Stories 4 You: #guestauthor #thriller #suspense

Today our guest author, Alice Marks, tells a story

Watch Where You Step

Today I had to walk to school by myself because my bestie, Janie Lizeth was sick. Every day we are careful not to step on a ***** in the sidewalk as we chant, “Step on a ***** and you’ll break your Mother’s back.”

By now you probably have supplied the missing word because everyone knows that this is a jingle and the word rhymes with back but today it’s been used for something considered a trigger word by the algorhytm. If you still aren’t sure what is stepped on, according to my uncle’s thesaurus it is a “fracture”, a “rupture” or a “fissure”, all meaning separations in the sidewalk. I guess I’ll use the synonym “fissure” and you will know I mean the word that rhymes with back.

To continue my story: Today I was preoccupied with Who will I sit with at lunch with Janie sick at home? And I stepped on a fissure in the sidewalk. I panicked. Oh, my poor mom. Then I grinned and said out loud, “That is just a silly superstition.”

I heard a siren. A firetruck sped by. To my horror, it stopped in front of my house. I turned back to the direction it was headed. As I reached home, I saw EMTs carrying Mom on a stretcher. My mind twisted, What if it isn’t a superstition?

“Mom, Mom!” I cried, running to the stretcher.

One of the EMTs pushed me away.

Though in my heart I knew what happened, I asked, “What’s wrong with my mom?”

“Broken back,” he muttered.

I hadn’t noticed the police car that had pulled up behind the firetruck. When the officer jumped out of the car and spotted me, he yelled, ”Is that your mom?”

All I could manage was a whispered, “Yes.”

“Thought so. Another kid stepped on a fissure and here’s her suffering mom.”

He grabbed me by the arm and said, “Are you going to own up to being careless, or did you do it on porpoise?”, and he laughed at his own stupid joke. “No, I guess you wanted to get even with your mom because of some stupid thing like she wouldn’t let you go to that monster movie at the Palladium.”

“No, no! I love my mom. It wasn’t on purpose.”

“Hard to believe that. I haven’t had a case like this in ages, but I can tell. You are under arrest, you little back-breaking liar!”

An ambulance pulled up, and the EMTs put my mom in it.

“Mom, Mom,’” I screamed but she couldn’t hear me because the ambulance left with its siren screaming.

The police officer threw me into the back of his car. I planned to jump out and run but immediately discovered there really were no door handles in the backseat, just like I had seen on TV. I sobbed loudly.

“Shad up back there. Wait until I throw you into a cell to bawl your head off, you

backbreaking brat.”

I wept more as we reached the police station. The officer yanked me out of the backseat and dragged me across a cement floor covered in fissures. Instinctively I hopped over the fissures.

“Too late, Missy!” laughed that awful police officer. “But you are a pretty good fissure jumper which proves to me that you deliberately stepped on a fissure to injure your mother in a serious way.”

As I cried, he sneered at me and threatened me with words, “I’ll be certain to tell the judge that, you cruel little back-breaker.”

The mean police officer handed me to a stern-faced woman who threw me into a dark little room, smaller than my closet, with bars across the front. There was no bathroom just a smelly pot on the floor. The only other thing was a little bed with a gray blanket. I curled up on the bed, which I guess people call a cot, and covered up with the gray scratchy blanket. I closed my eyes and pretended I was the one sick on a school day, cozy in my Barbie themed bedroom in my canopied bed. My mom – tears cascaded down my cheeks when I thought of her – would bring me tea and toast and later lavender colored Jell-O.

Instead, the cruel woman brought me a metal bowl with something that looked like the food we feed our dog, Ralph, but smelled worse. I asked her if I could call my mom. “Absolutely not! Do you think she wants to hear from her back-breaking kid? Besides she probably isn’t out of surgery. You know, she may never walk again.”

I crawled back into bed and cried until I ran out of tears.

The next day I asked the woman, who I had learned was named Matron, if I could call my mom.

Matron said, “Same answer, no!” and then she added with a wicked grin, “Do you know what today Is?”

My lips quivered as I tried to think what day it could be. Finally, I said, “Another day In jail?”

“Smarty Pants! It’s Friday the Thirteenth. That’s beware day, be careful what you do and say day. It’s the scariest day of the year day.”

Standing as tall as I could, which missed five feet by a couple of inches, I spoke in my bravest voice, that came out as a squeak, “Friday the Thirteenth is just a silly superstition.”

Matron cackled, “You, dearie, are wrong! You are going to suffer just like your mom.”

