Tiny Horror

The next evening, Jim sat in a corner booth at a trendy new bistro on College Avenue. He had come straight from the insurance tower, his mind still cluttered with the day's spreadsheets and actuarial tables. The restaurant was bright and loud, filled with the dinner rush clatter of silverware and the smell of roasted garlic. It was supposed to be a standard lifestyle piece: an interview with a young chef who was making waves with farm-to-table infusions.

His digital recorder was running on the table between them, but Jim was barely listening.

"The secret is the soil," the chef said, leaning forward with an intensity that usually would have captured Jim's attention. "If the earth isn't rich, the produce doesn't have a soul. You can taste the minerals, the history of the land."

Jim nodded mechanically, his eyes fixed on the condensation dripping down his glass of iced tea. In his mind, he was still in the mist-choked darkness of Riverside. He could still feel that unnatural heat radiating from the granite. He could still see the way the viscous red liquid had thinned and was being absorbed into the stone like water into a sponge. The memory was accompanied by a growing, restless urge to return to the cemetery. He needed to look at the stone again before the dusk deepened, to verify the physical evidence before his own logic convinced him that the night had been a hallucination.

"Mr. Thorne?" the chef prompted, his brow furrowing. "Are you getting this?"

"Right, soil. Souls. Minerals," Jim muttered, forcing a tight smile. "I've got it all. I just need a few follow-up shots of the kitchen."

He wrapped the interview as quickly as he could, skipping the usual banter. He paid his bill and walked out into the cooling air of the early evening. The sun was hanging low over the horizon, casting a weak, amber light through a sudden, heavy bank of river mist.

He didn't go back to his apartment to start the bistro write-up. Instead, he drove straight to Riverside Cemetery.

He parked in his usual spot and hiked back to the Blood plot. The evening light was failing rapidly, the amber sun struggling to pierce the thickening fog. He reached the oak tree and stopped, his breath catching in his throat.

The stone was pristine.

There wasn't a streak of red. There wasn't a faint pink hue in the crevices of the letters. Even the grass at the base of the monument, where the liquid should have pooled and stained the earth, was perfectly green and healthy. Jim pulled his Nikon from his bag, his fingers shaking as he scrolled through the images on the small LCD screen.

The images were clear. The deep, shocking crimson was undeniable. The D700 hadn't lied; the camera's sensor had captured exactly what he had seen. But as he looked at the gray, silent granite in front of him, he felt a sudden, sharp spike of nausea. He slid the camera back into the bag, his hands still trembling, and started to stand, intending to leave the mystery behind.

"I told you some things are better left accurately recorded, Jim."

The voice was right at his shoulder.

He spun around, losing his footing on the soft turf and dropping into a low, desperate scramble. The open bag caught on his arm, and as he hit the ground, the Nikon tumbled out onto the grass.

Mrs. Gable was standing right there, her presence so sudden and silent it felt like she had materialized from the fog itself. She was dressed in the same dark windbreaker Jim had seen at midnight, her posture rigid. In the dying light, her spectacles reflected the last of the amber sun in two cold, silver discs.

"Isn't it fascinating how it thirsts?"

The tale continues...