The children from the apartment complex next door hollered and carried on all Saturday morning and into the late afternoon. The pond behind the old folk’s home had frozen over and was now hard enough to skate on.

Annie Clarke sat at her bedroom window, knees tucked beneath a knitted throe and watched, remembering her childhood and living vicariously through the boys and girls she saw playing atop the pond’s frozen surface. In recent months it had become difficult to remember things, including her own name, which had been Annabelle Thornton before she married Aldon Clarke nearly 65 years before.

But today, Annie recalled in vivid detail how her Aldon had proposed to her on a frozen little pond like this in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, all those decades ago. They were a happy couple, having raised two daughters and a son, all who would be here tomorrow with her grandchildren, to celebrate her 88^th birthday.

“Fun times,” came the familiar voice behind her. She turned and saw her Aldon, though most folks insisted on calling him ‘Bull,’ which is due to his size.

Even at 90-years of age, her husband had a demanding presence. And he was still as handsome as the day she’d first met him.

“Yes,” she said, “Wish I could get out there and take a spin.”

“You could,” he said.

She looked at him with surprise. “What do you mean, I can barely stand up.”

“I can help you stand up and I’ll even let you hold on to me, if you’d like to have a try.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Feelin’ a bit shy, are you?”

The sun had set and the sky was clear, with a full-moon reflecting of the now-battered ice. The children had long retired and it was nearly bed-time for Annie and the other residence of the home.

As she began to get ready for bed by first closing her curtains, she saw Aldon again. This time he was standing in the center of the icy pond and looking towards Annie, waving his arm, inviting her to come down and join him.

“Damned fools gonna catch his death,” she thought. Then she smiled, went to her closet and pulled down her red wool jacket, her favorite and slipped it on.

Then she stepped out into the hallway and walked towards the back door and stepped out into the evening’s cold. Next she found herself walking, albeit carefully, down the hill side to the pond, where Aldon waited.

True to his word, her Aldon took her hand and led her onto the ice. And with her left arm tucked tight in his strong right, she glided in her house slippers across the ice.

By this time a light snow had begun to fall from the otherwise cloudless night. “What a treat,” Annie laughed as Aldon held her tight to his side.

As they twirled across the ice, the snow began to come harder and harder. The sky also began to cloud over and a certain darkness fell over the pond, save for the two faces that skated there, glowing in an otherworldly manner.

Their laughter echoed across the pond and through the asphalt parking lot of the rows of apartments next door. A woman in an apartment, whose kitchen window overlooked the pond, heard the laughter and upon seeing an old woman spinning and twirling, wondered, “What in the hell is she up to?”

Seeing that the woman was clad in nothing more than a red robe, light blue slipper and little else, she grabbed her jacket and started for the door. She rushed as quickly as she could, taking care not to find an icy patch of sidewalk to slip and fall down on, to the front door of the care facility.

It took a few minutes to get anyone of the staff’s attention to come to the locked door. By this time, the sky had clouded over and the snow came down so thick that it could be called blinding.

Two staff members raced down to the pond to find Annie and return her to her room. Once there they found no one on the pond, though they did locate a pair of baby-blue house slippers and a worn out fishing cap.

After two days of divers scouring the pond and finding nothing, the search was called off. A week later, Annie’s two daughters, their husbands, along with her son and his wife, 11 grandchildren and two great grand-babies all gathered to say goodbye to the empty coffin that they laid to rest next to Aldon Clarke grave site.

The three adult kids of Annabelle and Aldon ‘Bull’ Clarke couldn’t explain where their father’s work hat, a Long Bill Fishing Snapback, came from when investigator’s turned it and the slippers over to the family. As far as each knew, that hat, clearly recognizable to each of them since they’d given it to him on his 56th birthday, a year before it was lost and long missing, along with their dad, when the charter fishing vessel he was operating, disappeared in a sudden white-out on Lake Superior 33-years before.

My wife hasn’t ordered anything from Amazon in the last couple days, which worried the delivery driver, who knock on our door wanting to know if everything was okay.

“I’m all fucked up in the head and no-one understands,” he grumbled as he climbed from his truck, “And someone has to pay — and I don’t care who.”

