Art-Tober 2023 Challenge!! (EVERY STYLE AND LEVEL OF ART WELCOME)

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Spicey.
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Toad, Saddle and Plump.
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Frost and Remove.
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Celestial.
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Shallow.
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Scratchy.
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the_peanut_coop said:
Day 25 Prompt: Dangerous
Eee I'm so excited for this one. So I wrote my Halloween story and It kind of fits with this theme, so I'll stick it here in a spoiler.
Maude tapped with a pencil impatiently at the notebook page. The top had big letters going across it that said “Halloween Costume Ideas”. The page itself was blank. She was going to be a penguin but doubted she would find a suit on time. She wasn’t really interested in it anymore, she felt the costume lacked inspiration.
The cat, Whisper, apparently thought Maude lacked inspiration because she came and sat down on the blank notebook. Maude laughed and scooped the cat into her arms.
“Shall I be you for Halloween, kitty?” She asked, patting Whisper’s head. Whisper played with some of Maude’s wavy blonde hair.
The doorbell began ringing, a long, pulsing noise. Maude tucked Whisper under her arm and went to the door. Upon opening it, she discovered what appeared to be a busted-up yellow package at the doorstep. Deliveries were frequent, especially as the holiday season grew near and pre-ordering of Christmas presents had to happen sooner or later. Less frequently, though, were they a color other than brown.
Maude picked up the package, finding it metallic, thus, heavier. Bringing it inside revealed to her the three circles on the backside of the box. It was a large broken stoplight, its cords torn from the bottom of the box. The red light was cracked and chipped in several places, and it appeared to be hollowed out. There was no label or note that could be seen. The only letters were the brand name, written on the side in a nearly illegible font. It appeared to say “Dagger.”
Maude brought it down to her room in the basement, meaning to ask her parents about it later.
After eating dinner, she spent three hours on some extremely frustrating math homework that she knew she would absolutely never use in her entire life, especially since she did not plan to go into engineering or anything even similar to that. When it got too late to even try to think about ‘factoring completely’, she set her alarm and went to bed. In the few waking moments before sleep, she remembered her stoplight and glanced over at it. To her surprise, the yellow light was glowing very faintly. She promised to investigate tomorrow.
The next morning was October 30th, the day before Halloween. She was cutting it very close without a costume, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She had 10 minutes to breakfast herself and run to the bus stop.
During the school day, she easily forgot about her difficulties when she was immersed in math. When she finally got home, she was exhausted, but she didn’t have any homework.
“Hey mom?” She asked, putting her backpack on the rack and heading up to the kitchen.
She didn’t see her mom anywhere.
She must have taken the bike to pick up my brother. Maude thought, heading downstairs. She lifted up the stoplight and reached her hand into where the cords used to be. A few straggler cords tangled with her fingers, but she pushed them to the side. Inside she felt a 3-part switch, with the toggle in the middle. Cautiously, she flipped the switch down.
The yellow light blinked off. She flipped it back up and the yellow illuminated again. She flipped it to the highest and the yellow turned off, and the green was illuminated brightly. She switched it back to yellow, then sat down and stared at it for a while.
“But why deliver something like this to me?” Maude asked. She decided to go to Grimm’s house. Grimm had moved across the street recently and was very good with technology.
“Huh.” Grimm said, when Maude was finished with the whole story. His skin was a medium-dark almond color and his eyes were a bright milky yellow-brown. His hair was red but he had dyed it black last year, so it still had a few dark stripes at the tip.
“I know, right? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah, that is weird. Do you have any pictures of it?”
“Uh, no, actually.” That made Maude stop and think. Why hadn’t she taken any pictures? “But you can come over to see it.”
“Yeah, cause I know where you live.” Grimm laughed sinisterly.
“Yeah yeah, okay.” Maude rolled her eyes, smiling. “Come on.”
--
“It’s downstairs in my room.” Maude said, opening the door.
