The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: Halloween

  • Harvest Party

    Hansen Calloway looks up from hammering the last electrical spike into the rich earth of his family’s cemetery to see the sultry, raven-haired Sarai Blackriver heft a bloody cow haunch over the stone fence. She blows him a kiss before disappearing into the nearby woods.

    “What the Hell?” Hansen calls after her. He is wondering how the tiny woman is even strong enough to lift that much cow when a shriek sounds overhead. Turkey vultures circle gracefully in the crisp autumn sky above him.

    Hansen’s normally open and friendly features contract into a lemon-sucking face. So that’s how she wants to play it. Tempting carrion birds to the Calloway family cemetery on Revival Day is dirty. But family feuds have no rules and the Calloway/Blackriver feud is old and bitter. (more…)

  • Fera Profanum (Flash Fiction)

    By the time the McPhereson Carnival and Circus Cavalcade left the county, six children had disappeared with it. Each of the kids had been orphaned, and had no real family to speak of. They were county kids, the kids who lived outside of town. If not for the fact that one of them had been my best friend, Flick, I might never have noticed what was happening.

    The carnival train arrived in the dead of night, its whistle piercing the veil of sleep and awakening every child. We listened as the clickity-clack, clickity-clack of its wheels gave way to a long screech of metal on the track as the brakes slowed the train’s progress.

    The days leading up to the carnival were a wash at school. We did nothing but dream of the coming festivities. We bragged about who was brave enough to ride the most frightening rides, who was skilled enough to win the midway games, and how much of the carnival fare we were likely to eat. (more…)

  • The Last Traveling Carnival (Flash Fiction)

    Anna’s brother had been sick for a long time. It was around Halloween when he finally died. Only eight years old and wanted to be a clown for Trick-or-Treating. She remembered it very clearly. The traveling carnival had been in town then, too.

    #

    Anna joined her two roommates at their usual table at the Cafe. She managed to set down her steaming cup of herbal tea without spilling. She had gotten good at hiding the tremors.

    Simon had a textbook open in front of him, but Anna could tell he was too distracted by his girlfriend to study for class.

    “I didn’t know the old-school traveling carnivals even existed anymore,” Lisa said as she inspected the flyer she had rescued from tumbling down the street.

    Anna wasn’t able to suppress the shudder that slid down her spine. (more…)