A Delicately Beautiful Haunting

by Mercedes M. Yardley

She reached out for his hand. It was natural. It was what they had always done.
He wrapped his bony fingers around her soft ones.

“Are you certain that you want to do this?” he asked her. His voice was strained.

He wanted to blame it on his decaying larynx, but that wasn't entirely it. He cleared his throat, tried again. The same tight, rough voice. “You know that you don't have to.”

She didn't say anything for a long while, but stood perfectly still. Her pink toes were lined up neatly with the edge of the cliffs. Water rushed and roared beneath her bare feet.

“It's beautiful,” she said.

The wind tossed her hair around her face and pulled at her clothes. It made a strange morose whistling through the holes in his cheeks. For a brief moment, he was deeply ashamed of his appearance, of what he had become. As if she knew what he was thinking, she tightened her grip on his hand.

“I'm glad that you came back,” she said. “You don't know what it was like living without you.”

Simple words simply said, but they touched what was left of his heart. He would have cried if he had been able to.

She looked at the sky. “I thought that it would get better, that I would forget you eventually. Isn't that what they always say?”

He studied her profile. Her eyes were sad, but nothing else had changed. He spoke softly.

“I don't know if I want you to do this. I don't think you understand what you're giving up.”

She turned to him and smiled.

“I just want to be with you. It won't work with you being on my side, so I'll cross over to yours.” She looked at the water and laughed. “I think that I'm a little scared.”

He took both of her hands and pulled her to him.

“I'm with you. Just look at me. Think about something that will make you happy. Remember our first dance?”

Her eyes lit up. She remembered. She remembered and it was time.

He nodded his head slowly. “Keep thinking about that.”

He had planned to nudge her but she surprised him. She took a deep breath and let herself fall.

The sound of the wind and water blurred together. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, protectively, as if he could somehow shield her delicate bones from the rocks and thrashing surf.

He couldn't, of course. That was the whole point. But he didn't know if he could listen to her fragile body break against the stones, or failing that, watch her gasp for breath under the waves. Would she cling to him? Would she scream his name? Would she push him away? All of these thoughts came so quickly, but they had only been falling for two seconds, maybe three.

“That song that you used to sing. The moon song. How do the lyrics go again? After you died, I couldn't remember them.”

He was surprised but pleased. “The wolf comes from the forest and howls at—”

When it happened, it happened in silence. She made no sound, and his thoughts were swirling in the wolf-filled moon.

__________

Mercedes M. Yardley writes about beauty and horror. They are more intertwined than you might think. Visit her blog at http://www.abrokenlaptop.wordpress.com/.

The Exquisite Beauty of Death

by Mercedes M. Yardley

She was so beautiful, all dandelion fluff hair and white skin. But she bled from her eyes, and it was most disconcerting, although Allen tried not to show it.

“What?” she asked him one day. It was a normal Tuesday afternoon, and she had sequestered herself under a pastel umbrella. Blood ran from her eyes and down her face like painful tears. It soaked into her white scarf.

“N-nothing,” he said. He tried not to stare.

“Do I…do I have something on my face?” She reached a hesitant white mittened hand, tentatively dabbed beside her mouth. Blood smeared across her cheek in an artistic swoop. “I had pancakes for breakfast. Did I make a mess with the syrup?” She blushed delicately. “Sometimes I make a mess with the syrup.”

Allen’s lips twitched up. “No, you don’t have syrup on your face.”

“Is it my hair then? I can’t get it to do anything in this weather.”

Her light hair was fighting its white knitted hat. It tried its very best to stand on end, floating about her face like water.

He smiled fully, then. “No, it isn’t your hair.”

She turned her eyes to him, big beautiful gray eyes that were wide like a child’s. She blinked and two more bloody tears pooled and ran down her cheeks, mimicking the rain. “Then what is it? Why are you looking at me?” she asked. Her curiosity was endearing.

“I think that I like you,” Allen said. She smiled back, and he continued. “There’s just…something about you.”

“There is. I can call the lightning.”

He smiled and she laughed.

“You think that I’m kidding, don’t you?” she said.

Allen shrugged. “I’m not really sure what to think.”

She stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek. Her felt the warmth of her lips and the blood that she left behind.

“I’d like you to stay with me for a while,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed, and she cried tears of joy.

He also came to realize that she cried tears of pain and tears of sorrow. There were tears of frustration and tears of anger. Those were the most bitter and the most torrential, and they stained the couch and the carpet and the warm gray blanket that she wrapped herself in. And she could, indeed, call the lightning. A man was struck while running away after a rape. A family was killed while picnicking in the rain.

“Sometimes I can’t control my aim,” she said, and sighed.

Allen loved her, and love can hurt, as he soon found out. He shyly opened his hands to show her a lovely diamond ring that somehow reminded him of a butterfly, and she threw her arms around him and sobbed.

“Oh, I want to, I want to, but if we marry, you shall die,” she cried, and there were tears and tears and tears. He nearly drowned in them.

Until one day she came out of the room wearing the ring on her finger.

“I think yes,” she said, and Allen spun her around.

Blood crimsoned her wedding dress. They stood in a pool of it, and when he kissed his bride, she ran her fingers through his hair, making it stiff and sticky.

“I love you,” he said. Already he was faint. He dropped into an empty chair.

“I love you, too,” she said, and kissed him again. He felt his heart pumping, but in vain, for there was no longer any blood to circulate. She had cried it all out.

“Don’t be sad,” he told her. She tried to hold him, but he slid to the ground. “Now I understand why you cry.”

“Oh, Allen,” she whispered. “I tried. They told me to take you and I wanted so badly for you to live. I want you to be with me forever.” Blood leaked out of her eyes and touched her lips.

Allen smiled as his eyes closed.

“There’s something that I have wanted to tell you,” he said, “from the very moment that we first met.”

“What is that, my love?”

“I never understood why everybody fears death so. You are so beautiful.”

And she cried.

__________

Mercedes M. Yardley writes on a laptop that is undeniably broken. She has a special affinity for sharks and red lipstick, (but not sharks in red lipstick) and always covers her eyes during the gory parts. You can see a list of publishing credits at http://www.abrokenlaptop.wordpress.com/.

I'm Keeping it Light

by Mercedes M. Yardley
free horror fiction

Keep it light, you say.

Keep it light? You want a story about death. You want me to write something about a girl that lived, but not for very long, and died, and it was tragic. What do you mean, “keep it light”?

Keep it light, you say again.

Okay, so here it goes. Once upon a time, there was a dead girl.

She didn’t start out dead, you tell me. Revise that.

All right. Once upon a time there was a dead girl, but she was technically alive before she was dead. She could eat. She could breathe. She loved things and people, and they loved her, but really that wasn’t good enough, now was it? Not good enough to keep her alive.

You’re getting bitter. Watch it, you tell me.

I take a deep breath. I start over.

Once upon a time—

You already said that part, you say. And really, I could kill you. I just could. And the irony of that almost makes me smile, but not quite, so I just say:

In the beginning, there was—

I don’t like that at all, you say, and you’re nearly shouting now.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Let me try this one more time.

Do it right, you warn me.

I look you dead in the eyes, and I say, There was a girl, and she was beautiful. She was born and she lived and then she died, and it was unfair. Nobody could believe it, and we all said things that were meant to be comforting, like ‘it must be her time’ and ‘at least we were able to enjoy her, if only briefly’. But I loved this girl, and I hoped that she loved me, and even if I had to do crazy, horrible things to pass over and be with her, I would do it. And I did, and my family cried, but here I am, and she and I will be together forever. And we lived—

Happily ever after, you say.

Yes. Happily ever after.

I like that story, you tell me. You snuggle up to me, and I close my eyes and try to forget about this place, the thing that I had to do to be here.

I’m glad you’re here, you say to me. I was lonely without you.

I was lonely without you, too, but somehow that doesn’t really seem like the thing for me to say anymore.

_____


Mercedes M. Yardley writes on a laptop that is undeniably broken. She has a special affinity for sharks and red lipstick, (but not sharks in red lipstick) and always covers her eyes during the gory parts. You can see a list of publishing credits at http://www.abrokenlaptop.wordpress.com/.