TODAY, WE ARE DELIGHTED TO FEATURE AUTHOR, DAWN COLCLASURE, WHO IS SHARING HER SHORT STORY FROM 'THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND' AND A POEM FROM HER BOOK, 'NATURE THERAPY' #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat
- Eva Bielby
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
STORY PUBLISHED IN
The Devil’s Playground: A Horror Charity Anthology for Drug Addiction
Edited by Kasey Hill, with Jacque Day and Rob Tannahill
Copyright 2024
Addiction/dp/1945987928/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Tsg1G&content-
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“A Guilty Conscience”
By Dawn Colclasure
Treesa Clemmings tossed in her sleep, grunting and twitching as scenes from her dream continued. She was running in the dream, with the sound of a baby crying behind her. She heard the sounds of dogs barking, tires screeching, horns honking and whistles blowing all around her in the busy city. But the sound of the baby crying grew louder and louder, nearly penetrating her ears. It was as though the farther she ran to get away from her crime, the louder it grew.
A woman suddenly appeared in front of her, bringing Treesa to a screeching halt. The woman appeared to be in her twenties, just as Treesa was, and she stood just an inch taller than her. She grabbed Treesa’s shoulders and shook her.
“Why didn’t you help her?” the woman demanded. “Why didn’t you save my baby?”
Treesa shot up in bed, gasping and sweating. The images from the dream faded from her mind, and she relaxed against the headboard. She continued to breathe heavily as she sat there, and then she sighed as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She sat with her elbows on her knees, gasping as she clasped her head in her hands. She had not expected to have a bad dream about the day’s event. She had hurried away from the bridge once she knew there was someone there about to toss something over the side of it. She was just an innocent bystander, although this time, she hadn’t been drunk.
Perhaps seeing that sort of thing triggered the memory from before.
The last time she had seen someone about to throw a bundled item off of that bridge, she’d had one too many bottles of beer. She’d mumbled something as she stumbled toward the man at the bridge, who held something over the edge. Something wearing red-footed pajamas on tiny legs. But all she’d said was, “You better be careful with that,” then ambled off, lost in her own haze and ignoring the sound of the water splashing behind her.
She hadn’t realized that it had been a baby girl that had been tossed into the river below. She’d only found out days later when the story of the infant’s body being pulled out of the river was in the newspaper. She could have done something to save that baby, but she was too far gone to even think clearly.
A knock sounded at her door and Treesa straightened in alarm as it brought her out of her thoughts. She studied the door, and then she looked at the clock on the bedside table. Who would be knocking at the door at three o’clock in the morning?
Moreover, who even knew she was here?
It was probably just some prankster but even still, she had to check.
She got up from the bed and looked through the peephole. There was no one there. She unlocked the door and then opened it. Still no one. Sighing with relief, she closed the door and locked it again. She turned around and then gasped.
A man stood there, smiling at her. “Hello, Treesa.”
She turned to open the door, but he grabbed her from behind, and soon everything went dark.
*******
Treesa woke with a gasp, lying flat on a hard surface. Darkness surrounded her, but she knew she wasn’t in her hotel room anymore.
She also knew she wasn’t alone.
She could hear the raspy breathing of someone in the room with her, possibly standing behind her. She grunted as she tried to move, then realized she was wrapped up in chains.
“Don’t bother trying to escape.”
She looked ahead and watched as the mysterious figure she’d seen in her hotel room came around her to stand in front of her.
“You will never break free,” he said, shaking his head.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, scowling at him.
He leaned closer. “You know who I am. This is the first time I am revealing myself to you.”
He started walking around her. “You have known my presence for two years now. I am in every picture you see, every mirror’s reflection staring back at you, in every lullaby.” His bony hand came to a rest on her shoulder. “And every baby cry that you hear.”
A chill raced down her spine at his touch, but the words brought bad memories back to her. All it took was the word “baby.”
“It was a baby that he dropped, wasn’t it?” she asked. “At that bridge.”
He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Was it?”