Drowning in a violent madness, Manly Davis breached the locked front door of the Catholic Church by kicking it in, jus’ as he had learned to do while serving with the Marines in Iraq.  Rifle in hand, he found above the alter, what it was he sought.

The life-sized man, hanging from the cross, his blood feet, hands and side, reflecting through the stain glass windows. Davis stood there, looking up, transfixed on the gaunt figure he once worshiped.

“Come down here and face me like a man, you bastard!” he screamed at the man stuck upon the wall.

When Davis got no response, he raised his rifle and fired, the round piercing the carving’s plaster chest. Amid the white chalky dust, the burnt gunpowder and the resounding echo, he dropped to his knees, crying so hard that he couldn’t catch his breathe.

As he lay curled in a fetal position, gasping and sputtering for air, at the foot of the alter, he saw bare blood-smeared foot. Before Davis could raise up to see who it belonged too, the foot moved away and was replaced by a pair of knees.

Then Davis felt himself raising up to face what he found to be a man, the man that had been on the cross above him, the one whom he’d jus’ shot, hearing these word, “I forgive you, my brother and I have your six. Remember that I love you and always will.”

A weight lifted from his heaving shoulders and he slumped heavily to the ground and fell into a deep, catatonic sleep. It was the first real slumber Davis had experienced since returning stateside.

When he next woke, he was in the psychiatric wing of the local Veterans Administration hospital.  While a confusion overwhelmed him, the peace Manly Davis finally felt, never again left.

In both grade and high school they had teased him, called him ‘nerd,’ and at the time, it bothered him. But as a ‘senior,’ as society is want to do, at 60-years-old Rod Westford didn’t care what anyone called him.

“Jus’ don’t call me late for dinner,” he often joked.

He had married his late wife right after college, had a son with her, was a grandpa now. He’d also became filthy rich, becoming one of the first people to get in on the tech boom of the late 80’s and sell his insurance company before the bubble burst.

Now retired, Rod enjoyed his past times; traveling, writing, photography and doting on his grandchild. He especially liked collecting antique toys and refurbishing them if possible, using original pieces and then gifting them to the little girl.

Rod pulled his small truck into the gas station on the western edge of Waggoner, Oklahoma, got out and pumped gas till his tank was full. Then he went inside to pay.

It was there that he found an old faded and dusty display case filled with odds-and-ends including a weathered Jack-in-the-box. The metal box and handle had rust on them, but the container was in good shape.

“How much?” he asked.

“Five bucks,” the old woman said, “Don’t work though.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take it.”

“Your money.”

Having paid for the gas, the toy and gotten a coffee and a couple of stale doughnuts, Rodney turned his truck out onto the road, the box and two glazed maple bars seated next to him. An hour later, he pulling into a rest area and got out to ‘drain the dragon’ and stretch his legs.

Having done both, he returned to the drivers seat and then turned his attention to the Jack-in-the-box. Taking it from the plastic bag, he held it up and examined it.

“I like the used look of it,” he smiled.

Then he turned the crank on the side. The toy played the customary carnival music with its ‘tink-tink-tink,’ but where the Jack should have popped out of the spring loaded lid, nothing happened.

“She did say it was busted,” he reminded himself as he set the toy back in the seat next to him.

At Las Vegas, in southern Nevada, Rodney made the northward turn on 95 and home in Reno. It was jus’ before 11 pm and he debated whether to stop or not, but he was itching to get home and sleep in his own bed after 10 days of travel.

Slightly after five the next morning, Rodney pulled into his driveway. He was tired and decided to leave most everything in the vehicle, save for his cellphone, camera and the Jack-in-the-box.

No sooner had he opened his front door and stepped inside than he was confronted by a quick-moving man in dark clothing. He struck Rodney in the head with a fist then stabbed him under the left arm, up near the pit.

Following two swift, but brutal kicks to the head and right side, Rodney lost consciousness. Yet jus’ before he did, he thought he heard something – a ‘tink-tink-tink,’ sound.

Darkness engulfed his brain.