She trotted down the stairs without looking behind her and picked up the large traffic light. She put her hand inside of it and turned it green, making sure it still worked. Suddenly she heard Grimm’s voice from upstairs.
“Maude? Where are you?”
Maude shook her head and came up the stairs.
“Grimm! I’m right here! What are you doing upstairs?”
“As soon as you went in the doors you disappeared, I had no idea where you were.” A lock of his red-and-black curly hair fell into his face.
“I told you, my room was downstairs!”
“You sure get there fast.”
“I could do it with my eyes closed, I’ve lived in this house for seven years.”
“Well I haven’t.” sighed Grimm. “So I didn’t know where you went.”
“I’m sorry.” Maude said. “Anyways, here it is!”
“Wow…” Grimm said, brushing it with his hand. “And this just showed up at your house?”
“Crazy, right? Here, feel the inside. Don’t worry about the leftover cords, they won’t zap you.”
Grimm hesitantly put his hand in the circular opening of the box. “Then how are the lights glowing? Are there batteries?”
“Probably.”
“I feel the switch- ouch!” Grimm yanked his hand out quickly. “It did zap me!”
“Huh.” Maude said, reaching in to feel for herself.
“Maude!” Grimm said, grabbing her wrist. “If it shocked me, don’t touch it or you’ll be shock too!”
“Oh yeah.” Maude started to pull out her hand but felt it catch on the inside of the opening. “I think I’m stuck.”
“Hold on-- look, there’s a tiny latch on the side here.” Grimm pried the box open around her hand.
“Oh, thanks Grimm.”
“Look, I’ve gotta go for family night, but you have fun with your freaky stoplight. And be careful.”
“Bye.” As Grimm left, Maude stared down at the stoplight box. The bottom was now open, the two flaps splayed out to the side. She cautiously flipped the switch back to yellow.
“I wonder…” Maude tried not to be incredibly stupid, but it was just too much for her. She put the traffic light over her head and let it rest on her shoulders. She could see through the illuminated yellow glass. She laughed. Everything was distorted and discolored. It was like looking through a yellow fisheye lens.
She could see the yellow bulb and glancing up, she could see the green one, too. When she looked down, she noticed there was a small circle of broken glass where the bulb should have been.
“I bet Grimm’s family has a red light bulb!” She said to herself. Grimm’s dad was an electrician and his mom was a safety inspector. She scampered across the street, forgetting to take the big traffic light off of her head. She knocked on the door, and a few moments later it swung open.
“Hi-” She stopped. No one was at the door. She cautiously peeked her stop-lighted head inside, to find no one in the living room. Maybe they were in the TV room. She walked in, taking the stoplight from her head so that she would fit through the doorway.
“Grimm? It’s Maude… Where are you? Hello? Mr. Crypt- are you home?” She thought maybe she heard a noise further in the house, so she sat down on the entry room couch to wait, playing with the switch. She flicked it to green.
She looked up, and the Crypt family was seated around her. They were staring at her silently with alarmed eyes. Wilhelma, Grimm’s younger sister, began to cry. Mrs. Crypt cleared her throat.
“My, what a surprise. Maude, you came out of nowhere.” She said, attempting to add some fondness in her tone. She had twilight-colored skin, chocolate-colored hair, and beautiful hazel eyes. She was the most kind and welcoming person that Maude ever knew.
“What? No, I just came through the door and sat down-”
“What an interesting bit of technology you have there, Maude.” said Mr Crypt. He was very pale with red hair and ice blue eyes.
“Oh yes, it’s an old stoplight. I was just wondering if I could borrow a red light bulb.”
“If you let me handle it for half an hour or so, I could replace the bulbs myself, at absolutely no cost to you!” He said with a wink.
“Well, sure, okay!” Maude handed it over. “Thanks!”
“While you’re waiting for him to finish, you’re welcome to take his cards for Uno.” Mrs. Crypt said kindly.
