Illustration by Andy Paciorek
HONORABLE MENTION, SPRING 2022
THE GHOST STORY SUPERNATURAL FICTION AWARD
BY BRADFORD GYORI
Off come one tail, then another, then another. Each time the blade swiped, a different pup give off the most terrific squeal. I watched Gramps dock all six pups on the big oak cutting board. The cut-off tails wound up in a little white bowl and the pups wound up back in the basket with their mama, Duchess Sonja, so’s she could lick the bloody stumps sticking from their little spotted rumps.
When Gramps was done, he emptied the bowl into the trash but later, when he weren’t looking, I fished them tails back out. Figured they was good luck probably and powerful too since they was the wildest part of the pups, the part that had to get cut off so’s they could get domesticated. I liked everything wild, though I would not dare say so in front of Gramps. Gramps hated wild stuff. He said his job was protecting me from all the wildness in the world. Mostly, this meant keeping the tree-lurkers clear of our little cabin. Our cabin was like a fort built into the side of a hill, so’s the back wall was only earth and stone. There weren’t too many windows neither. Gramps liked it that way since even the dim light of the forest hurt his eyes which was all old and squinty.
We lived in the deepest part of the deep forest where the canopy was so big and so wide it was like to go on forever. Gramps told it this way: the canopy was there to keep us safe. There was just one problem—them terrible tree-lurkers. They was the ones Gramps feared most of all. Creepy little critters they was, making the canopy their home. If you listened real close, you could hear them moving round up there. These tree-lurkers was always on the lookout for kids to snatch up into the high branches and eat. Mostly they et twigs and berries but Gramps said there weren’t nothing they liked more than a tasty little boychild to gobble up. That’s how come I had to be extra careful.
The canopy weren’t all bad though. Gramps said it kept out the worst kinda danger, which was the endless blue of the Blue Impossible. This Blue Impossible was real bad since it could wreck your brain and turn you into a sky-dweller. This is how Gramps told it: he said, “This Blue Impossible is so blue and so impossible can’t no one manage to make no kinda sense of it. Them who tries goes bonkers straight away.”
This was how come Gramps never left the deepest part of the deep forest and why I was lucky to have him looking out for me, most especially after what happened to my folks when they strayed too far past the edge of the forest into the Great Wide Open where they got trapped inside that evil Blue Impossible which turned them into critters so strange and so wild, they couldn’t even recognize their own son no more. After they went bonkers and become sky dwellers, they didn’t want nothing to do with me no more. All they wanted was to dance around in the bright blue light all the time laughing like creepy ol’ devils which was what they had turned into. Gramps said he was protecting me from the Blue Impossible and the sky-dwellers and the tree-lurkers too. He said he would always do his best to make sure I was safe. Couldn’t no one nor nothing stop him from doing that. When Gramps spoke on this, he would get so mad sometimes his bushy eyebrows would catch fire and only my soft words could put out their flames. I would say things like, “Easy, Gramps, I know how much you do for me and I sure am grateful for all that.”
Usually, this would help to calm him down and put out his eyebrow-infernos which was good since even though he got so mad sometimes Gramps was the only family I had left and he had always looked after me and kept me safe which was how come I was so thankful and would do anything to make sure he was safe too. Living there in the deepest part of the deep forest it was just me and Gramps and no one else, so we had to look after each other and we did. That was how come we was a family.
But I was talking about Gramps cutting off them puppydog tails, so back to that. Here’s what I done after I snuck back and took the tails out of the trash:
Since I didn’t want Gramps to know I had them, I stitched together a little burlap pouch. I put them tails inside this pouch then tied it round my neck. Walking round with that pouch full up with the wildest part of the pups I felt wilder than ever and way more powerful.
When Gramps and I would go walking through the woods and we would hear a tree-lurker up in the canopy chattering, he would shoot his shotgun at them. Sometimes we would hear a kinda shriek which meant to tree-lurker had got hit. But most times we didn’t hear nothing.
When I went walking alone I didn’t let no sounds from the tree-lurkers bug me too much long as they didn’t get too loud or too close. But this one time after I started wearing the pouch with the puppydog tails in it I let myself get a bit too lost in the woods. That was when the tree-lurkers started getting louder and louder, so loud I started to get scared. I thought, What would Gramps do? So, I picked up a big rock and threw it high into the canopy. This just made the tree-lurkers screech even more furious-like.