It was a neighbor, out walking her dog, that noticed the front door to Rodney’s home was open and that a pair of legs could be seen from the sidewalk. She called the police.

It would take a six-hour surgery to close up the deep penetration of the knife and another three days in a hospital bed before Rodney could return home. By that time his son, his daughter-in-law and granddaughter had come to see him and were planning to be at his home upon discharge from the hospital.

Now home, Rodney was also met by investigators.

“As you know, we found the guy that did this to you, down the street, dead. Any idea how you injured him so badly.”

“None, I don’t even recall fighting with anyone, it all happened so quickly.”

The older cop added, “We figure you fought back, injured the guy and his accomplice tried getting him away, but left him to die.”

It wasn’t till late in the evening, once everything had settled down, that Rodney had time enough to think. Still sore, he got out of bed, where his daughter-in-law and granddaughter insisted he stay and went to the front room.

He pulled back the drapes and opened the sliding glass door, hoping to get a little fresh air. That’s when he saw it; the Jack-in-the-box, open and bobbing back and forth in the nighttime breeze.

Stepping out onto his patio, he picked the box up off the picnic table and looked at it closely. It’s hard plastic face and once-bright nylon clothing seemed oddly stained.

He gently pushed the Jack down into the box and closed the lid. Then he turned the handle on the side, listening to the musical  ‘tink-tink-tink,’ before the toy failed to open.

Rodney Westford couldn’t be sure, but he thought maybe, jus’ maybe, the toy had saved his life, by savaging his attacker. He chuckled at the thought as he sat the toy on the nightstand beside his alarm clock before laying down.

Appearing as a smallish, dark spot on the wall in front of her, without her glasses, Edeana Winters couldn’t tell what it was. Then it moved.

Spider. And while she didn’t fear of them, she didn’t like them.

Her mind raced to a piece of trivia she’d learned years before, ‘We swallow at least nine spiders in over our life time while we sleep.’ She shuddered at the thought.

“How the hell does anyone know that?” she laughed, adding, “We’re supposedly asleep when it happens.”

Since she was sitting on the commode, in the dark and only half-awake, she unceremoniously wadded up some toilet paper and pounced. She had it bunched in the paper before it knew what had happened.

Next Edeana pushed the paper between her thighs, then turned on the seat and flushed. Feeling better, she returned to the task at hand, peeing and getting back to bed.

As she gathered another wad of paper, she felt a strange sensation move across her right butt-cheek. She stood up, flipping on the light to see what had caused it.

To her fright, a spider, the size of her hand, had crawled out of the sewer line and try as she might, she could not flush it down the drain. She quickly left the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Beneath the doorway, she could see the shadow of the spider, crawling, testing to see if it could escape. At seeing this, Edeana Winters decided she’d be better off sleeping elsewhere for the night and the Clown Motel was only a mile down the road.

It’s  hard knowing that someone I’ve known since the mid-70’s, and who is a year younger than me, has passed away. Dave and I used to run track together and that’s where I first met him.

We ran for the Del Norte Track Club, run by Dee Sullivan, out of Crescent City as well as our high school track team. We were both sprinters and long jumpers.

In 1979, David set the school record in the 100 meter dash, eclipsing my record in the 100 yard dash from the year previous. They changed from ‘yards’ to ‘meters’ that year, making the race about nine and a third yards longer than it had been.

As I was perusing through Facebook, I learned he had passed away following a heart attack while working out. I sat there re-reading the post made by his brother Daniel, and I started crying.

After taking a couple of days to process his death in my heart and in my mind, I reached out to Dan and asked if I might help him by writing David’s obituary.  He granted me the honor…

David Anthony LeVeque was born on July 15, 1961 in Ridgecrest, California, passing away in Dubai, UAE on June 18, 2020, where he was working and living.  A gifted athlete, David played football, basketball and ran track-and-field all four-years, before graduating from Del Norte High School in 1979.

Following school, David went on to establish himself in the entrepreneurial field, where he earned the nickname, ‘Master of the Deal,’ by those he brought together in business.  He also owned and operated ‘Prince Engineering’ and ‘Prince Transport,’ before selling both and embarking on his life-long dream of world travel.