A huge fissure appeared on the cell floor. Matron had stepped out of the way, but I fell right through the fissure. I grabbed onto the sides and pulled myself out, but Matron gave me a push and I fell and fell and fell…

I must have hit my head when I landed at the bottom of the hole because I felt a bump on my head when I woke up. Everything was foggy. It lifted a little and I saw an ugly troll standing right in front of me. He looked just like the Boogie Man I used to think every night was in my closet and sometimes under my bed. I had outgrown that, I thought, but there he was with his fat lips, flat nose, flaps for ears, and over-sized feet wearing my bedroom slippers. I couldn’t help myself, I screamed.

That horrid creature laughed and in his spooky voice said, “So you decided after you were old enough to go to school that I wasn’t real! Fooled ya! Here I am.” He patted my aching head with his lumpy hand as I yelled, “Don’t you dare touch me!’

He laughed his evil laugh and said, “Welcome Scaredy Cat Susie Brat, to The Land Where All Superstitions Come True.”

“I don’t believe you! I know you’re not real.’“ I yelled as I took off running down the road.

He shouted behind me, “Of course, I’m real, and you better believe it. Everything here is real You’ll find out.”

I had to slow down because it was so dark. I’m not afraid of the dark but I don’t like it. Are those bats I hear flapping above? Oh, those things give me the Wilies. Once one came down Grandma’s chimney, so I know how they sound. Also, I heard moaning. It has to be ghosts and in a flash of lightning, I could see both the bats and ghosts flying right above my aching head. Thunder boomed, there were screams. I hate thunderstorms but here there wasn’t any rain and the lightning did let me see a little.

One of the moaning ghosts swooped down and grabbed my shoes and socks. Now barefoot I felt worms squishing under my feet. I gagged and turned back to find the hole. Somehow I would crawl back up to my cell. At least there weren’t any worms on the floor. I searched and searched but it was too dark.

The lightning flashed, and a black cat crossed in front of me. I love cats and I called, “Kitty, kitty, come here. There’s a superstition that black cats are bad luck but I don’t believe that. I adore black cats most of all. Come back, kitty.”

The cat stopped in its tracks and came to me. I tried to pet him. He yowled, “You better believe I’m bad luck!” He jumped at me, scratched me on the face, and ran off howling, “Bad luck, bad luck!”

I didn’t know where I was in this noisy, dark underground place but I discovered I had walked right under a ladder. Three huge black spiders with bulging green eyes and disgusting hairy legs sat on the top of the ladder singing “Bad luck, bad luck to walk under a ladder” over and over again.

That is a silly superstition.” I added, without conviction. “I ’m not scared of ladders or spiders.” At least I’m not afraid of the little ones in our basement, but these are really big and scary-looking and probably poisonous. I want to get away from them as fast as possible. I followed the path where the cat had gone. My bare feet hurt, but there was nothing I could do about that. The cat jumped out of some bushes and crossed the path, knocking me over. I skinned my knees as he hissed, “Bad luck! Bad luck!”

The fog was gone and I saw the road was covered with fissures. I must be more careful. My mom is in enough pain. Why can’t this be a yellow brick road I’m following?

I turned around and jumped down the path. I avoided the ladder, but now spiders occupied every rung still singing, “Bad luck, bad luck!” but they had added another chorus, “Friday the Thirteenth! Friday the Thirteenth! Watch out, girlie!”

Hurrying past them, I saw the black cat reappear and cross my path. I jumped over him and he rolled over on his back, grabbed my leg, and bit and scratched it. I pleaded, “Please black cat. I ‘specially love, love, love black cats. Please be nice, Blacky.

My leg and face were bleeding and my feet hurt something awful. I kept jumping down the path. I spied a penny. It was heads up and I bent down to pick it up, because I knew “Find a penny, pick it up, Heads up, all day you’ll have good luck.” If anyone needed good luck, I did. I put it in my pocket.

Out of nowhere appeared someone who looked just like Mrs. Willus, my math teacher. I know math isn’t my best subject but part of it is Mrs. Willus is a terrible teacher. Even the parents think so. She screams at us and she looks hideous with long white hair with a blueish tint and a long nose and a wart on her chin. Of course, we call her Mrs. Witch-us behind her back. But what if she is here to help me? I will never say the mean things about her again.

Instead this person who looked just like Ms. Witch-us grabbed my arm and yelled in my face. “Well, if it isn’t Susie Carroll from Brandt Middle School! I bet you didn’t do your math homework last night and now you show what a stingy brat you are for picking up that penny. What if it was heads down, would you pick it up?”

“No, of course not!”

“Don’t you know you are supposed to leave it where you found it when it’s head’s up so someone else has the happy experience of finding it and having good luck, too?

