Cold Spots

A chilling little story that appears in Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume I, self-published in March 2017 and available on Amazon  and Kindle.


COLD SPOTS by Susan Buffum


    Julia frowned as she slung the bag of groceries onto the counter, nearly knocking over the vase of red roses, babies breath and ferns that had been delivered that morning, a Valentine’s Day gift from her husband, then turned, hugging herself. “Adam! Did you turn the central air up again?” That man was impossible to live with, she was beginning to think as she strode across the room and into the hallway of the condo, stopping at the thermostat to check the temperature. Sixty-six. With her face etched with grim determination, she bumped it up to seventy and was satisfied to hear the flow of air from the ceiling vents abruptly stop. “That’s more like it. This place feels like a freakin’ meat locker!”

    She returned to the kitchen and began unbagging the groceries. Tonight, they were having a lovely fish dinner whether he liked it or not. She was tired of red meat. He didn’t especially like fish, but if they were going to be married he’d just have to learn that she was not going to clog her arteries with fat. He was just going to have to suck it up and eat tofu and more fresh vegetables and fruits. She was also gluten intolerant. Although she had mucked all the gluten-laden products from his cabinets she’d noticed that there was once again boxes of assorted pasta and cereals on the shelves. The pantry was overdue for another cleaning out, but she’d have to wait for him to leave the house.

     Leaving the house. She snorted with annoyance as she stashed juice and bottled water in the refrigerator. Adam seemed to have grown roots in the basement the past few weeks. He’d told her he was working from home. He had a small office down there between the laundry room and the mechanical room. The rest of the space was a sort of family/game room and a large storage closet. She didn’t like the basement and hardly ever went down there, except to do the laundry. There was a chest freezer in the laundry room. She’d opened it, looked in disgust upon the frozen pizzas, burritos and other assorted bachelor foods, all rimed with frost from having been in there so long, then slammed the lid down in disgust.

     A short time later, as she loaded the washing machine, she made a mental note to ask him again to empty the freezer and unplug it. They didn’t need it. She preferred to cook with fresh ingredients. Turning to leave the laundry room she thought she saw Adam’s shadow in the gameroom. “You really need to empty this out,” she said as she stepped into the room. There was no one there, but she could hear his voice in his office. He seemed to be arguing with someone. That certainly was no way to win customers, she thought as she headed toward the stairs to the first floor.

     “I don’t understand why they want to reopen the case,” Adam said, distress in his voice. She stopped, her right foot on the first riser. Who was he talking to? “Virginia was declared dead. It’s been eight years since she disappeared. What’s to investigate? If she was still alive don’t you think she would have come home, or at least contacted me somehow? Nick, come on, you must be able to do something to put an end to this nonsense. Why disturb the past? Why bring up all that pain and suffering? My wife vanished without a trace. It devastated me. I’ve just remarried. I’ve moved on. I just don’t understand why that Detective Goff can’t let sleeping dogs lie. You tell him he’s tearing my heart open all over again! You tell him he’s making me bleed!”

     She bit her lip. He was talking to his lawyer, Nick Buoniconti. He was talking about her, Virginia, his second wife. He’d come home from work one summer evening to find the condo door unlocked, the windows open, as if she was letting in the summer breeze. He expected to find her in the kitchen taking the steaks she had been marinating overnight out in preparation for him grilling them on the patio. Virginia had not been in the house. Her car was still in the garage. There had been no sign of a disturbance, a struggle. The neighbors, when questioned had not heard anything unusual. Virginia had simply disappeared.

     It had been thought that she’d run off with the man who did maintenance work for the complex. There’d been rumors that he was an over-friendly sort who was always watching the women, finding opportunities to make small talk with them. Adam had found that three thousand dollars had been withdrawn from the joint savings account. A teller had come forward and told the police that Mrs. North had come into the bank a week before her disappearance and withdrawn the money. She’d looked a little nervous, but when asked if she was taking a trip she’d replied that, yes, she was going away, but she hadn’t said where she was going. The teller said Mrs. North’s last remark was, “I just need to get away,” before she stuffed the money into her purse and left the bank.

