most of her waking hours looking out for him. There was always something about him, though, that to her didn’t seem right. It seemed he didn’t need her. He was attuned to something or someone else besides her. At times he would look longingly outside the window and point his finger and warble at something that only he could see.

At six months, Finley was walking and at nine months talking in complete sentences. He asked for pencil and paper and began drawing pictures of birds, castles, airplanes and elephants.

“How could you know about such things?” Lena asked.

When Finley was less than a year old, a relative gave him a picture book with farm animals and jungle animals. He looked appreciatively at all the pictures and then asked for a book with words.

“What kind of a book would you like?” Lena asked, stunned that a baby would make such a request.

“It doesn’t matter,” Finley said. “Just something I can hold in my tiny hands and turn the pages.”

She didn’t want to give him anything too “adult,” so she gave him a juvenile book about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. He read the book in one afternoon and asked for another one.

“Where did you learn to read?” Lena asked. “You haven’t been to school yet.”

“Some people are just born knowing things, I guess,” he said.

At one year, Finley was dressing and bathing himself and getting his own food. Lena kept a little stepstool within easy reach of the refrigerator. He never dropped any crumbs or spilled anything on the floor, and when he was finished eating he washed his own dishes, standing on a chair at the sink.

He learned to turn on the TV when nobody was around and watch on his own. He wasn’t interested in anything where people were talking. He wanted to hear music and see movement: pictures of animals, cars, airplanes, trains—anything but people.

One day, when Finley was one year and two months old, someone knocked on the door in the middle of the afternoon. Opening the door, Lena saw a strange-looking man and woman standing on the porch peering in at her. The man was very thin and pale and dressed in formal attire. (He seemed like a holdover from the Third Reich.) The woman was taller and broader than the man and wore a very old-fashioned kind of lady’s hat with a red feather and a veil. The chimpanzee she held by the hand wore an aviator cap with goggles and a little leather coat.

“You have the wrong house,” Lena said.

“I’m Mrs. Miggles and this is my husband, Julian.”

“Charmed,” Julian said.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

“We’re not selling anything, but we would like to speak to you.”

“I’m very busy right now.”

“You’re going to want to hear this,” the woman said. “It concerns your son.”

When Mrs. Miggles said the words your son, she inclined her head toward the chimpanzee.

Lena allowed them into the living room and asked them to sit down. The woman began by saying, “The boy’s name is Armand. Say hello to the lady, Armand.”

The chimpanzee took two steps toward Lena and held out his hand for her to shake.

“How do you do?” Lena said.

Armand rolled his lips back over his teeth and gave a little squawk.

“Is your husband at home?” Mrs. Miggles asked. “We really wanted to speak to both of you.”

“He’s out right now,” Lena said. “Just what is this about?”

“I don’t know quite how to say it.”

“Just say it. Isn’t that usually the best way?”

“Well, you can probably tell we’re not like anybody else. I’m a witch and my husband here is a ghoul.”

“A ghoul?”

“Yes, a ghoul.” Mrs. Miggles faltered and then continued. “You had a son on the last day of August last year, I believe.”

“How do you know that?”

“I also had a son on that day.”

“And you’re a witch?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Witches have children?”

“Sometimes they do.”

“All right. So you had a son on the same day as me. How does that concern me?”

“Well, to put it bluntly…”

“Yes.”

“I have your child and you have mine.”

“What?”

“The child that you have that you think is yours is really mine. He’s half-witch and half-ghoul.”

“All right, if that’s true, then where is my child?” Lena asked.

“This is him,” Mrs. Miggles said, picking Armand up and setting him on her lap.

“You’re telling me I gave birth to a chimp?”

“Oh, no, no, no! You gave birth to a human child on the same day that I gave birth to my child, who isn’t really human in the sense that you mean it.”

“Then where is my child?” Lena asked.

“I just told you! Your child is Armand!”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave my house now.”

“Well, perhaps I should backtrack and explain a little further.”

“I think you must!” Julian said in his odd croaking voice.

“When your attention was diverted for just a tiny second, my sister, who is also a witch, stole your baby and replaced him with mine.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh, witches can trick you very easily, I assure you!”

