The Voices
Sample Stories & Poems

Warning

“Look! Look! It’s there,” the old woman said pointing her rag covered finger. “In the shadows. It’s waiting. It’s always watching.” Her mind seemed to venture someplace else as she chewed one of her uncovered fingernails. She had just jumped out onto the street while a well-to-do man was on his way home from work.
        The rich gentleman she was talking to looked over to where she had pointed. All he saw were some cardboard boxes sitting under a fire escape, and a rat scurring away from the light given off by the diner across the alley. The moon did cast strange shadows about, but he saw nothing that out of the ordinary. “Madam, there is nothing there to be scared of.,” he said with a very assertive tone.
        As she stepped back into reality a fire was in her eyes. “Oh, yes there is, mister. It’s waiting for the right moment to strike. When you think that thought you shouldn’t. You may be in a room full of people, bu it will be listening. When you think an unfaithful thought it will get you. As it got my sister. As it got Johnny.” She calmed a bit and looked back over to one of the cardboard boxes. “Poor Johnny.”
        The rich gentleman almost took this chance to walk away, but his pride stopped him. What kind of a gentle man would he be if he left a lady crying in the middle of the street. Even if the lady was nothing but an alley rat. “It will be alright,” he said as he attempted to give the woman a hug. One look at his new five hundred dollar suit stopped him. “It will get better.”
        Her bitter laugh caught him by surprise. “Yes, after they have had their fun and killed us all. It has to eat right? If there were no people it would have no food.” Her bright blue eyes focused on his face. “We must kill the human race. Then we will kill it. It can’t live on animals can it?”
        Her ramblings were going too far for him to take. He pulled out a large knife, which he kept to protect himself, from his pocket. She saw it and went still. She didn’t say a word, or move to stop him as he calmly slit her throat. Her eyes cursed him though, he would remember her eyes forever. The world was a better place without her now, he thought. And the Voices agreed.

Invaded

what was will be a dream
what will has become past

lines began to weave
shapes began to shimmer
light began to fade

caught in the net of a shadow
anticipation loomed

as your pupils began to dilate
the howling in your mind
tested your will to think

thoughts came clearly then
even though they were not yours

the Voices slowly took over
your soul faded to blank
and the Voices took their leave

Imagination

        Ray McDavid had thought that it was cute when his daughter Debra had started talking to the walls. He remembered when his mother used to tell him about the imaginary friend he had when he was four. He had just figured that it was normal behavior for little kids. People do dream! His wife giggled with him when he told her of the grand imagination their daughter had. They were convinced that their little Debra would be an artist or a writer of some kind. How where they supposed to know? They even thought of getting tutors to help bring out her hidden talents. Even parents can be naive.
        The only thing is, he didn't remember his mom telling him about his imaginary friend teaching him anything. Debra just last week had asked him what a corpse was. When he asked why, she said that their dog Thomas would be a corpse in two days. He had been so shocked that he let the conversation die, not knowing that he was doing the same to his daughter. Two days later he found Thomas in the corner of the garage, stiff as the bottom layer of badly mixed Jell-O. The vet said that he drank anti-freeze. The anti-freeze that was still on the tallest shelf in the garage.
        Debra had laughed when she saw the dog and said that she wanted to be a corpse too. He never got her to confess poisoning Thomas. If only he knew. Later that week he let her outside to play, warning her to stay away from the road. He wasn't really worried because she always stayed away from the road. Almost always.
        While they lowered his lifeless daughter into the ground, he didn't know that the sudden gust of wind was the voices leaving their newest victim. He just held his wife and cried.