David is survived by his mom, Lucy Gonsalves; wife, Darla; and children, Christy, Debbie, Katie, Ryan and Stephen.  He also leaves behind sisters, Loretta (Paul) and Lisa (David;) brothers, Eddie (Martina,) Charles (Jennifer,) Jason, James and Daniel (Cynthia,) and 13 grandchildren.

The Go-Fund-Me page, “David Anthony LeVeque Memorial Scholarship Fund,” has been established for deserving students attending Del Norte High School.

David had a natural capacity for leadership and he demonstrated this ability, both on the playing field and off. I am so happy to have called him friend and I will continue to do so until my final breath.

I’d brood over The Dixie Chicks changing their name to The Chicks, but it seems they’ve already hatched that one.

She asked me to write a romance story…

It was the gray largest wolf I had ever seen in my life, the size of a smaller Shetland pony.  I only saw it for a couple of seconds, before it disappeared into the wood line ahead of me.

Reflecting back on the sighting, I realized something about the animal was off, perhaps unnatural, maybe nature, an accident or purposeful. At any rate, it was missing its tail.

As I rested by the trail from where I had first seen the beast, I realized that I was no longer alone. I suddenly felt a heavy panting breathe steaming at my left shoulder.

Without moving my head, I slowly lifted my hand to my shoulder and touched the bearded jaw of the wild dog. And though a chill shuddered its way through my body, I remained calm and gently scratched at the hairy patch that was slightly over and above my shoulder.

It groaned gently and laid down next to me, exposing it’s furry underside. I rubbed it’s belly.

The creature slowly transformed into a petite woman, white haired and brown body. We made love on that trail from where I first saw her, without a single word passing our lips.

The wood shed was visited rarely, was weather beaten and had begun to slide into disrepair. The previous winter rains and spring wind had knocked the old building from its foundation and the process had been made easier by the fact that what was stored in it was stacked away haphazardly.

George Nilsen decided to remedy the situation by fixing the thing up and reorganizing the items stored in it. It was a slow process as first he needed to empty the building of several plastic containers, unused camping gear, old records and cassette tapes, misfit plates and silverware, an old couch, chair and side table, all of which sat collecting dust.

With the unloading of the stored items and following a week, the building was back on it’s proper foundation, and George began to return the previously stored items to their place. He looked at each piece he returned, making certain to take care to keep the interior properly balanced.

One curious item drew his immediate attention; a small red wooden box labeled “Små guder,”and a tiny lock holding it closed. “What is that? Norwegian?” he asked himself, thinking back to a book he’d once read to his now grown son, as a young child.

The lock, no bigger than a half-dollar, made of a cheap aluminum was easy to remove. George set it aside, once he’d gotten it of the box.

The box contained a set of antique ventriloquist dummies, that he’d forgotten about. It had belonged to his friend Casey Johansen, who’d disappeared two years previously.

He tried to recall how he came to be in possession of the dummies. Nothing came to mind.

“Like it simply appeared out of nowhere.”

When he lifted the lid, he felt a chilly breeze rush over his entire body.

“Perhaps, it’s the weather change we’re expecting this weekend.”

With the possibility of rain on it’s way, George hurriedly returned the remainder of the items back to the shed and barred it shut. He’d return once the sun had a chance to dry things out, and since it was the high desert of Nevada, he knew it wouldn’t take long.

The following day, as he sipped his morning’s coffee, he saw that the shed was open.

“I know I put the bar in place,” he told himself and he walked out and reapplied the length of wood.

Come the next morning, it was open again. He searched around the building, in the damp earth for foot-prints.

None were to be seen.

This time he looked inside the shed. There he found the red box with the ventriloquist’s dummies slightly out of place.

Since he’d broken the lock when he forced it open, it wasn’t secure, so opening it was less of an effort. There he found both dummies gone.

Angry, George was certain that someone had entered the shed with out his knowledge and had stolen the pair of dummies. As he turned to leave, he was struck in the head and his world quickly went dark.

By the time he regained consciousness, it was dark and he was hanging from the center beam of the shed, upside down and trussed up like a feral hog for slaughter. He could hear and see no one as he struggled against the ropes that held him.

