• Now I lay me down to sleep…


    The small pebble bounced off my worn black DC shoes skipping across the gravel before coming to a halt against the metal edge of the railroad tracks. The sound of it hitting the metal reminded me of the train bells from back when I was young. Mom loved trains, she would take me down to the tracks that went through the back end of our small town, and we would watch them go past and sometimes walk down them looking for treasures. Mom would tell me that one day she would stand on those tracks as a train came barreling down them and make it stop with just her two hands. I believed her back then, my mom was amazing she could do anything even stop those trains right in there on those tracks. Of course that was before the day she tried it, when I got to sit there trying to wake her up even though her body was all but destroyed from the train leaving my hands stained red. After that day my six-year-old self decided never to have a hero again, they would just disappoint you.

    I pray the Lord my soul to keep…


    I was out of the woods now going past the old abandoned church. There were rumors that said it was a well-attended church until its members found out that the priest was planning to poison them all as a sacrifice for some demonic summoning. Only half the members survived. The angel was still there though kneeling at the corner between the road and the cracked sidewalk, half buried in weeds. The left wing was completely gone and the right one had a huge crack going down the center of the wing stopping just before it reached the other side. Her head was bowed in prayer her hands folded in front of her, with her eyes closed. As I looked at her, she slowly raised her head to look at me eyes pools of blackness. I slowly backed away nearly tripping over a stick on the road which broke my gaze and when I looked back I realized it was just shadows as the full moon was revealed, no longer hidden by the clouds.

    For if I die before I wake…


    My footsteps echoed in the night as I stepped onto the bridge the river was hidden below me by a layer of white mist. The bridge was as abandoned as the church, no one bothering to come so far out of their way to use this one when the new one closer to town was much more convenient. The church had reminded me of Mom’s funeral. It was closed casket of course; no one could stand to look at a body that ruined. The mass was the first time I met Grandmother. No Granny, Gran-gran or grandmas for me, strictly Grandmother, and the capital G was in her voice when she said it. Mom had never taken me to meet her; I got the feeling they weren’t very close. She was the one that rose me after that, I was grateful it could have been worse.

    I pray the lord my soul to take


    I realized that it wasn’t just my echoing footsteps I was hearing behind me, but someone else was there too, following me. I looked back seeing the figure of a man as he stepped onto the bridge. He was all shadows, but I could tell he had long hair. At first, I though he may be homeless because he looked so worn down, but the glint near where his hand would be was what made me turn to run. My breath came in ragged gasps as I made it halfway across the bridge my sneakers pounding out a rhythm as they slapped the metal ground. The wind was picking up now making it feel like the bridge was swaying as I glanced back to see him only feet away. I screamed then, a warning to him. I wasn’t the one in danger here he was. He couldn’t get any closer, not with the adrenalin running through me like this. I wouldn’t be able to control it, to stop it.

    “Don’t touch me!” I yelled as he reached towards me. “Please I don’t want to hurt you.” I begged him when he didn’t stop coming after me as I stumbled back. His hand grabbed my shoulder as the tears fell down my face, my voice coming out as a hoarse whisper, “No…” his hand was vanishing now crumbling away to dust. I wasn’t sure which of us was screaming, he was I knew, but I think I may have been too. I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t tell anything as the crumbling continued up his arm and across his body until all that was left was a pile of ash as that too slowly blew away in the wind.

    Amen.