That was when I took off running. I run and run, and run some more till all at once I burst through a big ol’ stand of trees and into this big space that was almost like a field. That was when something made me blink and wince and I noticed how—in one small spot—the canopy was broke apart over my head. There was light getting through this open spot and ‘fore I knew what was what this light was all around me like a big blue beam. It was the bluest blue ever, a blue the like of which I had never ever seen before. It shone and shone and pretty soon it got to looking so blue and so strange it really shoulda scared me bad, only it didn’t. No, sir! I weren’t scared one tiny bit. Was this part of its blue magic? Who could say? There was just one thing I knew and that was this: I knew for sure this blue light was bound to make me into some kinda monster. The thought of that had always seemed so terrible before but for some reason I didn’t feel all that worried once the light was on me.
Suddenly, I saw things different. Suddenly, I figured if the Blue Impossible turned me into a monster like my folks was, it might not be so bad cuz then I could say goodbye to Gramps and the little cabin in deepest part of the deep forest and could go live with my monster ma and my monster pop out in the Great Wide Open. The thought of this should have made me tremble with fear only I was too froze up with wonder and a funny kinda hope. Only one part of me was still moving. That burlap pouch round my neck, which was starting to wiggle-waggle the way them puppydog tails had kept doing in that little bowl right after they was docked. It was like this Blue Impossible was bringing them back to life!
I was none too thrilled about this discovery, so I screamed. Breaking free of the blue beam, I took off running. I run and run, faster than ever, and the tree-lurkers started screeching again, then howling, louder and louder. I felt the pouch round my neck shaking and quaking. I looked down and seen its seams busting apart. When this happened the tip of one of them docked puppydog tails started poking into view. I figured this little cut off tail was sure to fall out but then I seen it had got attached to another tail somehow. That second tail poked out and I seen it was attached to a third tail. In the places where the tails was stuck together there was these little pink seams but mostly the little tails was furry and spotted and just looked like parts of one long tail.
As I kept running this long tail kept spilling and slithering from out of my pouch like some fuzzy polka-dot snake. When it started to curl round my neck, I was afeared it might start trying to choke the life from me only ‘stead of doing that it just slithered over my shoulder and down my back clear to my rump. When it started poking at the seat of my trousers, I tried swatting it away. Weren’t no use. In a few seconds it had pushed into my trousers and attached itself to my tailbone. Once this happened the other end of the tail flung up high into the treetops, took hold of a big branch and pulled me off the ground! Then ‘fore I knew what was what, I weren’t running no more. I was swinging limb from limb high in the canopy with my new tail making me swoop even faster than the tree-lurkers who was struggling to keep up. I could see their glowing red eyes blinking at me all amazed-like. But mostly I was focused on the wind whooshing through my hair and the crazy rush of my body swooping through the trees. Never had I felt so happy and so free. But likewise, never had I felt so guilty on account of all them stories Gramps had told me about folks getting swallowed up by them tree-lurkers who et humans like we was snack-foods.
When I got back to the cabin, I didn’t tell Gramps nothing about my strange adventure. No way would he understand. Truth was I didn’t understand it too much myself. That’s how come I made sure to keep my new tail hid real good, wrapped round my waist beneath my loosest shirt.
Over dinner, Gramps asked where I’d been all afternoon. I said I’d been looking for Jupiter berries in the western woods which was true partly. Gramps warned that them woods could be dangerous, and I said how I had been extra careful and didn’t go too far from the cabin. It bugged me to tell this lie, but no way could I say what had really happened.
Gramps wanted to know why I hadn’t done my chores like tending the algae garden and the snail run. I apologized, said I must have just forgot and promised to do them things soon as we was through eating which—true to my word—I done right after the washing up.
Next morning things was mostly back to normal. Only trouble was I still had my crazy tail. Figured I best get shed of it but how? Decided to ask the Talking Lake. The Talking Lake was wise. She knew things about the future and the past. This time when I set out from the cabin, instead of swinging through the treetops like I done before, I went on foot. After hearing Gramps say how dangerous the western woods was I figured I needed to start acting more normal again or normal as I possibly could with this dumb tail dangling off of me.
