Welcome to FROST HARROW, my new modern (1990s) gothic horror series! If you’d like to support this and my other work, go to www.CushingHorrors.com and become my patron! You may also enjoy the Scribe Award-Winning MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE – In print, for kindle, and for all e-book formats. And check out my retro-horror-comedy classic CANOE COPS VS. THE MUMMY as well as my other books. Now… On with the show!
SEPTEMBER 1997
ONE – IVY
Ivy spun the wheel, and her car careened toward the edge of the cliff.
The Honda’s tires caught the shoulder, kicking gravel into the air. Desperately, she tried to cut the wheel in the opposite direction—but it was too late.
The car crashed through the flimsy roadside barricade and plummeted down the side of Victor’s Bluff.
A million things flashed through Ivy’s mind in that fleeting moment:
She doubted she’d ever complete the company errand she was supposed to run in Superior. Her uncle Dan would be disappointed, of course. But that would be nothing new. She often disappointed him.
She wondered if her best friend, Cassie Peters, would hear about the accident before their planned rendezvous at the Town Spa for dinner that evening.
How ironic, Ivy thought, that this should happen just a few months after she’d made her final car payment. She wished she hadn’t cut back on the deductible.
Memories flitted past: Tony’s violet eyes; Colin’s sarcastic smile. The moment on the beach where that handsome lifeguard had admired her new bikini. The autumn bike rides through Winslow Hills that she enjoyed so much. The day she finally beat her dad at checkers—without him losing on purpose—when she was ten. Her mother’s worried face as a fourteen-year-old Ivy left on her first serious date. What ever happened to that boy? The taste of her first kiss. How time froze when she first heard of her parents’ deaths in that train crash three years ago. The black and white cat running into the road moments earlier, just before Ivy cut the wheel.
She wished to God that she’d just stayed on the road and hit the stupid animal.
Ivy felt a sudden jolt, and the next thing she knew she was upside down—hanging by her seatbelt. The Honda lay around her, a twisted mass of crumpled metal. A dripping sound came from her right, and a faint, sweet smell hung in the air. Gasoline.
Ivy struggled but found herself oddly restrained. Her chest felt crushed and heavy—it was difficult to breathe. Something warm dripped down her left arm. She looked to where the arm hung limply in the air. Blood. Her arm was covered in blood.
Ivy realized with a shock that the blood must be hers. Too much blood. A warm, sleepy sensation began to overtake her.
Another sound came to her ears. Music from the car’s radio. Sputtering in its death throes, something within the Honda refused to die.
“…We’ll meet, beyond the shore…”
Ivy recognized the singer as Bobby Darin. Her mother’s favorite singer. Mom’s favorite song, she thought.
Despite the pain, it brought a smile to Ivy’s parched lips.
How nice. How restful to be on the seashore in the warm sun. Ivy could almost imagine herself there now.
A man’s voice came from far away… beyond the sea.
“Ivy?! Ivy Frost?! Jesus!”
She didn’t recognize the voice. Who was it? How did he know her?
And then she died.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Read my FREE Frost Harrow Halloween stories:
“The Weeping Ghost” (2012), “A Trace of Violet” (2013), “Lunchroom Zombies” (2014), “Omens & Visitations” (2015), “Fata Morgana” (2016), “At the Appointed Hour” (2017), and “Devil’s Lake” (2018).