“Thank you.” Maude picked up the cards and turned to Wilhelma. “I’m sorry, did I scare you earlier?”
The little girl shook her head and nestled her head into her mom’s side.
“Wilhelma’s had nightmares ever since we moved in.” said Grimm. “She doesn’t like the sound of the train horn.”
“Oh, no!” Maude said. “I used to have nightmares about that too.” She played a blue nine on top of Grimm’s green nine.
“They’re not nightmares.” Wilhelma said. “They’re the future.” The girl’s ice blue eyes matched her father’s and pierced against her dark skin.
“Please, Willy.” Grimm said. “No screaming train is gonna come crashing into our house. Or whatever you cried about last night. I know you like to pretend that you’re a little diviner, but it might be disturbing to anyone who doesn’t know that you’re pretending.”
“It wasn’t a screaming train. It was you.” The little girl stared at her cards for a moment and then played a wild card and announced it as “Lellow”
“Grimm!” said their mother. “You haven’t been teasing your sister at night, have you?”
“No, mom!” His white-brown eyes flashed with alarm. “The only one screaming last night was her.”
“Uno!” Maude called for Grimm. He grimaced and drew eight cards.
The game went on for a while, full of spiteful ‘Draw four’s and ‘reverse’s. With one card left,
Maude glanced at the clock. It was 5:00.
That was usually the time that her family ate dinner, but her mom hadn’t been home at 4 to prepare it. Maybe they had gone out without telling her. Maybe they had told her and she forgot.
Mrs. Crypt played her last card and a myriad of booing and complaining followed.
“Loosers clean up.” she said. “I’ll go make hot cocoa.”
After the cards were placed safely back in the box, Maude headed with Grimm and
Wilhelma to the kitchen. There waiting was Mr. Crypt, holding the stoplight, which he had wiped down with a dust rag so the color of the box was brighter.
“Here you are, Maude.” He said, handing it over. “It’s a very interesting antique of a stoplight. There’s something strange with it, though. For the life of me, I can’t figure out where the power source is. There’s no internal batteries anywhere! Nothing!”
Maude’s stomach sank a little. “Nothing? Then how does it glow?”
“I would be careful with that thing, Maude. I’m not a man of too many superstitions but something with that light box just isn’t right.”
Maude sat there for a minute, staring down at the box where the green was illuminated.
Grimm shot her a glance that said be careful. Looking out Grimm’s large front-facing windows, she saw her mom walk into the house.
“Oh, okay. Thank you! I’m going to head home for dinner now.” Maude hurriedly left the house, heading down the street. She unclipped the clasp and put the box back on her head. Then she re-clipped it so she didn’t have to hold on to it. It was a totally different experience walking with the green light on. The light came from above and gave it a more relaxing, natural feeling than the yellow did.
“Oh, I forgot! The red light is fixed!” The moment her lips formed the word ‘Red’, the red light switched on. The red light right under her eyes caused an urgent, painful, dangerous feeling. She didn’t like it at all and it seems to be getting brighter. For the first time she felt a little claustrophobic under the mask.
“Yellow.” She said, testing the voice command theory. Again, the bulb of the chosen color was illuminated immediately. Calm washed over her. She remembered learning about the psychology of colors in art class. Yellow could make you happy. Red could make you afraid. It was as simple as that.
She walked into her house, waiting to smell whatever would be cooking for dinner. Her mom’s cooking was the best. She couldn’t hear her mom, but that might be due to the stoplight on her head. She unlatched it and took it off. The house was still dead silent.
Looking up the staircase to the upper floor, it occured to her that she hadn’t seen the cat all day. The cat patrolled the house and was aware of every arrival to her domain. She usually sat at the top of the stairs if she heard someone coming.
“Oh well, she must just be sleeping.” Maude shrugged. She trudged up the stairs to the kitchen, but her mom wasn’t there. She had definitally seen her mother earlier-- or at least someone enter the house. But the house appeared to be uninhabited. She clasped the stoplight around her neck again because she was growing fond of the feeling. It was quite warm inside of it, to contrast the cold, late Octobre air.
