Strange Dominions: a collection of paranormal short stories (short story books) Read Free Page B

rivulet of blood tricked down from the collapsed vein where the needle had been inserted, and suddenly she remembered the terrible choice she had made.
    She sank to her knees and wept.
    Looking up through the skylight she begged,  “Please forgive me! I just want to go home now!”
    A sudden burst of radiant light cut through the darkness, warming her face. It was intensely bright yet did not hurt her eyes. An overwhelming feeling of love reached out to her from within, calling her, bidding her to follow. Then slowly she began to ascend.
    Jamie looked on at the delicate, golden lit form as it rose into the heavens, to be lost amid the pyrotechnic display.
    As he made his way along the cinder track a familiar voice whispered out to him, “Thank you, James.”
    He smiled. Pulling up his collar against the cold he whispered, “Happy New Year, Little Ears.”

Birds of Passage
 
     
     
    The Cormorant was an enduring mystery to the folk of Stanelaw, in northeast England. For more than twenty years the derelict fishing trawler had sat on common ground, miles from the nearest port or harbour or, for that matter, the sea. Time and neglect had taken their toll on the ageing craft, its sun bleached timbers and buttressed hull starkly contrasting the lushness of its surroundings.
    Its keeper, ‘Mad Pedi’, was also something of a mystery to the village children and the subject of much speculation as to whether it was she who was seen roaming its deck in the dead of night or some frightening phantom laying in wait for those foolhardy enough to enter its domain. Whatever the truth, none dared visit the site after sunset.
    But Tommy Brice, unlike his young peers, was not so intimidated by the old woman. His most recent run-in with her had resulted in a serious loss of face for the fourteen-year-old, making him more determined to circumvent her ongoing vigil. To that end, he had come up with an audacious plan.
    An impenetrable fog had rendered his torchlight almost ineffectual as he stumbled through the early morning brume with his classmate Sarah Elliot and his new-found friend, Robbie Lewis, in tow.
    Sarah, who had been happy enough to go along with his scheme, was now entertaining serious misgivings. That she had snuck from her bed at such an ungodly hour and had risked the wrath of her parents was bad enough, but now it appeared they had bypassed the boat altogether and were hopelessly lost in a peasouper.
    Robbie pulled up short, his cry echoing through the early morning stillness as out of the grey shroud the forbidding sight of the boat’s mouldering hull loomed suddenly into view. Perched against it was the self-same ladder ‘Mad Pedi’ had confiscated from Tommy and Sarah the previous day. It seemed that the crude grappling iron Tommy had so painstakingly fashioned was no longer required.
    Sarah was nonplussed, “How’d that get there?”
    “Who cares?” Tommy replied, tossing aside the iron and beginning his eager ascent.
    Robbie hesitated. The ladder’s appearance had unsettled him almost as much as when he had first clapped eyes on the wreck, moments earlier. An unreasonable fear gripped him. He wanted to turn and run. But what horrors, if any, could possibly await him here that he had not already seen elsewhere.
    The hurricane lamp Sarah had stolen from her father’s shed sputtered into life illuminating the musty interior of the wheelhouse. Even by torchlight its denudation had already been made apparent. Only the wooden helm remained, overlaid by the same thick matting of dust and cobwebs that were prevalent throughout. Long since disconnected from the rudder, it spun freely beneath Tommy’s eager hands and whatever thoughts of exploration they had entertained were quickly overtaken by the free range of their imaginations.
    Their self-appointed leader took to his role as the infamous pirate, Blackbeard, with gusto and he was snarling orders to his motley crew of cutthroats when a distant, mournful drone