I didn’t know that. Obedient, I put the penny down, heads up. Mrs. Witch-us, I mean Will-us cackled and said, “it’s too late now. You won’t gain any good luck from that penny.” She vanished and I saw the path twinkled with hundreds of shiny pennies, some heads up, some heads down. What if Mrs. Witch-us is right about leaving them to bring someone else luck in this terrible place. Am I supposed to turn the heads down up? I decided to ignore all the pennies. Anyone who is stuck here needs all the luck they can get but I’m afraid to touch those tails up. Besides I’d step on more fissures while doing that and there are more and more fissures on the path. It is impossible to jump over all of them.

Defeated, I quit hopping and ignore the pennies, the few bright things in this dark spooky world in which I find myself. There are just too many fissures. I hope my mom ’s back isn’t getting worse with every fissure I step on.

At a distance I saw someone I know, somebody Janie and I don’t like, Amy Sara Kline. Amy Sara-the-beautiful. Amy Sara is a blonde and goes to a hairdresser every week just like a grown-up. She never has had a bad hair day and she never gets zits. She also has a figure that makes boys give her looks while both Janie and I have zits, stringy hair and flat fronts. Amy Sara also is a snob, who never would ask us to eat at her table at lunch.

Why was she here? What if she stepped on a fissure? At least we’d have something in common - remorse with both of our moms in the hospital. I couldn’t help myself, I strolled up to her and said, “Hi, Amy Sara, Why are you here? Did you step on a fissure or something?”

“Of course, not, Moron! I am here to torment you.”

“Ha! Nothing you say can hurt me. I have something you don’t.”

“Impossible! You have nothing.”

“You are wrong! I have a true-blue best friend. You have friends who eat with you because you are rich and may take one of them to a movie or roller skating. Everyone seems to like you until they wise-up and then they don’t.”

I could tell I had made Amy Sara mad because her face started getting red, but she said, “Oh, my, your bestie, Janie! She is bigger loser than you. She already found a new bestie while you’re serving time in the Superstition Underground.”

“Liar,” I shouted as I ran away from her, but she caught up and handed me a mirror from her genuine leather clutch purse.

“Look in the mirror,” she commanded.

I obeyed as she sneered at me. Look at those zits? Don’t you use some sort of acne preparation on them? And your hair. Do you brush it 100 strokes each night? And no wonder the boys call you ‘flatsy’. Haven’t you heard of stuffing Kleenex in your bra? And what about First Aid for scratches? Don’t you know you could die if they get infected? Look in this mirror and you will see the meaning of hopeless!” And she laughed and laughed.

The hand mirror turned into a full-length mirror and we both stood looking in it. Amy Sara was more beautiful than ever while I looked horrible, especially since I hadn’t combed my hair since I wound up in jail, I have a bump on my head, severe zits and the bleeding scratches from that miserable black cat, not to mention filthy feet.

Something made me reach out to the mirror, and when I touched it, it broke into 100s of pieces.

“You, idiot, you broke my mirror! Don’t you know you have brought seven years of bad luck on yourself and since it is Friday the Thirteen, it is seven times seven, meaning your whole life you will have bad luck.”

Tears formed in my eyes but I decided to stand up to Amy Sara’s bullying. “Sorry I broke your mirror, but I don’t believe in superstitions. (That was a lie but I had to say something). My dad will buy you a new mirror when we leave here.”

“You think you are going to leave from The Land Where Superstitions Always Come True’? I will stay until I’m tired of harassing you. You are such a loser and so is your friend Janie, who is so stupid she pretends she is your friend, but I know I something you don’t. In fact I know a lot you don’t. For example, “Do you know what friggatriskaidekaphobia means?”

“No, I don’t because you made it up!”

“You always think you are so smart and I overheard you call me a ‘dumb blonde’, but, you don’t know what it means and I do. You should know the meaning in this underworld so out of the sweetness of my heart, I will inform you it means someone afraid of Friday the Thirteenth and you sure as heck should know this in the land where every superstition comes true.”

Turning around so she wouldn’t see I my tears, I yelled, “I don’t believe you! Go back to the hole you climbed out of.” I continued walking, flinching as I stepped on a fissure. The black cat, hissing, blocked my pathway I shouted, “Bad luck creature, where are you going to bite me now? The cat stared at me and acted all innocent. I deliberately stomped on its tail. It left howling.

Instantly I was sorry I hurt the cat. I’m a good girl who doesn’t ever hurt animals. I think I did it because I was so mad about what Amy Sara said about Janie dropping me when she finds out what I did. I know she would be loyal to me and take my side. I was thinking about this when I looked up and saw three vampires blocking the road.