Anyhow, as I knelt on the mossy bank next to the Talking Lake, I asked, “How come I got this stupid tail now?”
The Lake didn’t say nothing, just showed a blue light coming down to make my reflection glow much brighter and much bluer.
“Am I a monster?” I could not help but wonder.
My reflection was gone then and the Talking Lake showed me a thing that made me very sad. See, the Talking Lake didn’t really talk. Still, she had this way of answering all the same. She done this by showing things on her surface. The sad thing she was showing me now was two young people, a man and woman. I knew who they was right off. They was my folks. How did I know this since the last time I seen them I was just a little baby boy? Impossible to say. But that’s who they was alright. I was sure of it. And here’s the sad part: my folks was standing over a little crib looking down into it. Since this crib was facing them, I couldn’t see what they was seeing but from the looks on their two faces, I could tell it weren’t too good. Their face looked so scared I could tell whatever was in that crib musta been real hideous. After a time both of my folks run off screaming and screaming. So that was the answer to my question. Of course, I was a monster, always had been. That was how come this tail had seen fit to attach itself to me. That was the saddest part of all, how me being a monster weren’t nothing new, how I’d been born that way. That was how come my folks had left me all them years back. When they had looked into that crib and seen me lying there so hideous and horrifying it made them scream and run off. Lucky for me, Gramps had not done that. He musta seen I was a monster too but still he stuck around and took care of me making sure I was safe. Gramps had always told me my folks had lost their marbles after looking at the Blue Impossible. Now I knew it was way worse than that. It was seeing me in that crib had done it, for when they seen what an awful little freak their baby boy had turned out to be, they had lost their marbles bad. After that, Gramps had to raise me all by his lonesome.
As I was heading back from my visit to the Talking Lake, I started to feel so terrible sad. When I done this, I felt a big fat teardrop dripping down my cheek but not for too long cuz pretty soon I felt something soft and fury wiping that tear away. It was my long tail poking up and wrapping round my shoulders. Next it give me a big ol’ hug. I weren’t too sure what I should think of this. All I knew was how good it felt. That was when I realized the wild part of me couldn’t be all bad, not if this tail was being so kind and making me feel so much better.
Then I was swinging through the trees again and laughing and even singing a bit, an old song someone musta sung to me when I was still a baby, “I see the moon. The moon sees me.” Only I couldn’t see no moon. The canopy was way too thick for that. All I could see was leaves and branches and the glowing red eyes of the tree-lurkers who was getting whipped into a frenzy by all my swinging and singing, so they started giving off these loud chatters.
Gramps musta heard all this commotion coming toward the cabin cuz round about this time he started shouting and turning loose Duchess Sonja and her pups who was barking at the noises coming from the canopy. Then without no warning Gramps started firing his shotgun. That scared me bad. One of the branches near my head got blasted into bits. I stopped singing then but kept swinging and swinging to keep from getting myself shot. Gramps kept shooting and shooting his shotgun over and over. Pellets was blasting branches near to me making me duck and swerve. One of them pellets nicked my tail making it lose its grip on a branch it was just grabbing onto. When that happened I started falling head-first towards the ground. I fell and I fell bouncing off more branches trying to grab hold of them with my hands or my tail but it weren’t no use. I was falling too fast. Lucky for me I landed in some bushes. This kept me from breaking all my bones.
When Gramps seen something had come down from the canopy and landed in them bushes, he figured it must be a tree-lurker and he was fixing to finish it off which was how come he was pointing his shotgun right at the bushes when my head come popping out. When Gramps seen this his face went white as the chalk heaps on the western slope.
Three hours later he was still trembling and saying how he close he had come to killing me off and how scared this made him since I was the one and only person he had in this whole world. We was back in the cabin then and Gramps was sipping on his jug even more than most times, so much so he was in a real state and kept tripping over himself as his words kept coming out all mixed up and sloppy. I felt bad about this. I was still keeping my tail hid but I did confess to climbing in the canopy. Gramps got so mad when he heard this his eyebrows near burnt off but then he started crying so hard he put the eyebrows out himself. After that he made me promise I wouldn’t never do that no more. I said, okay, I wouldn’t. But Gramps didn’t seem too sure, so he made me swear on my eyes I wouldn’t never ever go up into that canopy again. This was the most powerful swear he could ask for. It meant if I lied to him, I would get struck blind. Once I made this swear Gramps looked less worried. He got real tired after that, even let me take away his jug and tuck him into the bed like he used to tucked me into bed when I was still a kid.