Then somewhere from behind, he heard the high chanting of voices of what believed were children’s voices and smelled the harsh aroma of a wet wood fire. George wiggled until he was turned, so he might see what was happening.

To his shock and fright, he saw the two dummies moving about a small blaze with a miniature kettle with a boiling liquid steaming from it.

“What the…” he uttered, his voice trailing off from the shock.

Both dummies looked his way, grinning their odd frozen show-like smiles, then returned to their chanting and what looked to be, to George, a ritual dance. With his blood congregating in his head, he passed out once again.

Awaking, this time he found himself, wet, cold and centered over the kettle. It took him a few minutes, amid his struggle to get free, to realize that the kettle had grown in size.

“…or am I smaller?”

Since he could neither hear, nor see the dummies, he thought that perhaps they had abandoned him. But then he felt the slip of the rope that held him about the legs and knew he was about to drop into the still-steaming cauldron of brackish fluid.

He plunged into the liquid. It was warm, thick and sticky, and he was certain that he was going to drown as he held his breathe.

As fine bubbles began to issue from his lips, and knowing he was losing the battle with his lungs, he was quickly raised and this time he saw his two minute agitators. They were hastily dousing the flames and removing the kettle.

In it’s place, that dragged the box that one held the pair. In it, he saw another figure, a woman, bent at the middle and folded to fit in the cut-out that had once held one of the two dummies that were now preparing him for the same fate.

Though he tried to struggle, George discover his body was limp and practically useless. He screamed hoarsely as they dropped him without onto his back and without ceremony into the padded box, roughly arranged him, folding him at his middle, his legs over his head, and face poking out from between his shins.

In place, he saw the lid as it slapped shut and listened as the lock he had busted, and now repaired was clicked into place. He heard the pair speaking in muffled tones and giggling as they left the shed.

“Who’re you?” George Nilsen choked, his voice thick and clumsy while becoming less and less.

A long ragged draw of breath and gurgle was all that could be heard with nothing more than continuous darkness and silence following.

It was jus’ a short trip, time-wise, as I wanted to take a few pictures of how Mid-town Reno is coming along after the beginning of the COVID-19 stuff. I hadn’t even turned my camera one when I was yelled at for not wearing a face mask.

No wanting the woman and the guy with her to continue haranguing me, so I pulled my mask from my pocket and proceeded to put it on. This didn’t go well as I have a mask that displays the Eagle, Globe and Anchor of the US Marine Corps.

More yelling and screaming ensued and I decided that I should head back to my truck. Neither person would make that an easy venture as they followed, hollering and cursing at me for the image on my mask.

Then, no more than 20-feet from my truck, the woman raced up and shoved me hard in the back. Caught off guard, I fell, but because of my martial arts background, I rolled right-shoulder-to-feet and popped up.

Both were right there to continue their harassment. I backed away in attempt to keep the peace and to keep an eye on the pair.

She rushed at me again. This time I was facing her and I stepped to my left and thrust my arm straight out, palm open, smashing her in the face.

Her momentum carried her body out from under her head, which had come to a sudden and sickening stop at the end of my arm, She dropped like a sack of wet cement on the asphalt, bouncing her head off the ground in the process.

She did not get up.

With that her male companion started screeching about ‘not hitting a woman.’ As he did this, he rushed me, throwing wild punches, hoping one would connect with me and hurt me.

Ducking to my right and then spinning in the same direction, I popped up over his left shoulder and when he turned to face me, I cracked open his nose with my right elbow. He dropped, still conscious and but screaming in pain.

Not wanting to wait to be the victim of another attack, I drop to the police station and reported what had happened. I had to sit and wait for an officer to check on the situation, the people and the scene.

While he found blood drops on the ground, he could find no one willing to press charges or anything. Fortunately for me, a business across the way caught the entire incident on their security camera and I have been sent home to wait for further action, if any is to be taken.

My wife said it best, “Trouble seems to follow you like a little dust devil.”

They shouldn’t have done what they did and now, I’m sitting here wondering if I’ll have to pay for their actions. I’ll have to keep you posted.