I wrote something! Well, I've been working on writing a lot of things, but here is something newly published:

http://www.kysoflash.com/Issue8/GesellRetribution.aspx

Here are the first 5 pages of a long (53 page) short story I've been working on the last few weeks. I've submitted it to an anthology of ghost stories, so cross your fingers for me that they might want it. It's dark, creepy (I hope as that's my intention at least), set in 1974:

The Volunteer

The St. Mary’s School for Troubled Girls looked exactly as it should. Creepy as fuck. It loomed through the trees as Hazel guided her 1964 Rambler along the gravel road to the school where she would be volunteering. She drove with the windows down and let her chopped brown hair whip around her face.

St. Mary’s School for Troubled Girls got bigger and darker when she turned onto the drive and stopped at the gate. Bushes cut like elephants and horses littered the lawn and the November sun suddenly disappeared behind blackened clouds enveloping the school. How stereotypical, Hazel thought. She reached out the window to buzz the bell to the gate, but it creaked open before she could touch the button. The gate was tall—over twelve feet, she figured—and attached to a brick wall, just as tall, covered with wire that hummed quietly. Electric.

Hazel parked in the lot in front of the school, threw her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed her suitcase from the backseat with her right hand, squeezed a red stress ball in her left hand, and walked to the door. It opened before she had a chance to knock.

She entered the building and set her suitcase down so that she could put her sunglasses on her head. An old woman with sunken cheeks shuffled out from behind the door and motioned to take Hazel’s bag. “No,” Hazel told her, certain the woman wouldn’t be able to carry the suitcase anyway, “I’ll keep it. Are you in charge? My parents sent me here to volunteer for a week.” They sent me here to “volunteer” so that I realize “how good life is,” she added in her brain. 

The woman said nothing, but raised her hand, pointing a bent and gnarled finger down the hall. Hazel’s eyes followed the finger. The entire room was dark wood, almost black. Lamps hung from the walls at intervals like streetlights, barely illuminating enough space to feel lit, let alone feel like a place where Troubled Girls could grow and prosper. Hazel had no idea where the old lady was pointing, other than down the hall, but Hazel picked her suitcase back up, rolled her shoulders back, and set off.

She didn’t have to go far before reaching a door with Headmistress Davis on a plaque outside. Hazel raised her hand to knock, but the door opened before she could strike.  Again Hazel entered a room without seeing who held the door for her. Headmistress Davis stepped into view, offering her hand to Hazel. “You must be Miss Pickett.”

Hazel set her suitcase down and took the headmistress’s hand, wanting to gag at immediate touch. The hand was huge—meaty and cold and totally unfitting the average-looking woman in front of her. A flutter of warm air danced on the back of her neck and Hazel reexamined the woman in front of her.

“You may call me Headmistress Davis,” Davis said and, though she still stood only as tall as Hazel—five foot five—and was no wider than thirty seconds ago, the headmistress seemed to take up the entire room.

Hazel shivered before she could stop the spasm running up her spine. It felt like someone was breathing on her. She resisted the urge to rub her neck and, instead, crushed the stress ball with her left hand and held the headmistress’s gaze.

“You will be staying in the quarters with the high school aged girls. They’re your age chronologically, but most of them will not act it.” Headmistress Davis dropped Hazel’s hand and moved forward. Hazel backed out of the way and the headmistress exited the office still talking. “St. Mary’s has a long history of housing girls. We pride ourselves at giving these girls a decent home in Christian charity where some will learn skills to be functional in the real world. Others our best hope is to give them a place to stay and not be a burden on their parents until the state assumes responsibility for them either in jail or an asylum for adults. We do not practice any physical instruments of change like you might hear of in horror stories, but we do believe in firm discipline and structure.” The headmistress kept two steps ahead of Hazel. Even when Hazel tried to speed up and walk side by side with the woman, the pace was unreachable, like the hallway carpet was pulling the headmistress along and working against Hazel in the opposite direction. A slight pressure built in her chest. She tensed and released her grip on the stress ball and tried to keep her breath steady.

