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Short Stories
by Christina Lovse
Index


Something In Common
This is a short story based on the world in the novel "Project Earth." The idea is pretty creepy and I don't even remember where I got it but I certainly hope I never get that disease!

Another Blackout
This one is my mom's favorite. It was based on a dream I had. It is simple and to the point, unlike any of my other stories. It is also a little scary.









Something In Common


The leaves on the towering trees of Paradise Wood swayed slightly in the wind. The sunlight glinted off of them eerily, magnifying the deep shades of green. On the forest floor a luminescent green moss eagerly climbed rocks, trees and any other object unfortunate enough to be in its path. Curious onlookers upon closer inspection could see various bones scattered throughout the woodland. It was the only warning needed in the small town where the dangers of this particular forest were legendary.
Some distance away from the lush growth of the forest were two teenagers sitting on hard, packed dirt. The villagers kept the moss from entering the town with a very toxic sort of poison that eliminated all plant life in any area it was applied to. But the dangers of the forest and the poison were the last things on the youth’s minds. The boy, Mahs, was staring at the sky. Y’lemme was staring at the boy. Sometimes she had to reach out to touch him, to reassure herself that he was really there and not just a figment of her imagination. She thanked God that she was beautiful for it was surely the only reason he was with her now. That was all she had. No intelligence or goodness or even humor lurked beneath the surface of those baby blue eyes that he loved to look into. Everyone wondered why he was with her. They said they were such opposites it was amazing they could be in the same room with each other, let alone be a couple. The other girls said it was only because she was pretty. And she believed them. "But when you get old like me," her mother would say, "Then the world will see you for what you really are."
Mahs shattered the silence and her private thoughts along with it by telling her he had to leave.
"So soon?" she asked, her voice catching a little as it always did when he left her. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, really, it was only that…well…why would anyone want to come back to her? "I promised someone I’d visit them," he explained and for a moment Y’lemme’s fragile heart stood still.
"My uncle," Mahs said, watching carefully for her reaction to this information.
Y’lemme breathed and her heart started to beat again, but tremulously. She stared at the far away trees and was silent. What could she say to him? It was a mystery to her and to the rest of the village as well as to why and how the boy could endure his uncle’s presence. Just thinking about the man made her shiver.
"The spider lord," she said finally.
Mahs nodded, started to say something and then changed his mind. After several minutes he said, "His name is Vaughn."
"I know," she replied quietly. He’d told her many times on many different occasions. As if the name alone could somehow humanize the shadowy figure who lurked in the dark recesses of her mind. As if it could enable her to accept him as easily as Mahs had. She decided to change the subject.
"It’s so beautiful," she indicated the forest with a kind of desperation in her voice.
Mahs gave her an exasperated look and she flinched. "It is both beautiful and deadly thus all the more admirable than a thing that is neither, am I right?" Meaning his uncle. Y’lemme gave him a fearful look, wondering if he was disappointed in her. The thought of losing him sent her into a panic and without thinking she blurted out, "I’ll go with you." Her eyes widened as if they were a separate part of her and could not believe what her mouth was doing!
Mahs stared at her. "What did you say?" he asked incredulously.
Y’lemme took a deep breath and in a voice as firm as she could manage replied, "I said I’d go with you." She would not lose him.