     Poor Adam, how he had suffered with his wife missing and his being under suspicion for a while, after the police had gotten nothing from the maintenance man. The man lived with his mother in a trailer park on the outskirts of town and she had attested that while he may have been friendly with the ladies he never would have done anything with them, he wasn’t like that at all. Why, he’d never even dated! If truth be told, he had a phobia of the naked female body. Why, he couldn’t even look at the ladies in their tiny bathing suits at the complex pool. He averted his eyes! They could verify that with anyone there! And they had.

     She’d met Adam, she recalled as she climbed the stairs to the first floor, about two years ago. It was at the Paradise Club. She’d been having a cocktail with a co-worker after work and he’d come up to the bar and asked if he could buy them both a drink. Alison had had to leave. She had a husband waiting for her at home. But she had stayed, and he’d bought her a couple more drinks. They’d moved to a small table and chatted about this and that. He’d walked her to her car, asked if he could see her again, maybe take her to dinner or a movie? She’d agreed to a movie. He’d told her right up front that his wife had disappeared six years ago. He’d said she might come back, one never knew, but he was lonesome and needed a friend. They had dated for nearly a year, and she had spent the night only after the seventh anniversary of Virginia’s disappearance had passed. Three months later he’d given her a ring. Two months ago they had married.

     “Brr!” she said as she climbed the staircase to the second floor where the bedrooms were. “There is definitely something wrong with the central air in this place! I’ll have to call the maintenance man tomorrow.”

     She went into the bedroom thinking that she’d take a quick shower, put on fresh clothes. He liked it when she looked pretty. It was hot out and shopping had made her feel like a wilted flower under a relentless summer sun. Stripping off her capris and t-shirt, she went into the bathroom, closing the door. She dropped her bra and panties into the hamper. She’d put on clean underwear when she dressed before going downstairs to start dinner.

     A nice warm shower was just the thing. She had pinned up her blonde hair, but it got damp from the spray anyway, especially when she held her face under the shower head. Turning off the water, she slid open the shower door a crack and reached for her towel on the bar beside the door. “What the…!” Had he turned the central air up while she was in the shower? That man was impossible! The bathroom felt frigid as she briskly toweled herself dry, then wrapped the towel around her body. She was covered in goosebumps!

     Stepping onto the bathmat, she shot a glower at the closed bathroom door, shaking her head, a slow burn of anger warming her blood but not her body. She stepped to the counter and looked at the fogged over mirror, rolling her eyes. “Great,” she muttered. “Just great!” As she reached for the hand towel to use to scrub away the fog the fog began to dissipate from the glass. “Well, that’s…” she began, but stopped. How could that even be possible? The air was still humid although chilled.

      She studied the mirror. Slowly, her eyes became visible through the misty coating on its surface. She blinked, leaned a little closer over the counter. What was wrong with her eyebrows? Hadn’t she just had them waxed? They seemed thicker to her, darker. She lifted a corner of the towel to rub her right eyebrow, then blinked, not once, but twice. The towel was still partially over her right eye, yet in the mirror she could see her entire eye. Both of them. They stared back at her without obstruction. She glanced sideways, lowering the towel, then looked back into the mirror. Her nose was now visible. Was her nose that long? No. She had a short nose. What in the world was going on with this mirror? Why was it so distorted? As she stared at her reflection, her reflection emerged more from the fog. Thin lips! She’d just gotten Botox three weeks ago! Her lips were plump and lush! Was she having some sort of allergic reaction all of a sudden? Is that why her lips were deflated looking, and everything seemed so off, so cold…so damn cold!

     Valentine’s Day…beware!

     Julia jumped, gasping. The woman’s voice had sounded as if she was speaking right into her left ear. Her head turned but there was no one there. “Too much heat and sun,” she rationalized, pulling the towel more firmly around herself. She glanced into the mirror and was relieved to find her own face there. “I need something to drink,” she murmured as she opened the door and stepped out into the bedroom. The bedroom felt much warmer and she relaxed, the goosebumps diminishing.

     “Julia? Are you home?” It was Adam calling up the stairs.

     “I’ll be right down! I’ll start dinner in a few minutes!” She had put on her underwear and was stepping into jeans. Even though it felt warmer to her, she couldn’t trust him not to nudge the temperature control down again to sixty-whatever! Grabbing a long-sleeved t-shirt, she pulled it on over her head, slipped her feet into her slippers. They were fleece lined and toasty.