She stiffened. “I heard the baby crying as I got closer to that bridge. I tried to ignore it and just mind my own business.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think anybody expected me to do anything.”
“You could have saved the baby.”
“But I didn’t.”
“And what of the other baby? That you saw that one night?”
Tears slid down from the side of her eyes. “I was too drunk to realize what was going on.”
“And now you are sober,” the man pointed out.
Treesa nodded, a small feeling of pride growing in her chest.
“Too bad you weren’t sober on that one night you slept with him,” the man said now, his voice a darker tone.
A new flood of tears fell from her eyes, and that sense of pride over her sobriety vanished. If only her decision to kick her drinking problem had happened before that terrible night. Before she had ended up doing the same thing that man at the bridge had done.
Images from her past flashed through her mind. She’d gotten good and hammered at a friend’s party and practically threw herself at the first man she saw. He took her to one of the bedrooms, and she just remained flat on the bed, lost in her own drunken haze as she allowed him to remove her clothes. She felt him climbing on top of her just before she passed out.
She’d awoken with a blanket thrown over her nude body, then leapt out of bed to hurriedly grab her clothes and get dressed. It would be a month until she discovered her period was late and another month when she discovered that not only had he given her a baby, but also HIV.
“You let him have his way with you!” the man roared, his angry face suddenly in front of Treesa’s.
Despite the chains, she quivered, whimpering as she closed her eyes. More tears fell from the side of them, showing her guilt.
“You let him get you pregnant!” he continued.
“I was drunk!” Treesa cried in defense, her eyes open as she shot a pleading look at this stranger.
He slowly retreated from her view, standing alongside her now. She couldn’t tell what that look on his face or in his eyes meant.
Finally, he said, “So, that’s your excuse? You were drunk?”
“It’s the truth,” she replied.
“I suppose that is also your excuse for what you did to your baby.”
Treesa winced. She didn’t want the memories to come back to her, but they did. As much as she tried to push them away, they stayed in her mind as though she was being forced to watch.
She was at that same bridge where she’d seen that man before. Her drunken brain had told her she could not keep this baby, now only a week old. She wasn’t ready to be a single parent. Her son was better off dead.
She had held him in her arms, then slowly stepped closer. Her arms moved as if by force over the edge of the bridge and now she saw her son’s face from another view. Only now did she feel love for the innocent, angelic and defenseless child she was supposed to keep safe.
Except she’d moved her arms away from his body and let him fall into the cold river below. Treesa sobbed as the images faded from her mind. The guilt she felt then stung her again now, viciously stabbing at her heart. “My baby,” she wailed.
After she finished sobbing, anger replaced her guilt. This man who had abducted her had forced her to remember everything. But how had he known? Was he a police officer who had witnessed the whole thing that night? But it was so long ago.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, warily staring at him.
“You have done this to yourself.”
As she tried to figure out what he meant, his hands fell upon her chest, and she screamed as he pushed her down through a door that opened beneath her. Her screaming echoed all around her as she fell through a hole of black nothingness. She struggled to free herself of the chains as she fell, but they would not loosen.
“No! No! Please!” she cried out.
She fell into the water, sinking further and further into it as the chains weighed her down. She grunted and struggled to break free of the chains, but the more she tried to break free, the harder it was to hold her breath.
Something bumped against her from behind. It seemed like hours before she was finally able to turn herself around to see what it was. Swaddled tightly in a blanket was a dead baby. It appeared to have drowned, its cheeks and body bloated with chewed areas of skin on its face from where fish had nibbled at it. She recognized this baby, the way it had been wrapped in the blanket.
It was her baby. The one she had thrown off of a bridge two years ago.
The infant’s eyes opened to reveal red glowing eyeballs staring back at her. Treesa screamed, water flooding into her body as she struggled to move away. More water entered her body as she cried out in horror. She swung around to see several copies of her dead baby floating around her. She turned again, only to see more.