“I don’t believe a word of this!”

“She switched babies, and then do you know what she did? To get back at me for something I did to her a long time ago, she turned your baby into a chimp!”

Mrs. Miggles and Julian both laughed heartily.

“Nobody took my baby,” Lena said. “If such a thing had happened, I would have known.”

“It has taken me all this time to find you!” Mrs. Miggles said. “Of course, I had to torture my sister to get it out of her!”

“I’m going to call the police,” Lena said.

“And what do you think they’ll do, my dear!”

“My husband is behind all this, isn’t it? He’s playing an elaborate Halloween hoax on me because he never wanted a baby in the first place.”

“I’ve never spoken to your husband.”

Lena looked down at Armand who was sitting at Mrs. Miggles’ feet. When he realized he was being looked at, he smiled sweetly and yawned.

“So, if your sister turned my child into a chimp,” Lena asked, “why can’t she turn him back again?”

“That is a very reasonable question, my dear,” Mrs. Miggles said. “The truth is that the spell was hers and I don’t know how to reverse it.”

“Can’t you get her to reverse it?”

“Oh, no! I had to kill her!”

“You killed your own sister?”

“Oh, my, yes! She was a terrible trickster! If I hadn’t killed her, she would have killed me in the end!”

“She was a poor jealous thing,” Julian said. “She couldn’t have children of her own.”

“So, if you’ll just go and get your little fellow, whatever his name is,” Mrs. Miggles said, “we’ll make the switch and be on our way!”

“Do you think I’m going to turn my baby over to a couple of crazy people and take a chimp in return?” Lena asked.

“We prefer that you didn’t call him that,” Julian said.

Finley, who had been standing at the top of the stairs the whole time hearing every word, came running into the room.

“Mother! Father!” he said. “I knew you’d come for me on Halloween!”

During the embraces and kisses, Mrs. Miggles turned to Lena and said, “Now do you believe me?”

Armand went and stood beside Lena and took her by the hand. She reached down and picked him up in her arms and he kissed on her cheek, the way Finley was doing with Mrs. Miggles and Julian.

“At last, everything is right in the world!” Mrs. Miggles said.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Miss Wessel ~ A Short Story


Miss Wessel
~ A Witching Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Rain had threatened all day but no rain came. Ragged horizontal clouds took on strange shapes in the sky and then merged with other shapes and moved on. The sun showed its face every now and then but mostly kept hidden. A gentle breeze blew into the third-floor classroom like a sigh, ruffling some papers, barely noticed.

It was Friday, the last day of October, Halloween. The children were restless. They wanted to be released from their bondage so they could don their ghost, devil, or cowboy costumes and go out into the world and make mischief and collect enough candy to last them through the winter that was coming.

Their teacher, Miss Wessel, also longed to be released. It was her day. She had been teaching ten-year-olds for decades. She was leaving for good, once and for all, at the end of the day. The time had come for her to fly off and live the rest of her life the way she wanted to live it. The children didn’t know they’d have a new teacher come Monday morning. That was the way Miss Wessel wanted it. Say good-bye to no one.

There was no need on this day to do any work, to put on a good face. She had designated this, her last afternoon, as a time for silent meditation. This meant reading, thinking, looking out the window, or whatever one wanted to do, as long as one did it quietly. If one wanted to sit and doze at one’s desk, so much the better.

All was quiet, but there seemed to be an unwritten rule that says a roomful of ten-year-olds cannot be perfectly still for more than a few minutes at a time, no matter what. An unusually large number asked to be excused to go to the restroom. Miss Wessel was inclined to tell them to hold on to it, but in every case she let them go because she simply didn’t care. If they didn’t come back right away she didn’t get up to go see what was keeping them. If they were wandering around the halls doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing, some other teacher would see them and send them back; if they never came back, that was all right, too.

A boy named Terry Hughie got up to sharpen his pencil and fell on his backside like the clown he was, causing everybody to laugh uproariously, which was exactly the response he was hoping for. A little while later, two boys were scuffling in the back of the room, apparently trying to strangle each other. When Miss Wessel threw a blackboard eraser at them, somehow managing to hit them both, they immediately desisted and sat back down in their seats.