They weren’t wearing vampire black but pastel sweaters and navy pants likes my great-aunts always did when they were alive. I loved them and was sad when they died, one after another. I missed them, but now they were here, with dead-looking eyes ,long scary teeth instead of their regular false teeth. “We’ve come to suck your blood,” they chanted. More like “lick it” went through my mind because they look so old and weak.

As if she suddenly recognized me. Great-Aunt Pearl, said, “I thought she was such a sweet little thing, but it’s horrible to think that in middle school she broke our dear niece Patty’s back. She must be punished.” She squinted, “Has anyone seen my glasses? “ Great-Aunt Violet said, “What?” Great-Aunt Susan, the one I was named after, said, “I don’t remember her at all.” That broke my heart and didn’t help my situation.

I suddenly remembered a horror movie about vampires that Janie and I watched at a sleep-over at her house. We learned a vampire can be scared away with a rabbit’s foot. Darn! I left my lucky rabbit foot at home. I looked around and saw a rabbit nibbling on clover in the woods to my right. I crept over to it, and though I hated to do it, I tugged off its left hind leg. The rabbit didn’t even pause eating as his leg grew back. I returned to shake the gross bloody leg at my vampire aunties and they disappeared.

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I had the power to turn bad luck into good.

Even though I had a rabbit’s foot, I knocked on the wood of the tree. After a grove of these trees, I saw a meadow. It was filled with four-leafed clovers and I grabbed a handful. Across the meadow I saw a gang of kids playing tug-a-war. I wish I hadn’t walked closer because I saw these weren’t regular kids. They were kid-sizes skeletons. This was the scariest thing I had seen down in this totally scary place. I had to get out of here.

As I ran back across the meadow I began to itch all over. All the clover I was wading through had turned into poison ivy. I emptied my fist only I accidentally threw the rabbit’s foot away I wasn’t about to crawl through the ivy to find it. I also tossed away the four-leaf clover in my other hand. Now I had no good luck charms. I crossed he finger of one hand. I knew it was bad luck to cross fingers on both hands.

As my poor body burned with rash, i saw a big clean and dry wishbone that probably came from a large turkey. When my brother and I wished on such a bone, I always won because I was bigger and stronger than he is.

I had no problem of making a wish, “Let me out of this place” but as soon as I said that I thought I should have wished for complete recovery for my mom. I picked up the wishbone and a huge, hairy hand grabbed the other side. We pulled and pulled, and I realized how my little brother must feel when he always lost. I looked up. The winner was a huge gorilla with a silly grin. I imagined him breaking me like the wishbone, but he just chomped on the wishbone. I noticed that his home opposite the meadow was like a jungle in Africa. I saw a tiger, that could eat me, and a leopard that could help the tiger eat me, an elephant that could stomp me, some long-eared jackals that would grab me before the lion and tiger had a chance but what scared me as much as those skeleton kids were giant snakes coiled around trees and sticking out their nasty tongues, Suddenly a wild dog with vicious teeth chased me to a green-colored river. The color of the water bothered me but I didn’t have any choice. I hoped I could swim better than the dog as I jumped into the water. The dog didn’t follow. I saw why. The lake was filled with crocodiles, all smiling at me. Those teeth made me glad that I am a good swimmer, and apparently the crocs already had eaten lunch because they didn’t follow me to the other side of the river. I scrambled out and found whatever makes the river green cured my itching.

This time I found myself in a beautiful rural area where there were all kinds of gentle animals, cows and sheep grazing, chickens in pens clucking happily, and adorable baby goats jumping for joy. All kinds of delicious fruits ripened on trees. I was starved but didn’t touch a single fruit. With my luck a bite would be deadly.

I was hungry and thirsty and I begin to walk down a dirt road that has no fissures. It was lined with wildflowers of all colors, which lead to the prettiest little brown cottage. It looked like it was made of regular wood, not gingerbread, so I walked closer. It had a blue roof and blue shutters. I opened a wooden gate attached to a stone fence. The stones surrounded a garden of beautiful flowers, birdhouses in trees and a birdbath. There was a porch swing inviting me to sit down while birds chirped and flew around me and butterflies touched my cheeks.

One window was open with a delicious-smelling pie cooling on the windowsill. The sweet sound of a flute came out a high window under the peak of the roof. I noticed a mat at the door that said WELCOME. Close to the door was a mailbox with the house numbers. I wished I was better at math. There were three identical numbers, and I wondered what if the combination of identical numbers was lucky or unlucky. The numbers were 666.