Chocolate Touch

Ferdinand jumped back. Lucianna could read the mad terror in his face half lit by the fireplace.

Ferdinand, why must you torment me so?

Lucianna. You must never touch me. If you do, you will die.

Than it would be worth it!

Lucianna through Ferdinand to the ground and pressed her lips against his.

NO!

Ferdinand stared in horror as Lucianna started to turn in to delicious cocoa right on top of him. He rolled her off of his body. She just lay there, all of her, apart from her clothes, turned to pure chocolate. She stared out at him, face forever frozen in anguish.

Lucianna. Why didn’t you stay away from me?

There was nothing he could do. Ferdinand cursed his wretched existence. If only he could allow himself to die.

Baulo

Baulo was a cursed being. He lived among humans, but could never fully become one himself.

Baulo awoke to the sound of a strangers voice.

Are you alright? How did you get here?

Baulo could not answer because he could not understand.

The stranger’s name was Earl Benton. He was at this moment Baulo’s only friend on earth.

It won’t do to leave you here now will it?

Baulo lived with Earl for three years. He learned the language and learned a trade. He was a carpenter now, a fine one at that.

One windy Sunday afternoon, Earl introduced Baulo to an old friend of his. Baulo and Liola made marvelous companions. Liola returned twice a week to teach Baulo how to play piano. A lesson ran late one night. The moon glowed full through the window leaving blue squares on the carpet and mantle. Before Baulo could protest, Liola touched her lips to his cheek. Baulo instantly turned to stone, just as he had been moments before Earl discovered him.

As always, Baulo would not reawaken for another three centuries. In the mean time, his sturdy figure would haunt many obscure museums before falling into dark boxes in forgotten storage rooms.

The Creeper

There is a tree in one of the academic buildings at a certain college. The tree looks gloomy and unnatural. It’s leaves are tubular and brown. From a distance, if the lighting is just so, the tree looks like a person.

Legend has it that if you touch the tree it will remember your taste or your smell or whatever sense it is that evil trees use to track people. When you least expect it and when you are all alone, the tree will leave its place and come for you. Nobody has seen this and lived so it is hard to say exactly how it happens, people have only thought that they noticed the tree missing at the time of death. Perhaps the tree has a stomach like coral or starfish that envolops you and digests you. Perhaps the tree has on oriface that opens wide and swallows you whole. Who can really say?

In any case there are a number of disappearances linked only through physical contact with the tree.

Last year, some guys from one of the frat houses on campus made a bunch of freshman touch the tree during hazing. The frat guys were arrested because the freshmen all disappeared a few weeks later. The charges didn’t stick because there just wasn’t enough evidence.

If I were you, I’d stay clear of that tree. I don’t even risk taking classes in the same building. The last thing I want to see before I go to sleep at night is that creeper tree in my doorway, all bent out of shape and reaching toward me. I don’t want to die like that. Please, don’t let me die like that.