With order restored, Miss Wessel slumped down at her desk and was just about to go to sleep when she heard footsteps approaching and someone standing beside her, breathing audibly. Opening her eyes, she saw Francine Quince standing inches away, looking at her with her strange dark eyes.

“Yes, Francine,” she said. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I need to talk to you,” Francine said.

“What’s stopping you?”

“In private.”

“Can’t it wait until Monday?”

“No.”

With a sigh Miss Wessel stood and motioned for Francine to follow her into the cloakroom. She turned and faced Francine beside the fire extinguisher, clasping her hands in front of her to resist the urge to slap her. Of all the students in her class, she liked her the least.

“Did one of the boys draw an unflattering picture of you again?” she asked.

“Yes,” Francine said, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Standing close to Francine, Miss Wessel realized—and not for the first time, either—what an odd child she was. She was taller than the other children and seemed older in some unidentifiable way; more worldly, somehow, than her years would have allowed her to become. She had a very long neck and pale skin and, in spite of the pinched-up features of her face, enormous dark eyes that were like pinpoints zeroing in on all she saw.

“I’m listening,” Miss Wessel said, when Francine seemed to hesitate.

“I don’t know quite how to say this,” Francine said.

“Did you have a naughty accident? Do you need to go home?”

“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to tell you that I know what you are and I know what you’re going to do at the end of the day today.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Miss Wessel said, mustering as much indignation as she could on such short notice.

“I want you to take me with you.”

“Now why would I take you anywhere?”

“Because I’m one of your kind.”

“And what kind is that?”

Francine laughed her grown-up laugh. “I’ve seen,” she said. “I know.”

“Francine,” Miss Wessel said sternly, not caring if the other children heard, “I don’t have the time or the inclination for this kind of nonsense! Please return to your seat and don’t talk of this again!”

“Everybody who knows me would be glad if I went away and never came back. They’d look for me, of course, because that’s what they’re supposed to do, but after a while when they didn’t find any trace of me they’d figure I ran away or was abducted by aliens or something.”

“Would you like to spend the rest of the day in the principal’s office?” Miss Wessel asked, not knowing what else to say.

“No.”

“Then return to your seat.”

“All right. I will. But I still want you to take me with you.”

The afternoon continued to its inevitable conclusion without further incident. When the bell rang to go home, Miss Wessel stood at the classroom door and handed everybody a paper bag of candy as they left. She made a point of looking them all in the face and calling them by name, as she would never see any of them again, and wishing them all a happy Halloween.

When everybody had left and there was one bag of candy left, Miss Wessel realized that Francine Quince was still in the room with her, sitting quietly at her desk. She had forgotten for the moment about Francine. She held the bag of candy above her head and smiled.

“There’s one bag left, Francine,” she said, “and it’s got your name on it. Happy Halloween!”

“I don’t want it,” Francine said.

“Then take it and give it to your little brother.”

“He doesn’t want it either.”

“Go home, Francine! School is over for the day and it’s time for all of us to leave. Your mother will be expecting you.”

“My mother’s a drunk and a whore who doesn’t even know what day it is.”

“Suit yourself. If you’re still here when the janitor comes in to straighten up, he’ll make you leave.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Francine, do you think I want to be responsible for the disappearance of a young girl? I think that’s a fairly serious charge.”

“It shouldn’t matter to a witch.”

“Witch or not, I have some scruples.”

“I’ll bet you’ve cast many spells on people and turned lots of men into toads!”

“It isn’t like that!”

“Then take me with you so I may know what it’s really like. You can make me your protégé.”

“Francine, I don’t even like you. Why would I want you with me all the time?”

“If you don’t take me with you, I’ll go to the police and tell them everything I know about you.”

“Why should that make any difference? I’ll be so far away they’ll never find me and they wouldn’t even know where to look.”

“Then take me with you.”

“I’m leaving now, Francine, and you’re leaving, too, but not with me.”

“I’ll kill myself if you don’t take me.”

“Do you know what it’s like to fly a broom? It takes skill and coordination, not to mention balance.”

“I can learn. You can teach me.”

“Good-bye, Francine. You have my sincere good wishes.”