The spider lord, Vaughn, idly lounged in his soft dining room chair. A small spider was busily spinning a web between his hands, which he held several inches apart from one another in as still a manner as he could maintain.
"Beautiful," he murmured appreciatively to the arachnid.
A knock at the door startled him, making him inadvertently jerk his hands and tear the fresh weaving. The spider fell to the table, threw Vaughn a reproachful glance with its eight tiny eyes and scuttled off to the other end of the table. The knock sounded again and the old man picked himself up off the chair in response.
"Sorry little one," he apologized to the spider, who was sulking behind a water glass. The glass somehow magnified the appearance of the creature and it visibly blinked at him, an act that would have been unsettling to anyone unaccustomed to the charm of the little insects.
Vaughn grimaced as he heard the knock again. "I’m coming," he called out irritably. He hurried to the front door, paused in front of it and brushed as many spiders as he could off his body, all the while asking forgiveness of them for his rudeness. After a quick look in the mirror, he steeled himself and opened the door to find his nephew, Mahs, smiling warmly at him.
"Ah, Mahs," he said, embracing the boy, "It’s been such a long time since you’ve visited!"
"Not so uncle," the boy argued with a laugh, "I visited just two weeks ago!"
Vaughn grinned. "But you forget that these," he indicated the spiders who were started to crawl back onto him, "Are the only company I have between visits! They’re polite but not very good conversationalists!" They laughed and a nervous titter emitted from the doorway.
"And who’s this lovely creature?" Vaughn asked, noticing the girl hiding behind his nephew.
Mahs smiled and pulled the girl out from behind him. "Uncle Vaughn, I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Y’lemme."
With a special insight that he was noted for having, the spider lord refrained from offering the youth his hand. "It’s a pleasure to meet you my dear," he said with a gentle voice.
Y’lemme was startled by his…normality and before she could change her mind she offered her hand to the elderly man. His touch was surprisingly warm, not clammy as she’d expected it to be. In fact, she was beginning to feel much more at ease. Perhaps Mahs' uncle wasn’t as bad as she’d thought he’d be.
As if on cue a small, furry thing crawled out of Vaughn’s hair, across his cheek, nose and other cheek and continued traveling until it finally settled in the rim of his ear. Y’lemme watched this procession with growing horror and at the end of it started to tremble uncontrollably. The spider lord let her hand go and inclined his head in apology, "I’m sorry my dear. I understand your revulsion completely." He spread his arms in a helpless gesture, "But I cannot control them." Several spiders in his dark hair shifted slightly, emphasizing his statement.
The young girl suddenly found herself overwhelmed with pity for the strangely gentle man. The compassion lent her courage and without thinking, she suddenly reached out and touched his cheek. Mahs beamed at her and Vaughn smiled. Feeling for the first time in her life as though she’d done something right, she let herself be led into the dining room.

Y’lemme hummed softly to herself as she opened the shutters of her bedroom window and breathed in the fresh air.
"I hear you singing in there, girl," her mother called to her from another room, "And you’d better quit before someone decides to put you out of your misery!"
The youth obediently desisted in singing the song but her heart remained light and a carefree mood overtook her. It had been two weeks since she’d first met the spider lord and since then she had visited him daily. The hours she spent talking to the kind old man while drinking new flavors of tea were Y’lemme’s favorite times. She’d never been so happy in her life, except of course, for the day she met Mahs.
A small spider scurried across the windowsill and hid behind the curtain. She smiled and thought of the dear old man who even now, without being present, was changing her life. She pulled the curtain aside slowly and held her hand out to the spider.
After her initial fear had passed, the young girl found herself growing braver and braver. It was funny how much little things could change a person’s personality so completely. The spider eyed her hand for a moment and then hesitatingly stepped onto her palm. It tickled and Y’lemme let out a giggle.
"What are you doing in there now, girl?" her mother, who had hearing like a cat’s, yelled suspiciously.
"Nothing mother," Y’lemme replied calmly. The spider crawled onto her thin wrist and up her arm. When it got to the edge of her sleeve, however, she drew the line.
"Oh no you don’t," she said softly to the arachnid with a laugh. She picked it off her arm carefully so as not to squish it and looked around for something to put it in. A small jar filled with seashells caught her attention. She dumped its contents out onto the floor and dropped the spider into it.
"I wonder if you’re a girl bug or a boy bug?" she mused out loud. Vaughn would know. Quickly she put a lid on the jar and started to walk out her door, stopping just before she reached it. If she went out that way then she would have to be interrogated by her mother so instead she went back to her window and climbed out of it.
The spider lord stared at the jar with an expression best described as distraught.
"And you say you found this on your windowsill?" his tone conveyed a sense of urgency that Y’lemme didn’t understand at all.
She nodded, "Is something wrong?"
Vaughn sighed and put down his magnifying glass.
"What is it?" Y’lemme asked, confused by the way her friend was acting.
"I think," Vaughn said, massaging his temples, "You should leave the spider with me for a while."
The girl’s worry and confusion doubled.
"Don’t ask why," Vaughn pleaded, "Just…if you see any more like this anywhere else catch them and bring them to me."
"Like that one?"
Vaughn nodded. "See the blue marks on her backside?" he pointed them out to her. "Look for those."
Y’lemme nodded mutely.
She stayed for a while longer and talked to him about ordinary things out of politeness—how Mahs was doing, what her mother said today, what the weather was like and other such nonsense—until finally she left.
Vaughn watched her departure from a window and then walked quietly back to the jar. The spider inside was desperately trying to get out, though it had been submissively docile while the girl had been in the room.
Knowing it was useless but unsure what else to do, Vaughn picked up the jar and sat it on a shelf next to another container that held several spiders. And then, all the while wondering if it was because of him, he sat down in a chair and began to cry.

