It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

10/5/2012

Dear Duncan, a longtime and loyal reader from the oldest days of my blog, provided me with this tantalizing photo that he took from his window. It's just too much fun to look and then look away from it. So I say we try a few "first sentences" for this mystery. Or, if we get enough people going, let's build on one another's first sentences. I'll start below...

The thing about the guy who wants you dead is that you always think he'll come under cover of darkness. But when I heard the crackle in the forest, I wheeled my chair up to my bedroom window. I'd left the door downstairs unlocked. Now I had only two options: retreat or find a weapon fast.

Rolando link

10/5/2012 03:24:22 am

The Voodoo lady was very clear on the instructions,

"After darkness aim the flashlight at the forest and shine three pulses into the night every minute. They know their way back, but sometimes they are confused and need some extra help."

I was so anxious that I installed myself next to the window hours before dusk. I tried to entertain myself by reading a book, but time seemed to move at a snail's pace. However, I was hopeful. I had fulfilled all the requirements of the ritual to the letter and Annika’s body was fresh; she had just been buried yesterday.

Barbara Alfaro link

10/5/2012 04:41:57 am

They buried her in her wedding dress. Her own fault I say, who dares get married on Halloween? I hear him now. Even his footsteps sound angry. I've got to get the the letter opener on my desk. Now, now before...

Laura Novak

10/5/2012 06:02:38 am

Damn, you guys are good. I need to step up my game!

Heather Haven link

10/5/2012 07:20:14 am

Nancy Drew cuddled the new Yorkie her father had given her for her birthday, as she stared out the window. "Darn," she said. "I hope it doesn't rain before Ned brings back my blue roadster from dropping off the Girls Scout cookies at the old folks home. And I..." Hmmmm. I don't think I'm doing so well on this assignment!

Barbara Alfaro link

10/5/2012 09:41:19 am

How surprised Nancy was when her boyfriend, Roderick Fessington Blackbridge, III, returned with with a bloodied Girl Scout cookie attached to his left fang.

grannyj

10/5/2012 10:18:16 am

Ever curious, Nancy reached out toward Roderick, wanting a better look at the bloodied Girl Scout cookie, just as Sweet Pea, her slightly crazy, toy poodle/greyhound mix jumped at Roderick and grabbed the cookie. Roderick's left fang flew through the air and landed in the potted geranium beside the window. As dear Roderick writhed in pain on the floor, Sweet Pea took off out the door, and was last seen tearing up the path into the woods- a glint in her eye and cookie crumbs all over her snout.

V-A

10/5/2012 11:30:50 am

It was three days before he remembered he'd left the flashlight in Maggie's bedroom. How the hell he'd gotten out of there in the dark without it, he hadn't a clue. All he knew was that he was a lousy ex-husband and a lousy crook.

Laura Novak

10/5/2012 11:55:02 am

Oh I see, some real professionals here, huh?! Okay, game on. I need to think of my next move. We got a couple of possibilities here vying for mystery of the year. Hmmm...what next?

Ken

10/5/2012 01:23:10 pm

Are they out there? It was usually at night when he asked that question. In fact that was the question he asked every night. But then, each time passing the window he would glance, never casually, and ask it again.
When they come it would be night. That made sense. At night they could move silently from shadow to shadow and advance like darkness itself. He charted their movements in his mind. He knew each tree and knew how they would move. He knew where to look.
How would they signal? He looked. He listened. He was ready to signal back, torch by the window. He said it was to help find his way after the lights were out and had never been questioned. But other than checking the batteries each night it stayed on the corner of the sill.
What he endured was something less than imprisonment but far from freedom. He kept step and never conveyed any notion of his intentions. He wouldn’t until they came.
His was a solitary vigil. Let the others find their own way, follow him or embrace the program, he didn’t care. But not him, he would be free. They would come and he would be free. He knew that like he knew each tree outside the window he sat at each night.
Faith always exceeds logic. Are they out there? They had to be; someday. They had to be.

Ottoline

10/6/2012 03:39:13 am

<i>The thing about the guy who wants you dead is that you always think he'll come under cover of darkness. But when I heard the crackle in the forest, I wheeled my chair up to my bedroom window. I'd left the door downstairs unlocked. Now I had only two options: retreat or find a weapon fast. </i>

I was ready with both: I had my Glock beside my butt in the chair, and I had my false-wall secret room right next to the window, with peepholes, so I could watch. Trouble was, I had to leave the chair behind and fit myself into the tiny room, get it all closed up tight, and I had to do it soon enough so the chair would not be warm. It was a hard maneuver, but I had practised, and now I was sitting in the small cubby, able to look out and look into the room. I heard the crackle again. And then a bump against the house. I put the GLock to my head and fired.

Damn! The ammo was still in a drawer next to my bed.

Ottoline

10/6/2012 03:41:12 am

Sooooo glad you are back, Laura!

Laura Novak

10/6/2012 03:48:17 am

The prison break was all anyone in the college condo complex had talked about all month. Manny the Maple Sap Murderer knew only one way to take his victim: beat them senseless with maple branches and then suffocate them with sap in every orifice. He'd done it dozens of time in a series of states. Now, he had to have gone far. Why would a lifer not flee as fast on foot as they could? Who would hang around a local housing until full of beautiful young co-eds? And risk getting sap on their prison garb? No, Tiffany was sure those who lived closest to the Max Pen would be safest. At least she thought that until that familiar sound of dry branches cracking underfoot wafted up to the window where she perched every night just before dusk. Please let it be her Econ tutor coming over to...well, tutor, Tiffany prayed to her stuffed doggie. But then, a flash of neon-colored sleeve - unmistakeable. Tiffany's heart pounded in her twin-set. For no one in the Econ department would ever dare wear that horrible shade of orange.

Duncan

10/8/2012 01:41:35 am

The flashlight was of little use in trying to identify what I saw and heard on the deck below.
After living on the edge of these woods for most all my years, I cannot recall anything like the shape or sound of what was there last night.

It hadn't rained for weeks, but there in the morning light, there were muddy prints across the deck. Whoever left those prints must have come from the west across what the oldtimers called, "Prisoner Swamp." Back in the '20s
the area was overgrown with vegetation so thick that someone running from the law could easily hide.

Who was running now, where could they have gone?

Laura Novak

10/6/2012 03:49:50 am

Thank you ALL for writing your fabulous stuff. You're all cracking me up!!!

Mike No It'snotMe

10/6/2012 07:07:02 am

The tattered guerrilla group made slow progress navigating the ravine. It was beautiful but challenging terrain and they had three wounded men, two ambulating slowly from leg wounds & one born on a stretcher. Their leader, who had been a medical doctor,an allergist before the Resistance movement began, had been told to be vigilant in this area. Intelligence reported that the man living there was of unknown political leanings, but cagy & dangerous, perhaps even a cannibal. As they exited the gully, they heard a weapon cock behind them.

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It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

Laura Novak

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