Miss Wessel went out of the room, turning off the lights and closing the door. She knew that Francine was still inside, but she didn’t care; she was finished with her. When she walked down the hall to the seldom-used door to the attic, she knew that Francine was right behind her.

“You’re not supposed to be in the building after school hours, Francine,” she said.

She went up the dark, narrow steps to the attic, brushing away cobwebs. Francine was right behind her like a shadow. At the top of the steps, the fluttering of bat wings caused Francine to let out a little scream.

“If a few little bats scare you,” Miss Wessel said, “you’re not really a witch.”

“I just wasn’t expecting them,” Francine said.

“If you’re going to be a witch, you’ll learn to expect anything.”

Miss Wessel changed into a long, flowing black dress. After she had fastened all the buttons and smoothed the dress over her bony hips, she put on a black pointed hat with a wide brim. Her face, at that moment, took on a different look. Her nose and chin became more pointed, more prominent; her skin, always the color of ivory, took on a greenish tint. The wart on her chin that was barely visible before became enormous, complete with a tuft of bristling hair.

With her preparations complete, Miss Wessel pointed a long index finger at Francine and laughed a cackling laugh. “Are you quite sure you want to do this, my dear?” she asked.

Francine, in spite of herself, drew back. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said.

“Then follow me.”

She picked up her broom and climbed the ladder that was built into the attic wall and pushed open the trap door that led to the roof. After they had both gone through the trap door and were standing on the roof, Miss Wessel let the door slam back into place. Then, with Francine watching her closely, she straddled the broom with her legs.

“Get on,” she said, “and hold on. I would advise you not to look down until you get used to flying.”

Francine got onto the broom behind Miss Wessel and wrapped her arms around Miss Wessel’s waist.

“Are you ready?” Miss Wessel asked.

“Yes,” Francine said.

“Do you want me to put a curse on your mother before we go?”

“No. Her life is already cursed enough.”

“Very well, then. We’re off!”

The broom lifted, carrying its two passengers. Miss Wessel flew in a broad sweep over the school and the town so they could take one last look at the place that had been their home for so many years. Then, with the full moon as a backdrop, they flew away to points unknown, never to be seen or heard from again.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places ~ A Capsule Book Review

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey is not about ghosts or ghost stories but is instead about the places (houses, prisons, brothels, mental hospitals, parks, cemeteries, etc.) that have, for one reason or another, come to be thought of as haunted. This book doesn’t espouse a belief in ghosts or hauntings or a disbelief in them. When you read the book, you decide for yourself.

Most ghost stories are folklore, “urban legend,” or tall tales. They start with a grain of truth and go on from there to fantastic make-believe. But, no matter how implausible the stories are, people are willing to believe them without question because they affirm a belief that there is, indeed, life after death. When you hear a ghost story that begins with a tragedy, an unresolved and unavenged murder, it’s satisfying on a psychological level because it makes you feel good that such a terrible thing has happened to somebody else and not to you and, more importantly, it makes you glad you’re alive.

Ghost hunting has grown into an industry, popularized in part by “reality” shows on TV. People believe what they want to believe. If a person on TV is telling you convincingly that a house, a commercial building, park, or cemetery is haunted, you believe it because it’s so easy to believe. Why shouldn’t you believe? When somebody takes the time and effort to dig deeper into a ghost story, however, the truth is often uncovered, and the truth is not nearly as interesting or as much fun as the tall tale.

Sometimes a house or its owner need only be eccentric or unusual. Sarah Winchester (1840-1922) is a perfect example. As heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, she was fabulously wealthy. The Winchester repeating rifle was the gun that “won the West.” Sarah bought a house in San Jose, California, and began adding on to it and, once she got started, she added and added and added. The house was never finished but, by the time she died in 1922, she had 160 rooms, staircases that went nowhere, and other features that, over time, marked the house as “haunted”—haunted supposedly by all the people who were killed by the Winchester rifle. When people think of American haunted houses, the Winchester house in San Jose tops the list. Serious scientific investigation, however, has yet to uncover credible evidence of a single ghost at the Winchester house. People believe what they want to believe.