In the weeks that followed Y’lemme started seeing less and less of Mahs and more and more of the spiders. Every time she found them she took them to Vaughn and he deposited them in the same jar. And every time she visited she inquired after the man’s nephew. Where was he? Why didn’t he come see her anymore? Was he angry with her? Was he alright? Had he…found someone new? But Vaughn never had an answer for her. Or at least he never voiced any. Y’lemme suspected she knew what was wrong. It was the new her; she’d become more confident lately, less shy. He probably didn’t like that. It didn’t sound quite right but what else could she think? And as if that problem weren’t big enough, she had the spider lord’s increasing moodiness to deal with. What was going on? Finally one day she could take no more secrecy.
"I’m not leaving until you tell me something!" she declared resolutely.
Vaughn looked up quickly, startled by the firmness in her voice.
He sighed. "I suppose it is time, at that. I’ve been putting it off too long." He picked up the jar of spiders and held it in one hand. Then with his other hand he picked up another jar of spiders that Y’lemme hadn’t noticed before. In one container the creatures were relatively settled. But in the other they were tying their very hardest to pop the l id and Y’lemme drew back, revolted by that sight.
"When I first became a spider lord…" he paused and reconsidered his opening statement.
"When I first found out that I was becoming a spider lord I hated them very much. I hated them and I hated myself and I hated everyone around me."
Y’lemme listened politely, though she wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with anything. Vaughn brushed a wandering spider away from his eyes and continued.
"Now I’ve adjusted to them. It’s useless to kill them and it’s pointless to hate them or yourself. Now that I’ve accepted them I’m quite content. Do you understand?"
Y’lemme nodded though she really didn’t. Vaughn sighed and gestured for her to sit down. He took the chair opposite her.
"Because when they first became obvious it felt like the world was ending. Many spider lords commit suicide within the first month. I thought about it many times. And I’m glad I didn’t because life has given me many treasures that I would have sorely missed if I’d left this realm. You’re one of them."
Y’lemme gave him a small, unsure smile. She still didn’t know why he was telling her all of this. Nevertheless she owed him a reply. "I enjoy knowing you too, Uncle." She’d gotten in the habit of using the familiar title, though she was no relative of his.
Vaughn made a small noise that sounded like a sob and Y’lemme was horrified to discover that there were tears coming out of his eyes. "What’s wrong?!" she rushed over to him.
After a moment he got a hold of himself and started to speak relatively calmly again.
"I don’t know if its because of me…" he closed his eyes for a time and then opened them again. "No one knows for certain how it happens…I don’t expect you to forgive me, though God knows I never intended for this to happen, never imagined it could happen…all I wish is for you to be happy."
An idea formed in the young girl’s mind and her eyes shone a swiftly increasing horror. She shook her head. Vaughn’s eyes filled with sympathy. "No!" she whispered, shaking her head more vehemently.
"Dear child," Vaughn said softly, "You are a spider lord."
Y’lemme bolted, intent on getting away from the house as quickly as possible, ignoring the old man’s cries behind her. He couldn’t be right! He just couldn’t! He was lying, trying to hurt her for some sick, twisted reason that only he could comprehend! Maybe he was trying to separate her from Mahs. Maybe…but no. She shook her head and tears streamed down her cheeks. He wouldn’t lie. Not Vaughn. He hadn’t planted the spiders in her house. And if she became a spider lord…Mahs would…he would leave her…and then…then she would have nothing.