     “Can you come downstairs to the gameroom first?” he called as she stepped out of the bedroom into the upstairs hall.

     “What for?”

     “I want to show you something,” he said, his voice sounding distant. He was already on his way down to the basement.

     With a sigh of annoyance, she started down the stairs. Halfway down she hit what felt like a solid wall of cold air. “This is ridiculous! I’m calling Tom!” Tom was the maintenance man. Maybe he could look at the central air system, or at least recommend a reputable repair service.

     She continued down the stairs, feeling as if she was walking on the polar ice cap. For a fleeting moment she thought she saw a puff of vapor as she huffed another sigh of exasperation before starting down the basement stairs. The central air system was definitely screwed up. There shouldn’t be all these cold spots throughout the condo! There was something wrong. Something very wrong about that! “What do you want?” she asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

     On the kitchen counter, the water in the vase of roses froze solid, expanded, and shattered the glass, the shards of glass tinkling softly on the tile counter.

Night Callers

Last night I was writing at the kitchen table as usual with the back door open. I heard a coyote howling in the woods. Grabbing my phone, I went out onto the deck and recorded a two minute mainly pitch black video in which I caught the coyote howling and barking three separate times. I also captured a crow disturbed by the noise. By the time I got back inside to review the video, I had the bones of a story in my head. At 11:17PM I began writing that story. At 12:23AM I finished it, including some preliminary corrections and edits. This morning I reviewed the story, made a few more edits, changed the title and it's done- this story is my property. I hold the copyright. It cannot be reproduced without my permission. I post it here for your enjoyment-


Night Callers by Susan Buffum



It was the sound of a coyote howling in the woods behind the house that drew me out onto the back deck. It was fairly dark, only a half moon hanging above the house casting a wan swatch of light across the massive oak tree with its sprawling canopy of green leaves. I checked the time on my phone. Quarter of twelve. The coyote bayed again, a haunting, eerie, ululating cry. I tapped the camera icon, then the video button, and finally record. “Sing to me,” I murmured.

As if in response, the coyote howled again, a longer, more varied version of the first call that had summoned me outside. It stopped. I strained my ears, listening for the crack of twigs, the rustle of debris on the ground that would indicate it was approaching, or wandering farther away. To me, its last cry had sounded just a little nearer.

When I began to think it had moved on, chasing its prey deeper into the woods, the baying began again, this time concluding with a stuttering, strangled sort of barking. It was an awkward way to wind down and I shook my head just as a crow, disturbed from its slumber, rattled a ratcheting protest cry. Otherwise, it was so quiet outside that I heard the flutter of the crow’s wings, the papery shifting of leaves as it flew from its perch in the woods to the big oak just off the deck and gave another cry. I was happy to have his voice added to the video.

The coyote howled once more, sounding closer now. The bird repeated his protest. It was just above me in the high branches. I looked up, straining to make out its black form amid the shadowed leaves, but the wash of moonlight through the branches was weak. The sound of an animal moving in the woods drew my attention back toward the path. I couldn’t actually see the path, but I figured since I’d seen the fox that trotted through the yard each morning on its way home to its den use this path down to the brook that other animals also used it. I hoped to see it, even as an indistinct shadow, moving stealthily across the lawn.

A sound above and behind me made me gasp as I spun around, eyes rising to the roof. My phone camera was still recording. My hand was shaking. Whatever it was up there, it had sounded big. A great horned owl? I couldn’t think of what else could be on the roof.

My eyes strained as I scanned the roofline against the night sky. A smattering of stars twinkled between drifting charcoal-colored clouds. I saw nothing at first, but then something moved again up there. I caught the movement in the corner of my eye, turning my head toward the chimney where I watched, in fascinated shock and horror, as something seemed to grow taller and then separate itself from the mass of the chimney, taking on a form of its own. Behind me, the coyote howled, sounding even nearer now. It had come into the yard. I had missed its arrival, distracted by…by what? What was this thing on my roof? It had tall, sharply angled wings. It was too huge to be a bird, but it reminded me of an eagle, only much larger.