She continued screaming as she struggled against the chains wrapped around her. Her body soon filled with water, her lungs flooding from the deluge, and soon her screaming stopped as she grew limp, lifelessly floating all alone in the water.
The next day, hotel staff discovered the body of a woman lying in the bed of one of the rooms. She was later identified as twenty-five-year-old Treesa Clemmings. Cause of death: Drowning.
**********
EXCERPT FROM NATURE THERAPY
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Nature Therapy
Copyright 2024
By Dawn Colclasure
Peace Among the Trees
Don't try to distract me with some video game
or tell me what some doctor sees.
I feel calmer around nature
and I feel peace among the trees.
The trees welcome me without judgment.
Give me a quiet place to sit and reflect.
They offer shade on days it is too hot.
We must show trees our respect.
The trees can sometimes be our only friend.
Our only source of comfort.
They are the one thing we can turn to
when dealing with too much hurt.
We can climb trees and sit in them.
We can relax against them and set our minds at ease.
How comforting it is to be able to find
peace among the trees.
*****
"I can bear anything as long as there are books.” – Jo Walton, Among Others
My books:
BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents, Love is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion, Songs of the Dead, The Yellow Rose, DOGS FOREVER: Poems for the Dog Person (with Jennifer Wilson), Follow That Dream, On the Wings of Pink Angels: Triumph, Struggle and Courage Against Breast Cancer, The Perfect Christmas, A Million Doughnuts, Hunter's Upcycling Adventures, Satyrs Are Cool: Poems of Mythological Creatures (with Jennifer Wilson), The GHOST Group, Book One (The Ghosts of Sarah Travers and The Crying Valentine), Touched by Fire, Shadow of Samhain, Terror In The Night I - Alien Abduction Exposed! (with Martha Jette and Usko Ahonen), The Warrior Way, Parenting Pauses: Life as a Deaf Parent, April Showers, The GHOST Group Book Two (The Ghost of the Irish Setter and The Ghost of the Missing Hiker), Remember the Soldier, Wolf Whispers, A Ghost on Every Corner, Yesterday's Words, Faded Reflection, Wandering Soul, God's Birds, Burning the Midnight Oil Revisited, Seasonal Songs, Fabulously Frugal: How to Manage Your Money, Live for Less and Build Up Your Savings, Poems for the Grieving Heart, Imprint, Ramblings & Misgivings, Dream World, We Will Never Have Enough Days, Savage World, Remembering Sunny, The Dream Forest, Self-Care Suggestions Book, True Ghost Stories, The Idea Workbook: How to Choose and Use Your Ideas, 101 Quotes on Poetry, The Big Book of Writing Challenges, 10 Ways to Boost Your Mental Health, Meditating Heart, The GHOST Group: Book Three, Free Stuff For Writers, Lost Soul, 5 Tales, The Power of Words, Tarnished Heart, Write for Your Life! The Health Benefits of Writing, A Tiny Light, The Newbie Author's Guide to Getting Your Book Published, Write Like the Wind! Inspirational Notes for Writers, Promote Your Book on a Shoestring...or Less, The House That Madness Built, 30 Flash Horror Stories, Only In My Dreams, Terrors, The Worst Thing You Ever Did, All the Beautiful Things, Watch This Space, Shadows, Nature Therapy, Monsters and Mayhem, Triggered, Other, Vengeance from Beyond, I'll Be Ghosting You, Home for the Holidays, Christmas Frights, Curse of the Blood Witch, 3 A.M. Poetry
Forthcoming books:
Little Turtle Finds Friends (children's book)
A Dinosaur Birthday (children's book)
Noiseless (poetry book)
Love You Still (erotic horror)
It's Time For Sleep (children's book)
Teacher For A Day (children's book)
My links:
Websites: https://www.dmcwriter.com/ and https://dawnsbooks.com/
Facebook:
Author Central: https://www.amazon.com/author/dawncolclasure
Goodreads:
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/writeswithwolve/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dawn10325/
Biosite: https://bio.site/dawncolclasure
Linktree: linktr.ee/dmcwriter
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