The house that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his 1851 gothic novel, The House of the Seven Gables, is in Salem, Massachusetts. The house still stands and is a tourist attraction. There’s no absolute proof that the house is haunted, although it very well could be if you go entirely on the way it looks. Inside the house is a “secret staircase” on which people claim to have experienced ghostly emanations. Nobody has ever seen an actual ghost in the house, though. Hawthorne didn’t think the staircase was important enough to include in his novel.

The Lemp family of St. Louis became wealthy from the manufacture of Falstaff beer in the 1890s. They had their brewing plant, and their residence, in South St. Louis. Underneath their property were vast natural caves in which they stored the beer before electronic refrigeration became common. As wealthy and successful as the Lemps were, they were also plagued with mental illness, which today might be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Several of the Lemps committed suicide. People believe the ghosts of the Lemps haunt the house, which is now a restaurant and a bed-and-breakfast. Employees at the restaurant claim to have seen spirits, or at least felt them. Teams of “ghost hunters” regularly inhabit the premises, looking for evidence of spirits that nobody else has been able to find. The vast brewery is also still standing but is mostly unused, except as a haunted Halloween attraction in October.

So, in addition to the Winchester house in San Jose, the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Lemp house in St. Louis, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places takes us to a brothel in Nevada, an abandoned mental hospital in Maine, a plantation in Louisiana, a park in Portland, Oregon, that’s haunted by the ghost of a murdered fifteen-year-old girl, a house in New Orleans where slaves were mistreated, a prison in West Virginia where prisoners were starved and neglected, and from there to creepy Los Angeles hotels, where deceased stars still cavort, Civil War battlefields where many thousands of men died and on to Detroit, the once-thriving industrial hub of the U.S. that has its share of tragic ghost stories, most of them fabricated but still believed by people who are willing to believe what they choose to believe.

If you believe in ghosts, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places won’t get you to not believe in them, but the one thing the book does is to show that most ghost stories can be easily explained and debunked. The thing is, though, the truth is not nearly as compelling as the legend or the tall tale that, over time, has come to be accepted as the truth.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp  

by allen0997

Between Two Fires ~ A Capsule Book Review

Between Two Fires book cover
Between Two Fires
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~ 

Between Two Fires is a 2012 speculative-fiction novel by Chrisopher Buehlman. The year is 1348. The place is France. The country is ravaged by war with England (the Hundred Years War) and by a horrible disease known as the Black Plague. (The world is such a mess, we are told, because Lucifer and the other fallen angels are waging war in heaven.)

Thomas de Givras, a former knight of the Crusades, has fallen on hard times. His armor is tarnished. He has been excommunicated from the church and he has been stripped of his property. He is not old but not young, either. He has joined a band of brigands. They accost people on the road and rob them.

When he encounters a young girl named Delphine, a recent plague orphan, he sees that there is something special about her. She claims she can see angels and she asks him to accompany her to Paris and then Avignon. Although he is not known for his generous nature, he decides it is in his best interest to do as she asks. Along the way, they meet Father Matthieu, a homosexual priest who drinks too much wine. He confides that he was caught in a compromising situation with another man right before the plague struck. As a result, he lost his church and his congregation. Delphine takes pity on him. The three of them (Thomas, Delphine, and Father Matthieu) make quite a trio.

In Paris, Delphine acquires the Spear of Longinus from a seller of relics. Before the trio leaves the city, they are attacked by possessed statues of the Virgin Mary and other saints. They have several other encounters with fallen angels before they reach Avignon. Father Matthieu is killed by a demon in the River Rhone. Thomas, by chance, meets the man who ruined him, D’Évreux, and challenges him to a duel. Thomas is victorious and D’Évreux is killed.