I heard it, talons scratching over the shingles as it came toward the eaves above my head. “Go away!” I managed to croak past the constriction in my throat. It felt as if someone had gripped my neck and was strangling me, but there was no one else out here. Only me. And the coyote. And the crow. And this…this…I didn’t know what!

I caught a glint of dull light in its eye as it cocked its head and regarded me. It had dropped into a crouch about two feet from the eaves. I could actually hear it breathing. I was staring at it, still trying to make sense of it, when the coyote bayed from the lawn, so close that it startled me. I couldn’t stop myself from turning toward the sound, still trying to get the animal on video.

And that was how I missed the thing on the roof as it skittered the last two feet and landed with a jarring thud on the deck just behind me. It was big and it was solid. I shuddered and then tensed, thinking that I was going to die, that momentarily I would be dead. The coyote howled from the sidewalk at the foot of the deck stairs. Something gripped my shoulder. With the coyote still howling and the crow now making its guttural protests from high in the tree, my voice joined them in chorus as I screamed. I was the loudest of the three of us by far, but even with my own voice ringing in my ears, I heard the voice behind me quietly say, “Hush.” I couldn’t seem to control my larynx. It still vibrated, still was making that tea kettle shrieking sound. “I mean you no harm.”

A hand, well, a hand of sorts, came over my other shoulder and took the phone from my trembling hand. I relinquished it without protest as my scream abruptly stopped. I had run out of breath and needed to inhale. I was shaking, my legs wobbling. “Wha…what do you want?” I whispered, my mouth dry and cottony.

“Water and meat.”

“What kind?”

“Cold. Raw.”

I was warm, but I thought it meant cold water. The terrible, lucid realization that to a beast I was nothing but raw meat jolted me and made me take two awkward steps forward. My phone disappeared over my shoulder. I don’t know where the courage to do so came from, but I spun around to confront what had jumped down from the roof and my mind froze at what I could see of it in the dark. It looked part reptilian, part amphibian, part eagle, part dragon, and part human. “Oh, my god,” I moaned, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. Was this an alien being? Had a UFO landed in the front yard without my being aware of it and this alien thing climbed up and over the roof?

Scrabbling noises on the deck stairs made me spin back around. The coyote was coming up the stairs. “Go inside.” I didn’t need to be told twice. As frightened as I was of this beast, it spoke my language. I obeyed, hurriedly let myself into the kitchen which seemed too bright, too quiet. The house surrounding this room took on a strange eeriness, a flesh-crawling, foreboding aura of the unknown in the dark. I hadn’t put any other lights on in the house since I had been writing at the kitchen table, my usual after dinner activity.

The house was too quiet making what was happening on the deck outside the screen door only too loud and vivid. There were scuffling sounds and the coyote snarled. Then it yelped. There next came nerve wracking sounds, as if someone was breaking branches and then wet, tearing, ripping, snuffling, and slobbering sounds that sent me rushing to the sink, my stomach lurching and emptying. I was keening, half sobbing, sick and terrified, dizzy and weak. I clung to the edge of the sink, blinking hard, trying to make the dark fog in the periphery of my vision stop advancing. I did not want to pass out.

“Water,” said the quiet, gruff voice from behind the screen door. I opened a cupboard, grabbed a pitcher, filling it at the sink, carrying it, sloshing and spilling, to the door. My hands were shaking as I released the latch and pushed the door open with my shoulder, just wide enough to slip the pitcher through the gap. I cringed and whimpered as the bloodied, taloned hand… paw… whatever you may call it, gripped the curved handle of the pitcher, taking it from me. I let the door close as I took a step back.

By the light spilling through the screen onto the deck, I stood there watching the beast guzzle down the contents of the pitcher without pausing for a breath. It emptied the last few inches of water over its face, rinsing off gore. Behind it, I could just see the hind legs of the coyote carcass, and a dark, glossy pool around them that I knew was blood.

The sound of glass meeting decking made me jump although it had not been loud. The beast had set the pitcher down with surprising care. Its wings rustled as it turned, crouched down, lifted the dead coyote, and then rapidly descended the deck stairs. I heard it running across the lawn, found myself stepping out onto the deck, skirting the blood and tufts of fur, straining my eyes to make out the large shadowy form as it suddenly rose into the air, having gained momentum and lift. Its wings flapped like the sails of a windmill, that kind of sound. It rose higher.