“Where are you, mom?” She called, her voice echoing around the neighborhood. Despite its bulkiness, the stoplight did not seem to affect her ability to project or hear sound. Her neighborhood was really empty, even though at this time of day many people would walk their dogs or have dinner outdoors with their families, catching the last bit of outdoor warmth before it got too cold to have barbecues. She walked down the street a little faster, the yellow lens she was looking through magnifying what was directly in front of her.
At the bottom of the street was a stop sign . Looking up, she noticed it was gently quivering. Earthquakes weren’t an unusual occurrence in their neighborhood, but it was a little odd that nothing else was shaking. She thought she could hear a harsh little hiss coming from the red octagon. She leaned closer to it trying to hear.
“What’s that? A gas leak?” She asked herself. All at once the hiss stopped, and then gradually started again, layer by layer. Suddenly the horrifying truth dawned on her. Each layer of noise was a rasping, tortured human voice.
“Hello?” She called. The voices stopped.
“It is here, it is here.” said two voices, overlapping each other. There was silence for a time, then the voices erupted again.
“Stay back, help us, it is here, shut up, it is here, poor thing, get help, run, watch out, run, run.”
Maude backed away from the gibbering stop sign, shutting her eyes tightly and backing up until she couldn’t hear it anymore. She glanced behind her to make sure there was no one in the neighbor’s yard. She looked at the neighbor’s tall fence and realized that someone could easily have been whispering behind it. Unsatisfied, that was the explanation she went with, jogging a little faster.
No cars drove in the street. No one was coming home from work. No one was hanging out after school. It felt like a ghost town. She passed the sign that marked a dip in the road. There was a faint squealing noise emanating from the pole and it gave a quick shiver that grew stronger as Maude passed by.
Maude moved faster. She wasn’t sure which she liked better. The break from the dead silence or the silence that reassured her that road signs did not make noise.
She went around the roundabouts and crossed one of the major roads in her city. Not a single car drove by. She looked up at the stop lights around her. Surely it was her imagination, but one of them appeared to bend its face gently towards her. She watched it’s green light become yellow, and after a moment it was red. It stayed red for about a minute and then became green again.
“Why do traffic lights move when there’s no cars around?” She’d never thought about it but she’d always guessed that they’d been coded in some way to detect cars. The stoplight that was ‘looking’ at her blinked yellow again, then red.
“Red.” Maude said, and the red bulb turned on.
“Hello.” Someone said. Maude whirled around, finding no one behind her. She turned back, but no one was on the street.
“What is your name?” The voice asked.
“I am Triskadec.” Maude’s mouth said.
“Ah.” said the other stoplight. “I am One-thousand ninety four.”
“What’s happening?!” Maude asked, confused. “My name is not Triskadec!” Maude’s throat laughed.
“Oh, dear, my host is still getting used to me, thousand ninety-four. Forgive me.” Maude’s mouth said.
Maude tried to say something, but this time her mouth wouldn’t open.
“You see, human, I am a very early model of a stoplight. I failed the engineering tests. They were working on a stoplight that could sense or see cars and let them through. Technology was not as good back then and they did not have a good understanding of electricity, so I was handed over to black magicians.” Maude explained to herself. “I was, appropriately, the thirteenth model. The black magicians replaced my cords with blood, and that’s what I ran on. Even after they ripped me from my source.”
An image of the large stoplight being removed from a body it was affixed to was displayed in Maude’s mind. Blood dripped from the cords, and they twitched with aggitation from being removed. The lights flashed rapidly. Green, red, yellow, red, yellow, green, red, yellow, red.
Even now, the cords twitched against Maude’s neck.
“I am Triskadec, the Thirteenth stoplight. You are my host.” Triskadec said through Maude.