In Avignon, Thomas and Delphine uncover a plot to kill Pope Clement and replace him with a demon look-alike. In the fight that ensues, Delphine is killed, but Archangel Michael and the heavenly host emerge from her body to defeat the false pope and his army of demons. Thomas’s soul is dragged into Hell by the fleeing demons, where he is tortured. Delphine descends into Hell to look for him, at which time she reveals that she is both Jesus Christ and the girl Delphine. Thomas awakens in his own body. Everyone except Thomas forgets the supernatural aspects of that night, believing the damage was from an earthquake. Thomas returns to Normandy and lives in the castle he lived in before it was taken away. Delphine becomes a nun; Thomas considers her his adopted daughter.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Demon of Unrest ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Demon of Unrest book cover
~ The Demon of Unrest ~
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~

In the lead-up to the Civil War, the long-simmering animosity between the North and the South was centered around Fort Sumter, in Charleston Bay. Fort Sumter was a federal fort, held by Union forces, surrounded by Southern troops and Southern sympathizers. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, so it was “all-in” for the South. The newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, seemed ill-at-ease in the role of commander-in-chief. He was afraid he was going to ignite an all-out civil war, so he didn’t know how to handle Fort Sumter. Should he evacuate the Union forces there to a safer location? Should he instruct the commander to surrender the fort? Should he resupply the fort with food and ammunition? (He couldn’t exactly let the people there starve to death, could he?) For a long time he did nothing because he didn’t know what to do.

Finally, in April 1861, after several months of suspense, the stalemate was broken when Southern forces attacked Fort Sumter. Federal forces fought back, but weakly at first. (They had used most of their ammunition in practice firing.) The “siege” of Fort Sumter lasted about a day and a half. The people of Charlotte, South Carolina, gathered on the beach to watch (and hear) the fighting, as if it was a sporting event or a celebration. When it was all over, it was a victory for the South, but the Federal commander in charge of Fort Sumter, Robert Anderson, was hailed as something of a hero by both sides for his perseverance and professionalism.

Fort Sumter was, of course, the beginning of the American Civil War. There was a belief in the beginning that it would be a short war and that both sides would quickly settle their differences. The South, especially, was overly confident. The truth was that it was a bitter, bloody, brutal war that lasted four years and resulted in the deaths of some 750,000 Americans.

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson is the true story of Fort Sumter in the long march to the American Civil War. It’s a long book, minutely detailed, but it never seems ponderous, as you might expect of a historical subject. It remains gripping and engaging throughout, even if we know what happens in the end.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Last of Reginald ~ A Short Story

The Last of Reginald image 2
The Last of Reginald
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Wexler Deal had been dead a long time. He died when he was a child, so his spirit-self would always be a child. Despite his apparent youth, he had experienced all the spirit world had to offer. Now he was lonely. Now he wanted a home.

He went back to the city of his birth, thinking that was as good a place as any to look for a home, but nothing looked the same. The hospital where he was born had been torn down and an office building stood in its place. The cemetery where he was buried was overgrown and unkempt, with a new highway built uncomfortably close. In the neighborhood where he had lived before he died, all the houses had been torn down and a shopping center built in their place.

Nothing was the same. There were no streetcars anymore. The little shops along Main Street were all gone. He didn’t see any horses anywhere, but there were lots of trucks. There were also lots of annoying people and much noise. He didn’t like the modern world.

“Just how long have you been dead, anyway?” he asked himself.

He sat in the park on a bench, watching living people go by and thinking how he didn’t belong and how he should find someplace else to go. If he was looking for happiness, he wouldn’t find it here.

He was watching a swan glide toward an island in the center of the lake when two people crossed his field of vision, a woman and a boy. The woman, smartly dressed, had soft-looking hair the color of straw. She was leading the boy by the hand. They stopped at the water fountain. The boy felt the fountain with both hands. She turned it on for him while he drank.

Wexler watched them as long as they were in the park and when they left he followed them.

They went home to a two-story brick house with a spacious yard. Wexler was fascinated by the boy who had to feel the water fountain with hands before he took a drink. He was a smart-looking boy just about Wexler’s age. He would make a good brother. The woman would make a good mother. He was sure of it.

The next day, he went back just as the boy and the woman were emerging from the house. He let them go ahead of him and then followed them.

This time they went to the library. The woman sat at a table and pulled a chair close to her for the boy to sit on. She began looking at newspapers. Whenever she went to the rack to get another newspaper, the boy sat quietly with his hands folded across his stomach and lowered his head. He closed his eyes as though he were asleep.