From the oak tree, the crow also took flight and followed, a big bird looking more the size of a canary compared to the larger, winged creature it shadowed over the treetops as they flew higher still and then over the cliff top of the mountainside I lived on. In mere moments they were gone.

I turned, accidentally kicking the pitcher, knocking it over. Fortunately, it didn’t break. I bent, picked it up, and looked all around for my phone, but I didn’t see it. With a barely suppressed shudder, I slipped into the house, flicked on the outside spotlights, filled the pitcher and used that water to begin rinsing the blood off the deck. It took seven pitchers full of water before I was satisfied that I’d washed away the majority of the reminder of what had just happened. As I reached for the screen door for the last time, something propped against the house reflected a random bit of moonlight. Curious, I went and picked up what turned out to be my phone. I carried it inside, swung the door closed, and locked it, although I was fairly certain that whatever that beast had been, it possessed enough raw strength and power to kick the door open should it return and want to come inside.

My phone was dead. The battery had been nearly drained when I’d gone out to capture the coyote howling. I had intended to put it on the charger after dinner, but hadn’t done so. I did that now and then looked at my laptop sitting on the kitchen table. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to relax, wouldn’t be able to sleep, I knew what I had to do. I rinsed the pitcher at the sink, put it in the dishwasher, washed my hands then sat down and began to type—It was the sound of a coyote howling in the woods that drew me out onto the back deck that night…

The Filing Cabinets

Tonight I opened the top drawer of a four drawer file cabinet looking to see what books I had entered into contests last year...and fell into various folders, pulling half written stories, vignettes, handwritten pages, bits and pieces, and even a poem out and reading them, getting lost in them. The terrible thought that I don't have enough life left in which to finish all these stories nearly set off a panic attack!

I turned around and looked at the four drawer file cabinet across from the one I was digging through. Three drawers are crammed full of stories, some handwritten, some typed on an electric typewriter and not even on any computer in the house, and a few I know have been put on the computer...but they're few and far between. These are stories I wrote for Kelly when she was little, while she was growing up. Some are even older than that.

This all reminded me that someplace downstairs there is a binder full of poetry I wrote when I was in my teens and through my early married life in my mid-twenties, and a binder full of what they now call flash fiction that I wrote in high school and college.

I cannot believe I wrote all this stuff. I cannot quite wrap my head around the mountains of partial manuscripts and writings that I've thrown out through the years- stories I'm never going to be able to write again or even begin to recreate. All of them are long gone. Notebooks and binders and hundreds of reams of notebook paper are probably well rotted in the landfill now since I began throwing stuff out in the 1980's when my writing began to evolve from writing the same characters into different stories over and over again to creating new characters for each new story. In the early to mid 1980's I began writing to entertain other people, not just myself.

I still occasionally find myself writing the same characters into stories that vary somewhat, but that's now more a method of working toward writing them into the right story for them. Life Skills developed like that- a series of stories in which I developed the characters, their relationships, and their back stories. The series of short stories that connect are different from the finished novel, but if you were to track down the binder that they're in someplace in my house and you read them, you'd recognize Remy and Lissa, Flash and Blade, Uncle Max and Janet. The same sort of thing is happening with Garnet and Quella in the Memento Mori series first novel. I've written dozens of versions of their story...and while I've finished the novel once, and nearly finished it a second time, it's still not the exact story I wat it to be, so I'll be writing it again.

Writing is a circuitous journey sometimes as you explore the various paths your characters can take. sometimes it's not so easy to find the right path. You know when you're on it when you get that feeling of satisfaction and completeness after a read through. If you don't get that feeling- then it's not ready for anyone else to read it yet.

I found some pieces and poems my late playwright friend and mentor, Jim Curran, gave me in the same drawer tonight. I wish he had lived to see me develop my skills more, see me publish some of the stories he enjoyed reading in his final years. Although he was Irish, his love of Princess Grace and Monte Carlo and France spiced my writing with a decidedly French flavor. Some of those sweet romance stories that he enjoyed were included in the anthology Auspicious Beginnings (here's an insider tidbit- Kelly named this book!) I was so fortunate to have such a wonderful mentor who encouraged me to write from my heart and soul. His Monte Carlo racing windbreaker is in my closet. Some of his Belleek Irish china is in my china cabinet. My brother snagged these things for me from his estate sale.