“YELLOW!” Maude shouted, the red light and horrid images all tooo much for her. Triskadec stopped talking. She could breathe again. The other stoplight turned its head and kept changing. Maude crossed the street, confused and terrified. She remembered the calm feeling green had given her.
“Green.” She said, quieter now. The bulb switched to green and her body felt incredibly relaxed, yet heavier at the same time, like she needed to take a nice long nap or something. That calm moment lasted for a second, then she realized that cars were hurtling at her, honking. The man behind the wheel in the car coming towards her was screaming and switching his left hand between honking and gesturing out the window. His brakes were squealing and Maude leaped out of his way, into the path of another vehicle. Horns were honking all across the intersection and Maude scampered around, unable to get to the sidewalk until traffic was stopped.
“I’m calling the police!” The man in the first car screamed after her. He shouted a long string of words Maude wasn’t allowed to use in her house before he hit the accelerator and shot back into traffic. A lot of cars were slowing down to look at her.
“Yellow.” Maude said, and the hectic moving world of cars and people disappeared. She heard a tinkling that sounded like faint laughter. It was coming from behind her and in front of her. The stoplights were laughing at her. She ran away from them, further away from the suburbs and into the city. She ducked into an empty construction site and sat in the shade of a yellow diamond-shaped exclaimation sign.
At that moment, nothing moved. There was no construction equipment, and the wet cement next to her dried in the golden-hour evening light. It was all perfectly silent.
Then she heard the scraping of metal and the triangle stand of the portable sign that she sat behind turned itself around, using the three points like a single hand, reminding Maude of Thing from the Adam’s family.
“You’re a Crasher, aren’t you?” It said, bending down to look at her. Somehow it had a vaguely southern accent. Confused, Maude didn’t say anything.
“Red.” The construction sign said.
Maude squeaked in alarm, but it was too late. The bulb blinked red.
“You caught me off guard.” Triskadec accused. “Let me assure you it will not happen again.” Maude’s head turned to the sign. “Thank you, comerade. My host has forgotten herself.”
“No problem. Yellow.” The construction sign said, getting rid of Triskadec.
Maude could breathe again. “You can’t say that color or he’ll come for me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were a Stolen. I thought you were a Crasher.”
“Crasher?”
“Crashers are cultists that worship the spirits inside signs. Some of them are idiots enough to willingly put their head inside of one.” Maude scoffed at this, but the construction sign didn’t seem to notice, so he continued.
“Of course, most traffic lights and signs aren’t large enough to fit their heads inside, so they just plunge the wiring into their hearts to give the spirits access to their bodies. They also cause human accidents to give their signs more power.”
“I’m very confused.” Maude said.
“Let’s start again. I’m Jim. When people die because they disregard a sign, their soul goes into that sign. I have only one. His name was Jim. Most signs have none, or they’re like me with one. Other signs, like what you’re wearing on your head there, have much more souls, and therefore much more power.”
“How come you can change his colors like I can?”
“Because I’ve had less-than delightful experiences with crashers. I can only do it temporarily. Which means he’ll probably be back. The best way to prevent being possessed is to take the light off of your head.”
Maude didn’t know why she didn’t think of this before. She began to unclip the clasp that kept it snuggly around her neck. She began to lift it off of her head, and in the fresh air she heard the sounds of sirens. She yanked it back on, the noises disappearing.
“What happened?” Jim skittered close to her.
“I almost caused an accident when I turned gr- I mean, the top color. They’ll see me and arrest me”
“So, you get accused of high alcohol-blood concentration. Then what? They take you to the station, run a few blood tests, see that you don’t-” Jim paused. “As long as you don’t. People manage to travel to the road sign realm by having a few too many drinks, if you know what I mean…”
“I haven’t had anything to drink!” Maude said. “But I can’t go to jail. I wouldn’t survive there, I just know it.”
“Kid, look!” Jim said. “You wouldn’t go to jail, and even if you did, anything can be better than what Trisk-”
As if on cue, the stoplight turned red. “Oh, comrade. You’ve made a big mistake. Two, actually.”
