November 2008
Something to Do With Sebastian by Douglas Lind
A Rainy Night of Density with a Reckless Neurotic by Richey Piiparinen
Comet Press open for submissions
Our print division, Comet Press, is currently accepting submissions for horror, suspense, and dark crime novels and novellas. Visit www.cometpress.us for details.
Available for order from Comet Press
DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us
Come Sleep With Me, My Sweet
by Sandra Seamans
From the corner of his eye, Jerry caught a fleeting glimpse of Lydia's burnished auburn hair. She brushed the shoulder length red strands a hundred strokes a night to achieve that shimmering effect. Brushing and stroking until he started to drift off to sleep, then her soft laughter would tickle his ear.
“Come sleep with me, my sweet,” he’d whisper into her fragrant hair as he pulled her yielding body into his arms.
He knew the sightings were merely a trick of the eye. Lydia was dead. Jerry had kissed her frozen cheek good-bye and buried his nose in the perfumed strands of her silken locks one last time before he permitted the funeral director to close the coffin. He’d stood graveside in the drizzly rain, shivering, as they lowered her into the ground. Still, everywhere he traveled, her ghostly image floated nearby, intruding on his life. He heard her laughter, saw her free floating beauty, the perfumed scent of her, forever tracking his running feet, searching for him.
He kept trying to convince himself that her image was just a fluke, a trick of light on window panes. The sound of her laughter, merely wind chimes singing in the breeze. Jerry was afraid he was losing his sanity. No matter how fast he ran, she lingered in the shadows beside him. Her scent, her soft, bubbling laughter floating in the air around him.
Her presence made it impossible to breathe, impossible to get on with his life. Frustration seized him, paralyzing him, until he made the decision to visit her grave. Jerry had to see for himself, had to know if her body was still cradled in the hard crust of cemetery dirt.
Jerry drove into the cemetery on a softly moonlit night prepared to end her ghostly haunting. He’d brought a gun filled with silver bullets, a wooden stake, a golden cross and a flask of holy water. One of them had to work, had to be the magic that would lay her body to rest.
He stood in the freshly re-dug grave and opened her coffin. The stench of her rotting flesh filled the grave, making him gag. This vile corpse wasn’t his beautiful wife, wasn’t the lovely ghost who was gliding in the shadows.
Holding a handkerchief to his nose to keep from throwing up in her coffin, he slammed the wooden stake into her disintegrating breast. He placed the golden cross in her yawning mouth, then sprinkled holy water over her while reciting nearly forgotten Latin incantations.
When his recitation was finished, he climbed out of the grave to perform his final act of desecration. Shaking, he turned sideways in a shooter stance and pointed the gun downward. One shot to the head should lay her spirit to rest. Jerry closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
The bullet ricocheted off the brass handle of the coffin, flinging itself back to lodge inside his temple. His body fell forward, into her familiar embrace. He heard her voice, softly cooing in his ear. “Come sleep with me, my sweet.”
Come Sleep With Me, My Sweet is copyrighted 2008 by Sandra Seamans and may not be reproduced under any circumstances without the author's permission.