It was a nice night to reminisce about my roots as a writer, but a little unnerving to realize that I will never be able to finish everything I've started writing before I exit this world!

Writing Real Characters into Fantasy, Paranormal, and Supernatural Fiction

I have a couple of series I've written where the main characters are witches, warlocks, sorcerers, sorceresses, genetically altered, vampires, werewolves, angels, grim reapers, and soon, but the one thing all of these fantastical beings are is human. They're just like us, only they have some other traits, too.

I'm going to do a series of posts which will be miniature character studies. Today I am going to focus on the general- why do my characters resonate with readers? The answer is because they are real people- flaws, foibles, quirks, good sides, bad sides, and all. They are troubled heroes, struggling heroines, and often just ordinary beings trying to live their lives to the best of their abilities. In two series, The Archetypes and Black King/White Queen, they're also trying to raise their children and keep their families together.

They also all live in the ordinary, every day world you and I live in. They have homes, live in small towns or cities, live in the suburbs, and most f them have jobs. Dr. Giles Talon (the grim reaper in the Talon series) is a Medical Examiner and coroner, plus he works in a hospital as a pathologist. His night receptionist is something more than a struggling young woman trying to find her way in the world. She's not aware of what else she is, but through the currently four book series, she makes discoveries, and grows into her role in this world and the other realms she can access. Romney Sharpe (Black King/White Queen series) is a powerful warlock who is thrown prematurely into the role of guardian of a great magical treasure hoarde when his evil black witch sister has their father killed. She also wanted him killed, but his father managed to save him at the last moment, so now he's a king. Which leads him to claim his queen, the unassuming white witch/druidess, Ivy Greenaway. Ivy's young and not fully aware of her powers, but as queen, she has to adjust, learn, and grow in leaps and bounds which tests her strength, her bravery, and her overall character. Through all their ordeals, Ivy and Romney place great value on family and friends, and home life. In the Amberton Paranormal Investigative Society series a group of ghost hunters in Vermont encounter ghosts, but Tracy Beck encounters a young woman who works at an Inn in Maine who is more than she appears to be. Grayson Cole can communicate easily with ghosts...and it rocks the entire teams world when they discover who and what Grayson really is. She is a being who is art human, part spirit. She can cross through the veil. She is what Dr. Beeler has been looking for, the link between the living world and the spirit world. Yet, Grayson appears to be an ordinary human being in every other aspect, so the struggle now will be- will Beck allow Dr. Beeler to exploit her, or will they keep the truth about her a secret while they study her? Book three will explore all that.

In Out, vampires work for city government, sell cars and real estate, deal in antiquities, design clothing and many other normal everyday jobs. They have co-existed among living human beings for centuries. Only recently have they begun being outed by radicals who feel they are abominations, monsters, and should all be destroyed. They struggle to co-exist in the world with humans while they are being hunted and slain by those who are intolerant of them, and admired and entertained by those who don't see them as evil beings. Irina is thrown into the chaos swirling around vampires when Adrick choses her to be his queen. Irina's father belongs to one of the societies sworn to protect citizens from vampires. And Adrick has a powerful enemy who wants to destroy him, which places very human Irina's life in danger.

J. Rand Beresford had a terrible experience during a camping trip with friends when he was fourteen that changed his life. He was attacked by a werewolf and was the sole survivor, yet he can tell no one what really happened during that fateful weekend. He flees his home town immediately after graduation and it's not until a few years later that a young woman makes the discovery that J. Rand is living in Europe and has made a name for himself as a maker of amazing mechanical clock towers. His father is a clockmaker, but not these types of clocks. J. Rand is drawn home when the powerful werewolf who transformed him starts attacking the young girl's family and friends. J. Rand knows he'll kill her because the werewolf knows him, can read him like a book and knows his heart belongs to her.

Very real life characters with paranormal, fantastical, and supernatural powers just trying to make their way in the world you and I live in...those are the types of characters I write.

We'll look at other characters in future posts.