Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Weeping Thing
    The Weeping Thing
    The Weeping Thing
    Ebook188 pages3 hours

    The Weeping Thing

    By Raymond Towers

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    What is that Weeping Thing, that draws the lonely and dejected into the woods, that entices them and provokes them, and gives them pleasures such as they have never known? Arousing and sensual it is, as well as mysterious and haunting. The price these poor outcasts must pay for their escapades is both crucial and final. It is the ultimate sacrifice: their soul. Rating: EXTREME controversy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRaymond Towers
    Release dateDec 30, 2013
    ISBN9781310920752
    The Weeping Thing
    Author

    Raymond Towers

    Raymond Towers is an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction that strays away from the mainstream, plus a little in the way of true paranormal and other genres. He has written and independently published over forty titles, most of them full-length novels and collections, with several more on the way. The author has been a lifelong resident of warm and sunny southern California, a location that pops up frequently in his writing. At the moment, the author is looking for ways to reach new readers all over the world, in addition to pursuing his great love of writing and taking it to the next level.

    Read more from Raymond Towers

    Related to The Weeping Thing

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Lost Prayer

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Lost Prayer
      10 min read

    • Article

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Nov 9, 2023

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Pleasure Palace

      Sep 1, 2022

      Pleasure Palace
      15 min read

    • Article

      The Orphan’s Dilemma

      Aug 10, 2021

      In a few minutes they’re going to say, “It’s your turn, Harold.” He will face Ms. Wickham with her thick black frames and smiling, slightly bugeyed look, the question more in her eyes than on her lips because he already knows what that question is. H

      11 min read

    • Article

      A holiday INDOORS

      Apr 7, 2021

      “You’ll have probably noticed that there’s been very little mention on this page during the past year of lockdowns and respiratory disease and bubbles and masks and toilet roll shortages and quarantine, and illicit Darby and Joan club meetings being

      3 min read

    • Article

      Discarded Wraith Of Apartheid

      Apr 13, 2024

      It’s been years since I read a book that strained the Likability Principle as viscerally as Karen Jennings’ new book, Crooked Seeds. Her previous novel, An Island, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, but I fear the more I tell you about Crooked Seed

      2 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Oct 2, 2019

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Laugh!

      Sep 21, 2021

      Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk Did you hear about the new app that allows you to rent your attic space to mad women? It’s called Eyre BnB. Submitted via email Can’t believe somebody broke into my house and stole

      2 min read

    • Article

      Out Of The FRYING PAN…

      Mar 26, 2020

      The first few times Donald’s new alarm system went off, every neighbour in the cul-de-sac stopped what they were doing. Three houses in the housing estate had recently been burgled. Nobody wanted to be next. Lights turned on, heads appeared in window

      3 min read

    • Article

      Born Slippy

      Jan 16, 2020

      Born Slippy
      14 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 1, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jan 6, 2021

      REVIEWS ANNABEL LAWSON It’s only January but this will surely be my best novel of 2021, and it’s Alderton’s first. Nina has a dream job, owns a bijou flat in North London. She had a good relationship which lasted seven years. Her ex lost no time in m

      2 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Won’t Let The Bastards Grind Me Down’: John Lydon On Grief, Feuds And Being An Unlikely Optimist

      Jul 29, 2023

      There’s a term for people that live in Malibu – they’re called Malubians,” claims a cackling John Lydon. “It sounds like something that has to be cut off at an early age.” The artist formerly known, in his Sex Pistols days, as Johnny Rotten is speaki

      7 min read

    • Article

      His Neighbor’s Wife

      Jan 10, 2021

      The autumn air was crisp as the Subaru idled in the residential street. Despite the early hour, the Enforcers lined the sidewalks, passive as they fulfilled their obligation. They were there to witness the act and were not to engage with the players

      8 min read

    • Article

      His Neighbor’s Wife

      May 10, 2023

      The autumn air was crisp as the Subaru idled in the residential street. Despite the early hour, the Enforcers lined the sidewalks, passive as they fulfilled their obligation. They were there to witness the act and were not to engage with the players