Before he went to sleep Gramps said how happy he was he hadn’t kilt me. I said I was happy about that too. Then he said how much I meant to him, too much probably since he knew how bad it felt to lose the one person you love most.
Gramps never talked about Grams, so I figured this was my chance to learn some more about her. So, I asked, what was it she had died from? Gramps made a face and said it had happened a whole long time back when he was much younger. Grams was a young person too then. She had been trying to birth their first baby boy only something had gone wrong. This baby wouldn’t come out and Grams was in terrible pain. The doctor tried and tried. After a time the baby did come out but only in little bits and pieces. There weren’t no way it could be saved. The doctor was just trying to save Grams then, but Grams had lost too much blood, so after a time she died too. As Gramps remembered this, he looked so very sad I didn’t want to ask no more about it pulling the blanket up to Gramps’s chin kissing his burnt eyebrows and letting him drift off to sleep finally.
The next day while Gramps was still sleeping, I went walking in the woods. As I done this I started thinking on the story Gramps had told me about Grams dying and her first baby dying too. That’s when it come to me: if that had been her first baby and she had died how had my mama ever got born? It didn’t make no kinda sense.
That was how come I went running back to the Talking Lake. I had so many questions, wanted to get there fast. Thought about swinging by my tail through the canopy but then remembered my promise to Gramps and decided I liked my eyes too much to risk that. So instead, I just run and run.
By the time I was standing at the edge of the Talking Lake again, I was all tired and outta breath. Still, I managed to ask a question. I asked, “If Grams died trying to birth her first baby, how was my mama born?”
The lake thought on this a bit then my reflection cleared away replaced by that same image I seen before, the one of them two young people who was my folks looking into that same crib all sad and scared. I didn’t understand how come the Talking Lake was showing them again since it didn’t have nothing to do with Grams. Mostly it just seemed mean like the Talking Lake was trying to shut me up by saying again what a monster I was and had always been. But then the view was changing, so after a time I wasn’t looking at my folks’ faces no more. ‘Stead of that I was looking over their shoulders and I was seeing what they was looking at and it weren’t no monster, or even no healthy baby boy; it weren’t nothing at all, just some empty crib. But how could that be? Then the image of the empty crib was gone and I seen something else reflected on the water. I seen Gramps, only this was a much younger Gramps, not so hunched over. This Gramps had thick dark hair and something else too, something wriggling in his arms, a little bundle, a baby! And this young dark-haired Gramps was looking left and right like he was ‘friad of getting saw then he was sneaking off into some deep dark shadows. When I seen this I finally understood. I knew then how come my folks had been so scared when they was looking into that crib. It weren’t cuz their little baby boy was some kinda monster; it was cuz their little baby boy was gone, stole away by some crazy person, stole away by Gramps!
As I was making my way back to the cabin I started remembering all kinda things Gramps had told me through the years, stuff that shoulda made me wonder how come him and me was all alone in the deep woods. I thought about him saying how we could never go back to the Great Wide Open. But if we’d been in the Great Wide Open before, shouldn’t we be bonkers from staring at the Blue Impossible? And maybe we was bonkers, cuz the harder I thunk on it, the less sense it was making.
I come to see things different then. Figured out what musta truly happened: how when Grams had died and their baby boy had died too, Gramps had been left all alone with nothing and no one. That’s how come he done it, took this little baby boy that weren’t his to take from some folks he didn’t even know, just took this poor kid and run off to hide in the deep woods. That was how come he never wanted me to go too far from the cabin.
Thinking on this I started wondering how much of all that other stuff Gramps had told me was a lie. Were the tree-lurkers really so bad? Was the deepest part of the deep forest the only safe place? And could the Blue Impossible really make you bonkers?
When I got back to the cabin, I packed up my satchel quick. Figured I mostly needed enough supplies so I could reach the edge of the forest. Trouble was I had no clue how far away that was. I must have been real shook up cuz as I was packing the pups starting yapping and yapping. This put Gramps on red alert. Soon he was standing in the cabin doorway asking what I was doing. I tried to run off without answering but Gramps pointed his shotgun at me and said I needed to shut up and sit down.