Maude put her hands on the box surrounding her head, trying to make it stop talking.
“First one was summoning me. The second was helping my host. Yellow. Stop it, human. It’s not going to work. You see, my one-soul construction man, had you not called red, I would not have had the power to come back. And now I have her forever, all because of you.”
Jim slouched sadly, as sadly as a construction sign can, anyway.
“I’m sorry, human.”
“Goodbye, foolish construction sign.” Triskadec kicked out through Maude, hitting the exclamation point hard and letting it fall to the ground. Then they stomped on the face until it was horribly dented. Tears ran down Maude’s cheeks.
“I don’t feel pain,” said Jim. “Don’t cry.”
“We’re just making sure he doesn’t get up and help.” said Triskadec sweetly. “Then we’re off to find a source.”
“No!” Maude said, crossing her arms. Her feet wouldn’t let her step off of Jim’s face. “We’re not hurting anyone else.
“Fine. You’re in charge.” Triskadec snarled.
The light bulb turned green.
All around her, construction workers appeared. They stared baffled at her, looking from the trafficlight on her head to the construction sign at her feet.
“You’re the traffic light kid from earlier, aren’t you? I was in that traffic jam!” A construction worker approached her. His face was shadowed, backlit by the flickering streetlight. It was getting really dark.
“Yellow.” Maude whispered. The bulb stayed green.
“The police are looking for you. You ruined our sign! That’s fifty bucks right there.”
“Yellow.” She said louder.
“What did you say to me?” The construction worker said.
“Yellow, yellow” Maude said, smacking the traffic light so hard that she lost her balance. Finally she slumped in defeat.
“Red.”
The construction workers disappeared into thin air. Triscadec returned.
“See, that’s what it’s like for you now. But if you stop being so selfish, no other human has to hate you. At least that you’ll know about. Okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it turn yellow?”
“Oh, you’ve given me enough power just by causing a traffic jam that I can take away that option, just for a little while. But, maybe if you would cooperate with me, we could go to that option and have a little freedom. But you have to prove it.”
Maude’s legs began running at full speed.
“Where are we going?” Maude asked, bewildered.
“We’re finding the source, simple as that.”
Out of the construction site they ran, past the traffic light and finally approaching the blabbering stop sign at the bottom of the street. Now that the red bulb was on, she could hear the voices at full volume. Maude had been contemplating the meaning of ‘source’ for a while now and knew that any stop at the police station would be better than what Triskadec was going to do. She grabbed on to the pole of the whispering stop sign and gripped it as hard as she could.
“I’m not going any further. We’re not going to hurt anyone!”
For a moment, her legs continued to run, moving uselessly against the sidewalk. The stop sign stopped talking. There was a creaking that came from the traffic light around her head. Then a small voice, so quiet that you had to strain to hear it whispered something that made her skin crawl.
“Let’s play by your rules. I will win.”
The green bulb blinked eerily on. It did not have the same calming effect as it did earlier, for now it was very dark and it made everything seem foreign, mysterious, and poisonous. However, Maude was still relieved to have freedom again.
She unlatched the clasp at her neck and lifted the box from her head. The cold night air hit her like a crashing wave, but it was refreshing and dry, in contrast to the humid, hollow stoplight. She knew her hair was sticking to her forehead with sweat, but that didn’t bother her.
She gave the stop light a final once-over before tossing it into one of the trash cans on the street.
It only occurred to her after she was walking in the door to her house, but Mr. Crypt’s dust rag had turned the word which she thought was the brand name into “Danger.” Chills tickled her arms and gave them goosebumps.
--
The following morning, she woke up with a big headache. Her mother was upstairs, waiting for her.
“Mom?”