      8 min read

    • Article

      Six Million Reasons

      Jul 9, 2021

      Six Million Reasons
      6 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Echos

      Jan 10, 2019

      Before Corrine’s husband abandoned her in Berlin, he liked to say that her name reminded him of the word “corrupt.” But ending in a twist rather than a split. Her last name was the French word for “swimsuit” but he never mentioned that. This seemed s

      17 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Dec 4, 2022

      For six years, a town has been hiding big secrets This novel starts out like a murder mystery, but very quickly becomes so much more than that. A heartfelt tale set in the suburbs of an Australian country town in the early ’90s, it’s about friendshi

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Weeping Thing

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Weeping Thing - Raymond Towers

      About the image: The cover image is titled shadow sneaking in the dark forest. It was uploaded to the Dreamstime website by Andreluc88.

      About this title: What is that Weeping Thing, that draws the lonely and dejected into the woods, that entices them and provokes them, and gives them pleasures such as they have never known? Arousing and sensual it is, as well as mysterious and haunting. The price these poor outcasts must pay for their escapades is both crucial and final. It is the ultimate sacrifice: their soul. Rating: EXTREME controversy.

      #####

      Other e-books by Raymond Towers:

      A Terrible Thing To Waste

      Apocalypse Now! Collection

      Before The Seven 1 – Don Diego Meets Lucky Luis

      Before The Seven 2 – Scary Peter

      Demonic Murmurs Collection

      Dobrynia’s Path 1 – Dark Harbinger

      Dobrynia’s Path 2 – Ragnarok

      Monster Mayhem Collection

      Raymund And Natalie’s Grand Adventure

      Roaches In The Attic 0 – Non-Retrieval

      Roaches In The Attic 1 – First Contact

      The Black Cellar

      The Throwback

      The Two Sides Of Humburg

      The Zombie Seven 1: Hell’s Gate And Beyond

      Thorns 1 – True Tales Of The Weird

      Two Bedroom Cottage

      Variant Worlds 1 Collection

      Varriano 1 – The Case Of The Missing Q-Drives

      The Weeping Thing

      Raymond Towers

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Raymond Towers

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All of the characters in this e-book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      This e-book contains an EXTREME amount of controversial subject matter.

      Lyrics for Lavender’s Blue are from the 18th century traditional song that was popular during the colonial American era. The author of this song is unknown. You can find out more about the music from that era by going to Lesley Nelson’s Popular Songs In American History Website.

      #####

      Table Of Contents

      Chapter 1 - Donald

      Chapter 2 - Margaret

      Chapter 3 - Mathew

      Chapter 4 - Emelina

      About The Author

      Author Website

      #####

      Chapter One

      Donald

      Since he wasn’t scheduled for work that day, Donald was carelessly clicking through the personal ads on a couple of social sites. The ads he kept coming across weren’t filling him up with any sort of happy hope for finding a date anytime soon. He skimmed over the usual seeking financially secure, prefer a man in the military, must be tall, very good looking, hung like a horse and in great shape posts. He did have himself a laugh when he came across some crazy woman’s ad asking for a sugar daddy to help her out with a few monthly expenses, in exchange for unspecified favors.

      Yeah, right. Donald mumbled, as he abandoned his web browser and leaned back in his old executive chair on rollers.

      The seat cushion was so flat and worn out he’d taken to putting a folded up, skinny blanket on it. Donald took a quick moment to adjust said blanket’s unruly folds, before he resumed his seat and let his eyes scan across his small bedroom.

      It was nothing to brag about. He had a twin-size bed with covers in an appealing shade of tan, a small desk that was meant for a kid and that bumped his knees whenever he rolled too close to it, a small closet and a short dresser filled with his essentials. Several large boxes were stacked up in one corner of the room. They were filled with non-essentials that he’d never gotten around to unpacking, mainly because he didn’t have the room to put their contents anywhere.

      The bedroom wasn’t an eyesore, but it did have a few details detrimental to the upbeat lifestyle of a dating connoisseur. The walls were largely blank, the carpeting was tired, and in a few spots it exhibited some ancient stain or other discoloring. Still, past all that, he might be able to entice a woman inside his room and onto his bed. Maybe.

