The sixth of thirteen creepy tales of murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th…
Fatal Attachment by Mary Coley
Fun Fact:
I was hacked years ago and the creeps got all my vital information. For over twenty years, I’ve dealt with this, as they sell my information over and over again. I’ve been enrolled in Italian cooking classes, received books in the mail, and had attempts to file for my tax money. This story came from my revenge thoughts!
Find Mary’s Friday the 13th story here…
Blurb:
Oliver Calvert has been scammed more than once in recent weeks. The police can’t help. Oliver remembers how his wife, Rhanita used to handle those who wronged her. If he curses the unidentified culprits, will their lives be wrecked as his has been? On one Friday the 13th, he finds out.
Excerpt:
Oliver Calvert sat on the front porch glider. The muscles in his legs shook. He’d hardly slept last night, but when he did, the dreams he had were vivid nightmares. The plagues were visiting his dreams. Now he needed to find out how to visit them upon his scammers. How could that happen when he didn’t even know their names?
He shut his eyes, closing out the house across the street, the man walking his shepherd down the sidewalk, the blue jay squawking at him from that old elm in his front yard. Rhanita would know. He should have been able to go to her, to tell her that he loved her and needed her help as never before. Would she listen, would she help? Not that an answer mattered. She’d removed herself from him. They’d had so many years ahead of them. Now he was alone.
He clasped his hands together and recited again what his wife had always murmured, the curses she had uttered when someone had shunned her or made a sly comment that cut her to the quick. Rhanita was crafty that way. She always had a comeback, usually a curse. She’d mutter it and mutter it again. Then she’d go into the house and light black candles, throw her black shawl over her head, and kneel among the flickering flames, repeating the curse incessantly.
A few days of that and suddenly the cursed neighbor or acquaintance would be at the door with a casserole or home-baked bread, and a story to defend the offense. He thought the stories were simply excuses, but Rhanita took the offered gift with a frown and closed the door.
The offender might stay on the porch for hours, begging to be admitted, forgiven, or merely listened to. When Rhanita judged it had been long enough, and the regret was sincere, she would open the door, and nod. The offender would walk away, and Rhanita would replace the black candles with white ones, light them, and kneel once again, repeating a rush of words as she swayed wearing a white shawl.
Could it be that simple? A shawl, some candles and some murmured words? But what words? And how could it work if the offending party had no name?
A motorcycle zoomed down the street.
Oliver recalled what he had done last night. With only the light of the waning moon peeking into the dark bedroom, he found his wife’s shawl and the box of black candles, barely stubs. In the living room, he placed the lit candles in a circle on the wood floor, threw the shawl over his head and lifted his eyes toward heaven. “I am like Job, a simple man. This disaster was not deserved. The perpetrators are not worthy of success. I curse them. May the fruit of their work bring pain and misery. Send down the plagues of Egypt. The universe knows who did this.”
Words tumbled out. As he spoke, he heard Rhanita cursing the scammer until the moon and stars disappeared behind a thick cloud.
About the Author:
Mary Coley loves a good scare. She writes award-winning mysteries, usually set in her home state of Oklahoma. With the heart of an adventurer, she loves to travel and learn interesting new things. Sometimes they end up in her fiction.
https://www.facebook.com/MaryColeyAuthor
*** Find all the stories here: https://linktr.ee/fridaythe13thstories
Author Alicia Dean 