Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: SKELETON IN THE CLOSET (11/30/17)
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TITLE: A Bone to Pick | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
12/05/17 -
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I huddled with her in the corner of the musty nook as the zipper-thin loner slunk past the candelabra and hesitated at the punch bowl. His head rotated slowly to the left and the dark sockets of his eyes fixated in our direction. His shoulders straightened and his hand froze half-way to the ladle.
“Don’t mind him,” Esmerelda urged. “Been this way since that haunted house twenty years ago. Scared him so bad he doesn’t trust a soul since, especially me.”
Fear threatened to tear my eyeballs right out from the lids that were stretched wide open. One step from that specter in our direction and the Undertaker would be hauling me off for the next coffin parade.
“What did you do to him?” I gurgled, trying hard to breathe.
“Pshaah,” spat Esmerelda, “Just told him the truth about his family, is all.”
‘Shakin’ Joe’ shook his head back and forth like a pendulum and then focused on the punch bowl. He dipped the cup into the brew and chugged it down in one fluid motion.
“What did you tell him about his family?”
“Just secrets is all.”
“Secrets?”
“Dark secrets.”
“Dark enough to keep him scared for twenty years?”
“Yup.”
“What kind of secrets would scare a man for twenty years?”
“His pa was a serial killer.”
“Is that true?”
“Sure is. Kidnapped ‘Shakin’ Joe’s’ mother and butchered her clan.”
“All of them?”
“Shhhh! He’s listening.”
‘Shakin’ Joe’ shadow-stepped his way toward our table. His gaze seemed fixated on the candle flickering at the center. Six feet away he stopped and pivoted in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin. Just when my heart and lungs quit working he shook himself and moon-walked back to the punch bowl where a white-gowned senior hobbled into his arms.
“That’s his mother,” Esmerelda confided. “The old man used to keep chains on their door so she couldn’t get out. Joe was only three when she threw a chair through the window and jumped out from the second floor.”
“She jumped out from the second floor with a baby?”
“Yup.”
“What happened?”
“Broke her arm and leg, but she took up that baby and crawled away. A neighbor took them to the hospital. The neighbor was never seen again.”
“Go on, you’re making this up.”
“A doctor and a nurse that looked after them also mysteriously disappeared.”
“Did they catch ‘Shakin’ Joe’s’ dad?”
“The police did their best to hide Joe and his mom. Two policemen disappeared after helping them get into witness protection. They caught him trying to scoop up his son in the middle of the night.”
“The poor boy must have been terrified.”
“Only half as much as he was when I met him on that Halloween night twenty years ago.”
“What happened then?”
“Three years after his arrest the dad escaped and I had to tell Joe and his mom. It was only a matter of time before the killer tracked them down.”
“Where is he now?”
“No one knows.”
“No wonder Joe is shaking.”
“He’d be shaking more if he knew the secret I know.”
“What else do you know?”
“I’m the secret keeper and it’s not a secret if I tell.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“To tell you your secret.”
“My secret?”
“Yours and yours alone.”
“What is it? I have nothing to hide. I’m an orphan, dirt-poor, won the lottery and married right - Got a son coming any day now.”
“That’s why I’m here to tell you your secret.”
“What could you possibly tell me and what does it have to do with ‘Shakin’ Joe’?”
“After Shakin’ Joe’s dad escaped he hid away and took up with another woman.”
“So?”
“So, that woman became your mother.”
“My mother died in a house fire.”
“That’s what they told you but it was really someone else. Your mother lived and has been looking for you.”
“You’re telling me that ‘Shakin’ Joe’s serial-killer dad is my dad?”
“Yup.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Are you ready to hear your secret?”
“I don’t believe it already, but what is it?”
“I’m your mother.”
“If you’re trying to scare me it’s not working.”
“Guard my grandson – that’s all I’m saying.”
“You better leave.”
“The past is forgotten and forgiven. It’s time for a fresh start with us.”
I ran and kept on running.
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Few can get away with the macabre, but you did here, quite cleverly. I liked the twist at the end. Well done.
Well done.
Blessings~