In honor of Halloween, I offer you my newly released horror story, “How It Died,” published by Blank Fiction Magazine.

I hope everyone had a night of horrors. Maybe ghosts followed you home and dark creatures lingered in the corner of your eye. I hope you kept the pumpkin lit and danced around the fire. Halloween is the night when the dead come to visit. Were you ready to say hello?

How It Died
by Sara Dobie Bauer
Published by Blank Fiction Magazine

My first and last November in Boston, I attended what Americans call Thanksgiving. My attendance was due to my romantic affiliation with Amy. I met her at the university where I was a graduate student and TA. She was also a graduate student, although of a different program. We met at one of those student mixers forced upon me by my advisor who insisted I “meet people.” Amy was the only woman present interested in mythology, and due to her high intelligence, we hit it off. I rarely hit if off with anyone.

I stood with a whiskey along the back wall of a living room crowded by family photos and semi-overweight family members. The men of Amy’s family sat in a half circle around the TV with a large tray between them, covered in salami-wrapped pretzels, potato chips and dip, and square-shaped orange crackers. Children ran in and out of the room, in and out, except one small, quiet little boy who knelt on the floor and pet the cat.

“John?” Amy arrived at my side. She was the only woman in my entire life that had ever called me John. Everyone else the world over called me Jonathan. However, due to her usage, the name spread. Her entire family called me John already, along with one drunken uncle who used the foul Johnny. “You doing okay?”

I nodded and looked cheerful.

She leaned up on her toes and whispered, “My sister thinks you’re a dream.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. Amy was brilliant and petite. In heels, her blond head fit comfortingly beneath my chin. She had one of those short haircuts that made her look like a fairy and small hands that searched for me beneath bed sheets.

“Have you eaten?”

“I thought we were supposed to wait for the turkey.”

“Amy, sweetie.” We heard her mother’s voice from the kitchen. “Could you do the mashed potatoes? No lumps. You know the kids hate lumps.”

“Yeah, mom.” She kissed the side of my jaw and winked before leaving me once again alone to consider the fat men in uniforms on the TV screen. I decided instead to watch the quiet child who toyed with the family cat.

The little boy had dark hair and brown eyes, the opposite of Amy. He resembled my own childhood photos. He wore a little red shirt and jeans with stocking feet. I marveled at his smallness. I was never around children anymore—easy to forget they existed at all. This boy was very small, skinny, with a large head, and he used his soft, child’s hands to pet the cat and whisper in its ear.

The cat was another story. She was massive, fat, and awful, with long, white fur and wicked green eyes. Cats always made me uncomfortable. I suspected they were forever planning something, murder perhaps. How easy it would be for them to scratch out my throat as I slept. To think the foul creatures were once worshipped as gods, but they were a bit like God: feared and impossible to understand.

I watched the little boy coddle the cat. I listened to the sound of an electric beater in the kitchen, where Amy prepared lump-less mashed potatoes. The TV grew louder as cooking noise increased. Men yelled when a referee made an announcement inaudible over the sound of their outraged screams. I could hear my pulse beating in my brain. My head began to ache, so I focused on the child with the cat to stay calm. Amy had already told me cigarettes were forbidden at Thanksgiving; her mother would have cast me out like a leper.

The child stretched out on his stomach in front of the fat cat and rolled his little fingers into a tight fist. His mouth moved in soft whispers, and when he opened his hand, a shadow of darkness filled the cup of his open palm. He whispered some more and leaned closer to the cat until the cat opened its sharp-toothed mouth. They existed like that, together, perfectly still, until the shadow in the boy’s palm moved like a cloud of smoke toward the cat’s mouth and down its throat. Then, the boy touched the cat’s head happily and looked at me.

I almost dropped my drink when Amy touched my arm. “Dinner’s ready.”

(Things take a decidedly gruesome turn from here. Read the rest for a dollar at Blank Fiction Magazine. This issue also features a story from my spooky pal Tiffany Brown, so read, read … and scream! Happy Halloween!)

I don’t like clowns.

Evil cat photo credit: Angels Dropping / Tumblr