She followed the headmistress up a flight of narrow stairs. The dark wood closed in even closer than in the hall. Where were all of the girls, Hazel wondered. It was Sunday. Surely the girls weren’t in classes on the weekend too at this school? Shouldn’t there be shrill voices and laughing and, well, human noise? Even deep in the belly of the old house she could hear the wind groan outside. The pressure from her chest moved to her stomach and she felt seasick, like the stairs shifted beneath her feet and she tripped, reaching for a handrail, finding none, and landing with her palms and shins banging against the steps.

“Whoa, there.” Headmistress Davis reached to help Hazel, but the girl recoiled at the thought of the woman’s touch.

“I’m fine,” Hazel said.

“Should’ve grabbed the handrail.” The headmistress looked down her long nose at Hazel then turned and continued up the stairs.

Hazel, again, felt that warm breath across the back of her neck. There was a fucking handrail? She crawled back to stand, forced herself to swallow and push down any panic or annoyance that bubbled up from her stomach, and followed the headmistress.

Davis led her to the highest part of the house. The stairs stayed still and the handrail followed them all the way up to the attic.

“This is the biggest room in the house. Since most of our girls are high school aged, they take this room as their living quarters. You’ll stay here with them.” The headmistress opened the door and the chit chatter that spilled out sounded foreign, after only hearing the wind beat the house, even though Hazel had been listening for the sounds of girls earlier. The prater didn’t last long. As soon as the headmistress’s shadow fell past the doorframe, the girls hushed.

Hazel tipped her chin up to see over Davis’s shoulder. The room reminded her of the twisted version of the Madeline books her nanny, Rhonda, used to read her at bedtime. Rows of cots to tuck girls in at night, but the girls scattered around the room were not cute little French schoolgirls wearing yellow hats and dresses. No. These were Troubled Girls.

Two of the dozen or so girls were, clearly, very pregnant. Several of the girls looked to be showing varying degrees of mental retardation and were mixed about the room reading, playing with dolls, doing puzzles, or sitting alone. Nearest the door, there were two girls, one with sunken eyes and yellow skin and one with a long scar down her right cheek, that looked alert and took a long survey of Hazel when the Headmistress step to the side, exposing Hazel to the room. 

“Ladies,” Headmistress Davis said. “This is Miss Pickett. She is going to be volunteering with us for the next week. She’ll be staying with you. She’ll be here to help you with your studies or any of your needs. As with anyone whom you encounter, treat her as you would like to be treated and, when appropriate, share with her God’s goodness.”

The entire room of eyes took in Hazel’s person. Hazel didn’t smile. She didn’t raise a hand to wave or nod. She picked up her suitcase and took two steps into the room. Headmistress Davis slipped behind Hazel and out of the room closing the door behind her.

There was a beat of silence during which, in her mind, Hazel heard the Headmistress say volunteer again. Sarcastically. Like she thought Hazel was like these girls and belonged here longer than a week. Like Hazel was a Troubled Girl.

The two girls near the door turned back to their conversation. Some of the others went back to their playing. One of the retarded girls walked, with a limp, up to Hazel and stood in front of her. The girl wore denim overalls that were too short. Her hair hung in greasy pigtails and one side of her upper lip seemed stuck curled, exposing a snaggletooth. Her hands were ridged claws at her chest. The girl stared at Hazel.

“Hey,” Hazel said.

The girl shrieked and snorted and put one of her knotted hands over her mouth.

“Jesus, Julie. Get out of her face.” One of the girls near the door, the one with the scar, walked toward Hazel. She rubbed her forearms as she gave Hazel a slow once over.

Hazel took the girl in as well. Scars zig-zagged across the girl’s forearms like she’d stuck them through a barbed wire fence over and over, but Hazel assumed that wasn’t true. Hazel had tried pills. Rhonda found Hazel and gagged her while they waited for the ambulance. Hazel wondered if a razor would’ve worked faster.