Wexler sat on the other side of the boy. Of course, the boy didn’t see him and didn’t know he was there. This gave Wexler a chance to look closely at the boy. Wexler saw how far the boy’s eyelashes extended from his eyes. His hair was exactly the same color as Wexler’s and, in fact, they looked enough alike to be brothers. The only difference was that Wexler had been dead for decades, but when he died he was about the same age that the boy was now, so, for all intents and purposes, they were the same age.

When they left the library, they stopped on the way home at a restaurant to eat lunch. They sat at a red-upholstered booth and ate tuna-salad sandwiches and drank malteds. Wexler sat beside the boy and watched him eat, mimicking him and imagining what it would be like to take food into his mouth and swallow it. He hadn’t eaten in decades, but he remembered what it was like.

Soon they were back home again. Instead of turning ar0und and walking away when the woman and the boy went inside, Wexler slipped inside with them. The woman closed the door, blissfully unaware that Wexler was there. Being a spirit certainly has its advantages.

The boy went upstairs, while the woman went into the kitchen. Wexler was going to go along with the boy to get better acquainted with him, but instead he wanted to spend some time exploring the house.

It was a big house. The rooms were splendidly furnished and there were a lot of them. These people must certainly have a lot of money, thought Wexler. I wouldn’t mind living in a place like this.

In a little while the woman went into the front room and laid down on the couch. Wexler watched her as she took off her shoes and made herself comfortable. She didn’t have to fix dinner or do any other work, Wexler was soon to discover, because she had a black maid named Ethel to do everything.

When dinner was ready, Ethel brought the food in from the kitchen and put it on the dining room table. The woman rose from the couch, and the boy came down from upstairs. They sat across from each other at the table. The woman put the food on the boy’s plate, and then on her own, and they began eating. Wexler hovered over the table and watched them as they ate. Finally he sat down beside the boy and listened to their conversation.

“Did you straighten your room?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you hang up your clothes and put your underwear in the wash?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You’re not helpless, you know.”

“I never said I was.”

“Do you like the roast beef?

“Sure.”

After dinner, the boy went to his room and read a book that was little dots on a page. The woman watched TV while Wexler continued to explore the house, including the basement and attic.

At bedtime, the woman and the boy said their good nights, and the boy went into his room and changed into his pajamas. After he got into bed and was settling down to sleep, Wexler sat in a chair beside the bed and whistled an old tune.

“Who’s there?” the boy asked.

Wexler continued to whistle.

“I know there’s somebody there.”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“How long have you been following me?”

“Just for a couple of days.”

“I knew it! I could feel it!”

“Just between you and me.”

“What?”

“Is that woman your mother?”

“Of course not. She’s my guardian.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She abandoned me when I was a baby.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Because I was born blind.”

“That’s terrible!”

“As you can see, I get along all right. Now, you’d better tell me who you are and what you want.”

“If I told you my name, it wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“My name is Wexler Deal.”

“That’s a funny name.”

“What’s yours?”

“Reginald Flinders.”

“I’d shake your hand, but I don’t have a hand.”

“Why not? Have you been in a terrible accident?”

“No, I…That’s a story for another time.”

“Why ‘for another time’?”

“I don’t think you’re ready for the truth about me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Just take my word for it.”

“All right. Now, tell me what you’re doing in my house.”

“I’ve been looking for a brother. When I saw you in the park, I thought you might be him.”

“That sounds suspicious. I think I should tell Grace the whole thing.”

“Who’s Grace?”

“She’s my guardian. She’ll want to know what you’re doing here. She’ll call the police.”

“No need for that.”

“I want to know how you got in without Grace or the maid seeing you.”

“Nobody sees me.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not really there. Or here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been dead for a long time. I’m a spirit.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one!”

“It’s the absolute truth. The reason Grace and the maid didn’t see me is because I’m not really there. Nobody sees me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you.”

They talked for hours. They both realized how good it was to have somebody to talk to. Before the night was over, they both ended up asleep, side by side, in Reginald’s bed. In the morning they woke up and began talking again.

Reginald went to a school for the blind. In the morning some people came and picked him up and kept him at school all day, and in the afternoon they brought him back home again. When he wasn’t at school, he spent almost all his time with Wexler. They spoke on every subject imaginable. Reginald told him how he wondered about colors and what a cow looked like, or a chicken.