“Maude, where were you last night? I was so worried, you didn’t come home from school and you weren’t there all night! I talked to the Crypts and they said that you had been there earlier with an odd old-fashioned stop light and…”
Maude’s heart skipped a beat. She had forgotten about the consequences of what had happened at the traffic jam and the construction site.
“Yeah, mom, but after I left their house a weird old man came to me and said, ‘whatdid ya do with me magic box?’ and so I handed it to him, cause I had just found it in the road and then he ran off cackling.” Maude lied.
“Oh, good. It wasn’t you then. The police were looking for someone with a stoplight over their head. It was probably him. But where were you the rest of the night?”
“I was really tired, so I came home and slept.”
“Without any dinner? Oh honey… I’ve been so caught up in your younger siblings I don’t hardly think about anything else. That’s so unfair of me, isn’t it?”
“No, mom, it’s okay. Really.” Maude said. “I’ve got to get to the bus stop, okay? Love you.”
It was only when she got to school that she remembered it was the day of Halloween. Kids were in costume everywhere. Even though she was a senior, everyone else in her grade had dressed up, so she stuck out.
She felt like telling someone about what had happened, but she didn’t know who. She pushed past five Barbies and a Killer Klown to get to US History.
She felt a weight and a suspense throught the entire day. Not just that she had lied to her mom, but that the stoplight had so calmly let her go. Maybe it was nothing, but why relinquish control unless you know you could gain it again?
“Hey, Jessica?” She asked after class. Her friend was dressed as a skeleton, with dramatic eyeliner and facepaint and a stiff black and white dress.
“Yes?”
“Let’s say you were a puppet.”
“This is already sounding too hypothetical for me.” Jessica laughed. “Keep going.”
“Let’s say you made a lot of money for the puppet master. You were his key to success.”
“Okay.” Jessica said hesitantly.
“What if one day the puppet master cut your strings and set you free.”
“Why would he do that?”
“No, I’m asking you.” Maude said. “Why would he get rid of his prize puppet?”
Jessica scanned the halls, taking in the bizarre costumes and considering the question.
“Cat and mouse.” Jessica said finally. “If he’s in power, he can play with the puppet all he wants without losing anything. Giving the puppet a glimpse of hope and then crushing it, well, that’s how you keep a puppet forever.”
The hairs stood up on the back of Maude’s neck. “Oh. Uh, okay. Thanks. Gotta go!”
Jessica shook her head, smiling. You never could know with Maude.
--
After school, Maude decided she would take a nap before the Halloween parties started. That way she could stay up all night and well into morning, as Halloween parties often did at her age.
When she closed her eyes, the image of the body that the stoplight had been feeding on flashed through her head.
“No, no.” Maude said. “I’m not thinking about that. I’m over and done with traffic lights.” She rolled over and covered her head with the blanket.
--
Maude, much younger, was swinging above a circle of wood chips. It was a foggy day, not much could be seen. There were no other playground components or buildings anywhere. Very close by she heard the out-of-tune ‘ding ding ding’ of a railroad crossing sign. She saw the red lights flashing over to the right. She kept pumping her legs, in, out, higher, higher.
She heard rumbling and a train crashed across the tracks, blowing its horn as it went. The train horn blew and blew, getting louder and louder. The sky got darker.
Maude found herself in the minute of awareness, realizing she was dreaming. She begged herself to wake up. The train sped toward her, she could see it now. The funny thing was, the headlight was green.
No, it was yellow.
No, it was red. The screaming of the horn, the screaming of the voice stopped. Dead silence.
Maude exploded awake, finding herself in the Crypt’s house.
Everything was dark and cold. Except her head. Her head was warm. She could hear a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.
Turning her head, as far as she could, she saw the heartbeat. It was slowing down. His face was becoming grey. There were cords tangling around his neck and chest.
Maude finished the scream that Grimm never would.
Anyways If you don't want to read all that junk here are the illustrations View attachment 3667874View attachment 3667877View attachment 3667881
Click to expand...
I was really hanging onto every word in this story. Such a creative idea!
 

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