      If you didn’t consider the mannerisms of the old lady he rented the room from, anyway. Crazy old Margaret owned the two-bedroom house. Along with charging Donald a rent of five hundred dollars a month, she’d given him a long sheet of paper with all of her prohibitions and stipulations printed on it. No drinking, no drugs, no loud music, no partying, and absolutely no members of the opposite sex were allowed.

      Basically, Donald sighed, the overzealous and strict old woman was taking a lot of the fun out of his life. Since he’d been hard-pressed to find a similar rent and accommodations in that part of town, he’d gone ahead and signed the rental agreement. Dutifully, he paid off the first month’s rent along with the security deposit. The alcohol and drugs he could do without, since he was definitely mellowing out in his late thirties. As for the music, he purchased himself a good pair of headphones to take care of that. The lack of sex, however, was growing into a very large annoyance. It was as if, since old Margaret wasn’t getting laid, neither was anyone else under her roof.

      Donald recalled a scene from a month prior, the last time he had gone out on a date. That was with Sallie, a perky blonde who stood all of five-foot-two, and who kissed in a way that he’d never been able to get enough of. It was too bad that he and Sallie hadn’t been talking as much online anymore. Donald was slowly coming to the conclusion that she’d moved on and left him adrift like an old piece of flotsam. His erratic work schedule that always cut across the heart of the day and most weekends didn’t help matters here, either.

      Donald began feeling a bit depressed. Had he owned a car, perhaps he would have jumped in it and driven somewhere far away from where he lived. Perhaps he could get lost out there and never have to come back to his mundane and boring life. But no, Donald did not have a car. His prospects for entertaining himself rested exclusively on the city’s public transportation system, or on the more or less reliable foot-mobile.

      Feeling something approaching resignation, Donald went back to his computer screen. Full of wants and wishes, he scanned over the numerous profiles of happy, smiling women he’d never have the opportunity to meet in person.

      Later that afternoon, Donald stepped out of his room. He’d taken a few naps and watched a few comedy shows, and that had lightened up his mood by not much. Now he was on his way to the kitchen to warm up a can of soup.

      The quiet man took a quick glance into the living room, noticing that the news was playing on the tube, but Old Margaret was nowhere in sight. The old woman did that sometimes; leave the TV on while she was over at a neighbor’s house, chatting the day away. Margaret explained that strange habit to him on a couple of occasions. By leaving the television on it would deter any potential burglars from breaking into the house, because no burglar would dare to break into a house while someone was in it. But let Donald leave his ceiling fan on overnight when the heat was unbearable, and lo and behold, there would be hell to pay to Old Margaret come the next morning.

      The woman was paranoid and borderline insane, Donald thought, as he emptied the soup can’s contents into a small pot and added a short spurt of water. When he’d first moved in, his landlord had taken to following him around the house. The suspicious Margaret would even go into the bathroom right after he’d used it, stink and all, in case he’d inadvertently left any drug paraphernalia lying around like a moron. Thank goodness she’d eased up a bit, about that.

      Donald patiently waited for his soup to warm up. He considered what his life would be like if he lived elsewhere, or if he were better looking, or a rich man, when his thoughts became distracted by an unexpected sound. It was the sound of a person quietly crying nearby. With some concern, Donald left the kitchen and went into the living room to lower the volume on the TV set. He listened intently for the strange lamentation. At first he could not localize it, and afterward it halted as unexpectedly as it had commenced.

      As Donald ate his soup in the tiny afterthought of a dining room, he thought he heard the sound of crying a second time. He passed it off as having come from the TV set. When Margaret came back into the house, the first thing she did was to scold him for having fiddled with the volume control on the television. This resulted in Donald quickly finishing off his light meal and heading back to his bedroom for peace and quiet.

      Donald thought he heard that same strange crying, as he lay in bed and waited for sleep to come to him. It would be considered unusual for him to get out of bed to investigate, according to Margaret’s observations and expectations of him. Because of that, he simply stayed in place and began to wonder who could possibly be making such pitiful sounds.

