StoryTime

For those of you who enjoy a spooky tale, I will be posting a story who’s original title was Sentimental Halvah but which I published on back in 2016 as So Say The Winos. I’m not sure which title is the worst. Perhaps if you manage to make it through all the episodes, you’ll tell me or perhaps give me a better title!

Although this story is not horror on an Edgar Allen Poe level, the illustrations I’ll be using are from this book. The illustrator, Henry Clarke, was also known for his stained glass windows.

As I post an episode, I will post a link and brief synopsis of its predecessor on this page. Hope it helps!

The Face in the Background

A woman named Sandy has been invited to an art exhibit/memorial for a childhood friend. Once there she’s told by the woman’s son that, although the two women had drifted apart, there was something in each of his mother’s final and very disturbing paintings that she specifically wanted Sandy to see, a face from long ago. October of 1969 to be precise.

Flashback to a rainy evening in October 1969. The scene is a service station in Manhattan’s notoriously dangerous Bowery. Three young women drive up to the pumps and, spotting a young man in the phone booth, plead with him for help. The young man, Daniel, is an enigma, an intelligent and well-educated young man dedicated to drifting through live. Although he works at the station, he cannot help them because the owner has shut down the pumps and left for the night. Then he remembers he has a friend who, at one time lived not far away, in a place of relative safety. However, getting there proves to be a challenge when a “behemoth” drags one of the girls back into an alleyway. Daniel, who is half the man’s size, is powerless to stop him. The girl waves a crucifix in the man’s face which causes him to roar with laughter and lose his grip on her.

Finally they reach the street his friend once lived on. The rain has let up but they have one more obstacle.