Soon I was all tied up and there was even a gag in my mouth. I couldn’t say nothing, nor hardly even move. Gramps was furious-mad. His eyebrows had never flamed so bright. When he leaned close to me and screamed, “HOW COULD YOU?!” Them eyebrows near burnt my own eyebrows clean off.
Then Gramps started telling me the truth about how he had took me from my folks and how he had a right to since so much had got took from him. He said I should have never tried to sneak away. That meant Gramps could not trust me no more. There was just one way he could make sure I would stay with him and not never leave. That was when he opened up the big cupboard, the one he always kept locked. When he done this a smell like rotting fruit and swamp water whooshed out filling up the room. Could not believe what I was seeing. What I was seeing was a woman or what used to be a woman with doll eyes and stitches all up and down her body. She was sitting in a wood chair and in her lap was a little stitched-together-baby wrapped in a blue blanket.
“This is Grams,” Gramps explained, “and that’s your big brother, Dash. You’re going to live with them now, right in this here cupboard.”
Hearing this and seeing what I was seeing I got so very scared. Couldn’t even push against the ropes holding me in place. Was just froze there. Then Gramps started moving closer waving round a big ol’ knife that I remembered from before when he was docking the tails off the pups.
I tried to get away then or at least cry out. Too bad them ropes and that gag was so tight. Weren’t no way I could do neither of them things. So, I just struggled and strained as the knife got closer and closer. Besides Gramps leaning in I seen one other thing slithering up behind him like a snake. Duchess Sonja and the pups seen it too. That was how come they started barking extra loud. Gramps didn’t seem to notice this since he was too focused on making sure I never left him which was how come the knife was pushed against my gullet. I was trying not to gulp which surely woulda made the blade slice in. I was starting to close my eyes bracing myself for the pain that was soon to take my life when suddenly I clued in to what the slithering thing behind Gramps was: my tail!
Soon as I figured this out the tail flew into action wrapping itself round Gramps’s head and neck and shoulders. It was so strong! It lifted him high into the air and held him hovering there kicking and screaming.
“MONSTER!” he shouted.
Maybe so, I thought, but leastways I’m the best kind.
Gramps wanted to dock my tail now. He slashed it bad with his knife and made it bleed sending a painful shiver throug my body but the tail weren’t done fighting yet. It smacked Gramps against the floor real hard, over and over, making the knife fly from his hand and knocking out what little sense he had left. When he stopped moving, Duchess Sonja and the pups began to quiet down. My bloody tail uncoiled itself from Gramps then snatched the knife from off the floor to cut me loose.
As I was leaving the cabin Duchess Sonja and the pups started barking again and nipping at my tail. This musta woke Gramps cuz he was back on his feet soon enough giving chase and firing his shotgun. Not sure what else to do I sent my tail high up into the canopy. Soon I was swinging and swinging through the treetops and Gramps was shooting his shotgun more and more. Only he kept missing and I kept getting farther and farther away. And the tree-lurkers was cheering me on and the barking of Duchess Sonja and the pups was getting quieter and quieter.
After a time I couldn’t hear no more barking nor no more shotgun blasts only the sound of wind through the trees. That was when I thunk, where am I headed? Then I knew where: to find my ma and pop! Then I was truly free, which made me feel so very happy, leastways till I remembered my promise to Gramps, how I had swore on my eyes I would not go back into the canopy but here I was swinging from branch to branch again. Would I get struck blind for doing this even though Gramps weren’t my real Gramps and he had lied to me plenty about all kinda things? Sure hoped not, since more than anything now I was dying to get myself two fat eyeballs full of that big bright Blue Impossible.
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Bradford Gyori is an American expat living in the UK. He is a Principal Academic in Digital Storytelling at Bournemouth University, UK and leads the MA in Creative Writing and Publishing. His short fiction has been published in No Parties Magazine, Café Irreal, The Museum Journal and Lighten Up. He has also worked as a writer-producer for such networks as MTV, VH1, E!, FX and HBO, and he was the head writer of the Emmy winning series Talk Soup. He has been nominated for five Emmys. His theatrical works have been presented by Steppenwolf Theatre, Phoenix Theatre and Bournemouth Emerging Arts Fringe. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Starecase Productions.