E Minora in Dark Shade

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George Holbrook feels it in the pit of his guts.

Terror coursed through his veins like an orgy of bad drugs. The vitriolic pain seared as the gears to his sanity ground together so many feelings. But none as conflicting as that of shame and joy. Yes, joy to what he had done. Shame to what he had done. Shame with a small pinch of regret. The kind you can live with. Still, there was joy.

Through the summer woods, he swayed as the world seemed to rumble and spin. The spasm took hold in his eyes but affected him throughout as he nearly toppled to the earth that was still moist from the previous rain. A few hundred yards before he returned to the civilized world where the sanity he had always known remained.

But first, after slamming into a tree, catching and holding. George puked that it hurt clear into that stirring mass within his guts. The aftertaste caused his throat to reflex and bring about a second spew. Able to wonder if this had been the same place where Billy Harris puked during the events prior.

He needed to get ahold of himself. He had to do it before he passed through the trees and found himself before someone he may have known. It wouldn't have been a good look for him. Not a good image for whomever it might have been out and about on this end of town. The chances were in his favor. It was summer, and people were out enjoying it rather than hanging out around this haunted slum. But you never did know. Once, he had been two towns over and ran into a few faces from work. What were the chances? Slim, but again, you never could know. As for what happened and what could happen in the coming days, The last thing George Holbrook wanted was anything that could be considered suspicion.

Why was this a concern? The deaths of his wife and stepson, of course. His brain was able to put it all together as he pondered things like murder. Was it murder, really? It wasn't his hands to which the bitch and the brat had met their end, no. It was that thing down in that bunker—the fabled bunker of Clevon McDougal. Bunker? Prison seemed more like it. There had always been stories of that crazy old loon. No one ever believed them. Except for children, perhaps. Children like Billy Harris and his worm of a stepson, Travis. Yes. It was Travis, who George heard raving about searching behind the haunted McDougal house where he was now trying to escape.

"Oh, God. Dear God." George muttered as the static of his mind began to clear. The smile of that thing burned into memory.

It was Travis, who he heard talk about going on a wild ghost chase to find the place. Travis, the terror of the neighborhood children on both the playground and the streets. His stepson, Maxine's son. Who had been nothing more than a little shit since the day he entered George's world. Still remembering their first meeting when Travis had seen the six crystal swans displayed on a shelf in the living room. The Holbrook family heirlooms handed down three generations. The boy was young then. Only four. Such a tender age. Or so George had thought before the cretin pulled the shelf down and the swans along with it. He remembered how Travis grinned at him as he swept up the shattered pieces. Also, remembering how Maxine wouldn't allow her boy to take fault. The excuses that continued on for ten more years.

The first time George heard about the bunker was two weeks ago. He remembered it vividly. The same quiet morning when he was sitting on the porch, enjoying his coffee and reading his newsfeed. When Maxine had belittled him for being a school bus driver. It didn't matter if he was the breadwinner or if she never needed. Not that she didn't always want more than was necessary. Or that she had spent their entire marriage working barely part-time at a grocery store that didn't even pay minimum wage. There was always something to nag about. Always some way to gouge at him. She was gone that morning, and he remembered the peace and quiet that became a novelty in his life. A little while before Travis came laughing up the street about how he and his shitheel friends had thrown Billy Harris' bike into a creek and punched the poor child in the stomach. Travis and his friends were proud of themselves.