novella - Joan Harbor

FOND MEMORIES – A HORROR THRILLER SHORT STORY

This is a brief story about Mattie’s parents. Please enjoy. Check out MATTIE the book on Amazon. And let me know that you think!

Howard and Cynthia Green, Mattie’s parents, sat on the couch and looked through the photo album. An earlier photo of Mattie grabbed their hearts. The trickle of blood that ran down the corners of Mattie’s mouth only made her more adorable. The photo was taken on a sunny Sunday family drive. Mattie yelled, “Stop” from the backseat.

They pulled over to the side of the road. An enormous green field with cattle grazing was next to them. Mattie jumped from her booster seat through the window. They were shocked she moved that fast. They knew Mattie was quick. But nothing like what she just did. They thought she was hurt and rushed out of the car to look for her. Then broke out in laughter at their precocious daughter.

Barefoot Mattie, all three feet of her, was perched on the barbed wire fence watching the cows. The cows jerked their heads toward Mattie and stampeded away. Mattie giggled. Knowing they wanted her to chase them. She sprung off the fence and landed twenty feet away into a sprint. She bounded onto one of the largest cows. He went left and right to shake her off. She laughed and playfully sunk her teeth into his back. One minute later, he slowed and lay down. His nervous system was paralyzed by Mattie’s long, retractable teeth. The cow had only felt a pinch. A half-hour later, it had recovered. Mattie lay beside him until he did.

Howard and Cynthia looked at one another and teared up. Their little girl was having another birthday. Those cute memories were fading. She was still cute despite her having decades of history in her system. And she would always be their little Mattie.

Working hard on my new book!

Joan Harbor

MATTIE – A Thriller Horror Novella by Joan Harbor

MATTIE was a story that came to me after I watched several old vampire movies. A young actor caught my attention. I don’t recall the names of the movies. They weren’t blockbusters. But I remember a few scenes. And I wondered if a vampire could be helpful and brutal. It would just depend on the situation. Well, that was Mattie. Kind of. Here is the beginning of my novel MATTIE! Enjoy!

PROLOGUE

A LATE-NIGHT VISIT

ONE

DARREN COFFEN, SEVENTY, SAT up in bed and looked to the right out his window. He slung his feet from under the covers and slid them into his boots on the floor by the bed. He reached into the corner and grabbed his coat and shotgun. He heard his chickens clucking outside. The cows and horses were running or pounding the dirt with their hooves. There was a lot of commotion near the barn and in the fields. The animals were anxious about something.

He hurried to the back door to get outside and catch the culprits. This was not the first time whoever or whatever had trespassed onto his property. He was going down the hall and thought of Denice. She was seventy-one, his wife. He forgot to wake her. She was going to be angry.

Denice rarely heard him when he got out of bed. She wore a sleep mask and earplugs when she slept. The crickets were too loud for her sometimes. She had told Darren when he went outside to let her know. Then if something happened to him and he was not back in time, she would know to look for him. Her concern grew from an incident when Darren’s tractor turned over on him in a field when it slipped down a ditch. He lay half under the tractor and in the mud for three hours. It was dark when she realized how late it was for him not to be home. She went and found him and had to call for help. One rescuer told her if she had not gone out to look for him, the mud would have suffocated him. The mud had already covered half of Darren’s face.

Darren felt he could not go back to wake Denice. He had to put a stop to whatever was upsetting the animals and killing some of them. He opened the door and stood on the steps. The porch light lit things up near the house. Only one of the three pole lights was on. The light mounted on top of the barn was off. The lights in the barn’s doorway were off too. He knew he did not turn them off. Nor did Denice. They were on every night.

He held the shotgun up with the barrel toward the sky. Something ran out of the barn into the field. He fired two warning shots in the air and ran to the barn. He stopped outside the barn door. The noise from the horses inside the barn was louder than before. They jumped and kicked their stalls. The noise was so loud he feared the horses would split their hooves or break their legs trying to escape. Escape what?

If you like this chapter, please pass it on to a friend. You can read more of MATTIE or pick up the book on Amazon. It’s scary and entertaining!

Take care,

Joan Harbor

A Dance In The Moonlight For An Audience Of One

KIM WASSLER DROVE BY Vickers Cemetary in Ann Arbor, Michigan, every evening after work. She thought it was cute and peaceful as far as a cemetery could be. A few times, she stopped and looked at it. She wondered how many bodies were buried there. She would admit she was curious about the place. That all changed one evening in August 2023.

It was dusk, dark, and around eight pm. She noticed movement in the cemetery. Her first thought was vandalism. Some people got a kick out of vandalizing sacred places. She slowed to see the culprits and gasped to a stop!

A man with thinning white hair in a dirty, worn black suit held a woman close in a dingy white wedding gown. They did slow, circular dancing movements. He dipped her backward. Her head went back and was supported by a neck that was nothing but bones. He brought her back up. They stopped dancing and waved Kim over.

Kim was paralyzed for a few seconds before stomping on the gas. She has not been by Vickers Cemetary since.

I’m Joan Harbor. I am working on a new book. It’s a ghost story. It involves people who don’t know they’re dead. Sometimes they get upset. Kim Wessler is one character in it. I have not chosen the book’s title. But I’ll let you know when I do. Enjoy your nights and the short story about one of the characters.

If you enjoyed the story, please send it to a friend and leave me your email. I’ll keep you posted on my new books and other short stories that are coming out.

Joan Harbor