"I must see Mahs immediately," Vaughn was telling his sister angrily. "Let me in!"
"Not this time you troll!" she hissed, "Not anymore, not ever again!"
"There isn’t time for that Leanne, I need to see him right now!"
"He hasn’t come out of his room for days!" she sobbed, her mood changing like the wind. "And it’s your fault!" she accused angrily.
"Leanne, I—"
"Get out!" she screamed, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t even in.
Vaughn stared at her for a while and finally nodded. "So be it, Leanne," he turned and walked away.
Quickly he walked around to the side of the house and tapped on the window. The boy inside didn’t even look up. "Mahs!" the spider lord yelled. His nephew showed no signs of having heard.
Vaughn looked around the yard and picked a large rock off the ground. Without a second though he threw it at the glass. It shattered noisily and the rock landed on the ground inside with a heavy thud. That got the boy’s attention.
"Mahs…"
"Leave me alone, uncle," the boy said in a sullen voice.
"No Mahs," Vaughn argued firmly, "I don’t think I will." In an uncharacteristic display of agility the old man hoisted himself up through the window and into the room.
"What do you want from me?" Mahs demanded, realizing that the unwanted company was not going to leave.
"I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself," Vaughn said bluntly, "And I want you to go find that lovely young girl you brought to my house some time ago or I fear we may never see her again."
Mahs looked up quickly. "What’s happened?"
"She was already in pain because of the way you’ve been avoiding her. With the added burden of the spiders who knows what she’ll do!"
Mahs paled. "Her too?!"
"Yes. Her too. And if you don’t do something right now…"
The boy was out the window before Vaughn could finish the sentence.
The old man sighed and put his head in his hands, praying that his nephew would not be too late.

He was running before he even realized where he was going. But he didn’t have time to stop and think. "If there is a god in this accursed world," he silently prayed, "Please guide my steps to her." His feet carried him to a familiar hill, which he climbed, and once at the top he desperately scanned the valley below for some sign of the girl.
"Y’lemme!" he cried suddenly, spotting her slight figure walking dangerously close to Paradise Wood.
"Y’lemme, no!"
But she couldn’t hear him.
He went down the hill in leaps and bounds, almost fell once but caught himself just in time. With every move he shed spiders. Y’lemme place one foot in the forest. Mahs jumped over a rock in his path and tried to run faster. The deadly moss hesitated at first and then more aggressively began to creep up Y’lemme’s extended foot. Mahs angled himself so that when he reached her he didn’t stop but instead grabbed her as he ran and pushed her away from the forest. They fell safely to the ground in a heap of bodies and spiders.
Mahs didn’t waste any time in catching his breath. He quickly pulled his pocketknife out and started scraping at the greenery on Y’lemme’s leg, noting with anxiety how fast it had spread. The girl screamed in pain because he was scraping her skin as well in order to get to the roots. He winced as she loudly voiced her pain but didn’t stop. One single seed of the evil plant left in her body could kill her in little over an hour. At last he finished and sank back to the ground, him sobbing with relief and her sobbing with pain. Remembering the knife, he flung it into the forest, fearful that even uprooted it might still grow. They lay there for a while, silently recovering. Staring up at the clouds, breathing hard, Mahs felt a soft creeping on his arm. Terrified, he jerked it back only to realize that it was just his spiders returning to their living residence.
"You can’t stop me Mahs," Y’lemme said quietly when she recovered her breath.
"Yes I can," he replied angrily, "I just did."
"You can’t watch me all the time."
Mahs sighed. "Look at me Y’lemme."
She ignored him. "You’d never be able to…"
"Look at me!" he said more forcefully.
Startled, she half turned to him and gasped when she saw the spiders.
"Am I hideous, Y’lemme?" he asked her in a detached voice.
"Of course not," she whispered, tears coming to her eyes.
"Why did you go into the woods?"
She sniffed and looked away from him, unwilling and unable to answer.
"You think that once it happens that know one will love you anymore, don’t you Y’lemme?"
She didn’t say anything.
"But I will still love you."
She looked at him, surprised.
"Will you still love me?"
"More than ever," she cried.
"After all," he said with a weak smile, "We finally have something in common."