“One day you’ll see everything,” Wexler said.

“I don’t think so. I’ve always been this way.”

“I’d help you to see if I knew how.”

Another time, Reginald said, “Tell me what you look like. Describe yourself to me.”

“I don’t look like anything,” Wexler said. “I’m not here.”

“If you were here and I could see you, what would you look like?”

“When I had a body and a face, I looked just the way you look now.”

“I’ve never seen myself.”

“My hair is halfway between brown and blond. My nose is large but not too large.  My eyes are blue and very handsome. My mouth is in the usual place.”

Despite Wexler’s discomfort, he let Reginald “see” him with his hands: head, ears, eyes, forehead, nose, mouth, chin, neck. When he was finished, he put his arms down and said, “So, that’s what I look like!”

“We’re just like twins,” Wexler said with a laugh.

Time went by quickly. The weeks became months, and it was winter again. Still Wexler stayed by Reginald’s side, with Grace, the guardian, and Ethel, the maid, never knowing there was another person in the house.

Wexler began to think that helping Reginald see was the best thing he could do in the world. He wanted Reginald to see everything he himself had seen all over the world. Unforgettable things like an octopus, a tall mountain, a full moon, a tropical rain forest, a desert, a waterfall, a polar ice cap. The list goes on and on.

He knew a doctor, a man named Gottschalk, currently living in New York. Dr. Gottschalk was a ghoul, hundreds of years old. He wasn’t really alive but was kept alive by artificial means. Wexler had met him socially on several occasions and had sat in on some of his lectures at the University of Vienna.

Wexler flew to New York and called Dr. Gottschalk and made an appointment to see him later in the day. Dr. Gottschalk remembered Wexler fondly.

Dr. Gottschalk hadn’t changed a bit. He was still frightening-looking with his white skin, long face and big teeth, but he was receptive and, as always, willing to help.

“Reginald is my best friend,” Wexler said to Dr. Gottschalk. “He’s alive, not a spirit like me. The problem is he can’t see. He was born that way. I want him to see all the wonders in the world that I’ve seen. I want to show him these things, as a friend.”

“I think I have just the thing,” Dr. Gottschalk said.

He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a little bottle and handed it to Wexler.

“This should do the trick,” he said.

“What is it?” Wexler asked.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”

“Okay.”

“Mix this in with a glass of water and have your little friend drink it before bedtime. Right before.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“In the morning, there’ll be a drastic change for the better.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s never failed yet.”

Wexler tried to pay Dr. Gottschalk, but he wouldn’t accept any payment.

“I already have all the money in the world,” Dr. Gottschalk said. “I like helping my friends!”

“I can’t thank you enough!” Wexler said.

Wexler held onto the bottle for a few days. He didn’t want to administer it before the time was right. He waited until late Friday night. It was snowing out.

He waited until Reginald was snugly in bed. “I have something for you,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It’s something that will make you see.”

“What is it?”

“I have a doctor friend. His name is Dr. Gottschalk. He’s a ghoul, but that doesn’t matter.”

“A ghoul? I like it already!”

“It’s a little bottle of liquid. I’ll mix it in some water and then you’ll drink it.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“It’ll make you see everything, but there’s just one bad thing.”

“What could be bad about seeing everything?”

“Your life as Reginald will end.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’ll die and you’ll be a spirit like me.”

“Oh.”

“No more guardians and no more school for the blind.”

“Will you stay with me? I mean, while I die?”

“Sure, I will.”

“Will it hurt?”

“I don’t think so, but if it does, it will only be for a minute.”

Wexler gave Reginald the chance to postpone the drinking of the liquid for a few days—or indefinitely—but Reginald wanted to go ahead with it. More than anything in the world, he wanted to see with his own eyes.

Wexler went into the bathroom and drew a glass of cold water from the faucet. He set the glass on the sink and watched as he poured the bottle of amber liquid into the water. Then he held it up to his eyes to get a better look at it.

When he took the bottle back into the bedroom, Reginald had propped himself up in bed and was ready to drink. When he took the glass from Wexler, his hands were steady and in his eyes were tears of unalloyed joy.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997