Courting Morpheus by Belfire Press 2010

Courting Morpheus is a collection of short stories surrounding the eerie town of New Bedlam. Featured in this anthology is Donna Shelton's New Bedlam story FRANKENBEANS. Her story is one of a number of other stories written by talented authors who have survived the town of New Bedlam and lived to tell about it.

FrankenBeans

by Donna Shelton

EXCERPT:

I had just come home from shopping on Main Street and rushed into the house with an armful of groceries as the phone rang. I grabbed the phone and dropped the bags onto the counter, it was my friend Laney from down the street, telling me about some kittens in the paper.

"I’m not sure I want another cat now." I said as I emptied some bags.

She went on about something else as I listened and inserted a uh-huh, here and there. Then I was distracted by a scratching noise. I looked over to my window by the back porch, thinking I left the dog outside and nearly dropped the phone. Beans was looking through the window scratching the screen.

"Uh, Laney." I interrupted her. "Come over here."

"What’s going on?"

"It’s Beans. He’s on the back porch."

"Oh no! Did Lucy dig him up?"

"No. He’s looking at me through the window."

Without another word, I hung the phone up on the wall. I starred at my dead cat as he scratched on the screen. He wanted to come inside. I was hallucinating, this couldn’t be real. Just then my dog Lucy perched up onto the window sill and sniffed him through the screen with a muffled growl. Beans hissed at her. A hallucination in audio shared with my dog. I stepped forward and Beans meowed. He was dirty. I looked through the window by the kitchen sink that overlooked his grave and saw the agitated mound of dirt.

I put Lucy in the laundry room and locked the door. The kids were at school and Rick was at work. It was just me and my dead cat. Beans watched me as I walked to the door next to the window. He didn’t look possessed or decomposed, he was just a dirty Beans. As my hand touched the door knob, I thought of Stephen King’s Pet Semetery. I was fairly certain that my house was no where near an Indian burial ground.

I opened the door and Beans shot in, right between my bare legs. He felt cold and his fur was hard and stiff with dirt. He looked around the kitchen and then returned to my legs to meow and rub up against me. When I reached down to pet him, he sniffed my hand.

The doorbell rang. It was Laney. I hollered to her to come in.

"Now, what’s going on?" She asked as she walked through the livingroom into the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him. "Dawn - that’s Beans."

Another adult presence made me feel less afraid. If he was possessed, at least I would have some help if he decided to attack me and chew my face off.