Another Blackout


A little girl stood in a kitchen preparing cookies for the oven. She did not need supervision. She’d been cooking with her mother since she was six and before that time she’d sat and watched. She was not allowed to use the burners when she was alone but it was okay to use the oven. Today she was bored and so she’d decided to bake to alleviate the boredom. It was a natural choice for the child to pull out the cookie batter.
The kitchen itself was quite a large one, as was the entire house. There was one door, a big metal looking thing that appeared heavy but could be pushed open with the slightest touch. The big shining black oven sat on the opposite wall from the door, a great hulking beast that the child fancied as a pet always waiting to be fed. The rest of the wall and all the other walls were lined with cabinets, shelves and various kitchen appliances that the girl was slightly less familiar with than the oven.
The floor was composed of shimmering black tile with patches of white squares pressed in random places. In the center of this dismal desert of black set a long, rectangular island. The countertop was black and white—matched perfectly to the floor—while the cabinets beneath were brilliant stainless steel, polished to perfection by the well paid cleaning lady.
It was at this island that the girl stood, perched on a wooden step-stool and frowning to herself as she carefully arranged little candy jewels into the shape of a smiley face on one of the cookies. It was while she was at this task that the lights went out, plunging the kitchen into a deep black void of nightmarish quality.
The little girl froze instantly, her hands still on the cookie dough. It was raining outside, thundering. There was nothing to be afraid of. It was just another blackout, like any other. Usually when there was a blackout (there tended to be one or two a year) she felt elated, excited. When she was with her friends she teased them mercilessly, trying to scare them. When she was alone she screamed and envisioned ghosts in the darkness, trying to scare herself.
She’d grown up on Freddy Kreuger and Poltergeist. Darkness didn’t bother her in the least. This time, though, the hairs on the back of her neck rose and she found herself turning involuntarily to face the kitchen door.
Although she couldn’t actually see the door and it was oiled too regularly to make any noise she imagined it was opening. It was a fanciful idea, really, highly unlikely and yet she knew with a certainty that few children feel that the door was at that very moment being opened.
Something in the dark recesses of the girls mind told her to flee and she immediately jumped off the stool and rushed to the end of the island. A small, scrabbling noise from the doorway sent the girl into a panic and it was with an unthinking frenzy that she threw open the cabinet door and crawled inside, noisily pushing away the pots and pans that normally occupied the space. She quickly pulled the door closed and sat there uncomfortably, trying to listen for the scrabbling noise and hearing only the sound of her own ragged breathing.
What seemed like an eternity but was probably more like two minutes passed before the feeling of terror left the little girl. She knew without opening the door that the lights were back on and the danger was past. She let her head slump against the cabinet wall, feeling utterly drained. It took a few moments more before she worked up the desire or the energy to leave her safe haven. If she’d been older she would have known she was suffering from the after-effects of adrenaline. As it was her peculiar lack of strength only added an extra measure of strangeness to the event and she decided she might have been witched by whatever shadow monster had chased her.
Opening the door a crack she saw that the light and indeed returned. She wearily crawled out, noting absently how strangely cold the tile was against her splayed hands. She used the island top to pull herself up and, cookies forgotten, she left the kitchen.
The girl, who was accustomed to being alone and did not often feel a necessity for company, padded across the living room floor to the back door instead of going upstairs to wake her sleeping grandmother. She opened the door to find that it was still raining lightly outside.
Cupping her hands over her mouth she called out in a small voice, "Angel!" There was no reply. She tried again. "Angel!" After another moment a great black and white creature bounded towards her from out of the bushes. The girl smiled wanly and held the door open for the dog. Although she loved the pet it was not out of playfulness that she called him in but rather a sense of self-preservation should the lights go out again. The animal was not supposed to be in the house, particularly wet and muddy as he was but, the girl decided with child-like speculation, there were worse things than her mothers wrath.
She spent the next hour in the living room beside the fire and the german shepherd, staring at the kitchen door and thinking of cookies. The terror was now only a memory and she actually felt a bit foolish for acting as she had. Still she was not ready to go back into the kitchen and she kept Angel close to her for protection and comfort.
When her mother came home from work she didn’t tell her what had happened. Grown-ups acted funny about such things, as if in believing the words of a child they would themselves become childish. Keeping silent, however, did not save her from her mothers reaction upon seeing the dog in the house.
"Sweety, what is he doing in here?" She didn’t wait for her daughter to reply before she shooed the dog out the back door again. "You know Angel’s not supposed to be in the house, honey," she gently rebuked, "Your daddy’s going to be furious when he finds out." She went into the kitchen then as she always did when she came home, to get a drink.
After a moment, as expected, she called her daughter to come into the kitchen. Her tone was not a happy one. The little girl sighed and trudged across the carpet and through the metal door. Her mother was standing against the wall, hands on her hips staring irritably at the cabinet the girl had occupied earlier. She wondered if she’d accidentally left it open and walked over to close it. She stopped when she saw the four long slashes on the outside of the stainless steel door.
"That’s why we don’t let Angel in the house," her mother said wearily.
The little girl stared at the gashes, daze-like, and nodded.