      When sleep finally found him, it brought strange nightmares to Donald’s mind. He dreamed he was running through the woods, panting and out of breath. Behind him he could hear angry voices, the voice of many people. He was being chased, he realized, by a mob wielding torches, axes and pitchforks. The people were shouting curses at him. They wore an unusual fashion of clothing, made of rough cloth, leather or fur. The clothing included doublets, vests with white shirts underneath, breeches, knitted caps, straw hats, felt hats and the like.

      They meant to kill him, Donald understood in a panic. He tried to run from the mob, but his movements were sluggish and cumbersome. It was a bizarre sensation, as if he was not running but sloshing along on the ground like a great, fat lump. He felt twigs and bumps below him as he moved, felt leaves sticking wetly to his flesh, felt coarse and rough patches of bark as his glob-like form flowed around trees and bent aside saplings.

      The men chasing him were much faster. They surrounded him, stabbing at him with their pitchforks and hacking at him with their axes. Donald cried out from the enormity of the pain ripping through his flesh. They meant to rip him to pieces. Back in the distance, one man ordered a few of the others to start gathering tinder. They meant to hack him apart, Donald realized, and to burn the chunks right after. There was nothing he could do about it.

      Abruptly, Donald sat up in his bed. His breaths were struggling to come out of him. He felt as agitated as if he really had been running away from a mob. In the dark, the quiet man began to wonder if he might have screamed out loud. Perhaps the landlord was even now trying to figure out what he was up to, from her bedroom across the hall. An anxious Donald swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was ready to flee from his bed, as if those men would still be tearing him apart if he dared to shut his eyes again.

      That’s when he heard the crying once more. It filtered through his ears like a soft song of despair and anguish. As he listened to it, and unexpectedly, the crying calmed him. The sounds soothed him enough that his breathing returned to normal. His heartbeat was no longer pounding away within his chest.

      What’s happening to me? Donald asked the night.

      The song continued to relax him, like the hands of a gentle masseuse. Sitting nearby, the alarm clock told him he should be in a deep sleep. The sad song lulled him in this direction. He yawned, somehow knowing that the nightmare would not return that night. As he lay back down on his mattress, he thought the whimpering sounded like that of a small child, maybe a boy. He found himself wishing he could do something for that child, like buy him a toy or an ice cream, so the boy would be happy again. So he wouldn’t have to cry any more.

      Such thoughts were crossing Donald’s mind, until he finally shut his eyes and went back to a pleasant slumber.

      The next day, Donald had only been cursed with four hours of work. He disembarked the transit bus at only a few minutes before one in the afternoon. Normally, he’d get off a few stops earlier than his, or a few stops later. He would walk the remaining distance home in the hopes of nodding at or greeting a passerby, and perhaps engaging him or her in a brief conversation. Such was Donald’s deep state of loneliness. Instead, on this day the unloved man got off at the right place. He traversed the single remaining block purposefully and diligently until he stood before the house’s front door.

      As Donald expected, Old Margaret was not home. During the weekdays, she would often leave the house and attend to her errands or various doctors’ appointments. He assumed that she was doing the same thing today. Donald stepped into his bedroom and changed into his casual attire. He sat on the edge of the bed to listen for the sound of the crying. Today, the quiet man resolved, he was going to get to the bottom of things.

      Donald waited, sometimes patiently, sometimes impatiently, until the inactivity got the better of him. The day was warm. The bed covers felt comfortable enough to his touch that he ended up curling over them and taking a nap.

      Half an hour later, Donald’s eyes popped open. He hadn’t been having any nightmare, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming at all. What was it that had woken him? His ears took in all they could, until he heard it.

      It was the crying. The crying had come back.

      Slowly, quietly, Donald sat up, fearing that any sudden movement might drive the strange sobbing away. He tried to trace the source of the sound. In tiny increments, his head and body shifted around the entire bedroom. The crying was everywhere, it seemed. It was only slightly more noticeable in one direction than the rest.

      The bedroom window.

      Donald stood up and went to slide the window open. A dusty screen was in the way. The man turned an ear toward it, moving as close to the filth as he dared. He heard the sobbing, eternal and pleading, becoming certain that it was coming from outside.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1