Today we start on a new adventure with a short story I call, K is for Karst. I’m trying to capture something different this time, the notion that the world is a living thing, and that what we see with our own eyes is not always the truth as we descend once more into those shadowy depths beneath the ground. Keep in mind this is raw with very minimal editing. So come along, I hope you enjoy the ride, and don’t mind that whisper you might hear. It’s just your imagination, I think.
The call had come as these things typically do, in the middle of the night, dragging Madison from a deep sleep. The male voice on the other end had been straight forward and abrupt. Once she identified herself, still suspicious yet willing to listen to what they had to say, the voice had softened as it delivered the blow.
Her father had passed.
She thanked him, trying to chase the sleep away that left her thoughts muddled. Theirs had not been a loving relationship so there was no immediate sense of loss. No sorrow, no crying, only a numbness trapping her as she sat in bed staring at the phone.
Her dad was the last link to a childhood that had once been full of joy and hope. But after her mother’s death during her last year at college, she and her father had grown apart. Her mother had been the glue that held their small family together, and with her passing the weekly phone calls to catch up had stopped. She had tried several times to reconnect with her dad, but he had always been too busy, too distracted, speaking briefly about his work before dismissing her. In time she quit calling and their relationship that had been tenuous at best, devolved into indifference.
She tried to go back to sleep, the burden she now carried heavy on her mind. As her father’s only heir, there was so much she would have to do in the morning. Plan, schedule a flight to Vermont, convince her assistant to make the presentation she had been scheduled to give to the board of the National Petroleum Institute. She had been looking forward to that presentation; it would have been a true feather in her cap and secured her place with her employer. Geostar, a national conglomerate that provided geophysical surveys for oil and gas companies.
She had been with them for three years and had become one of their rising stars. To which she owed her dad a debt of gratitude. He owned and operated a small granite quarry, and it was here she developed her passion for all the mysteries that existed beneath their feet. The thought of the quarry known locally as The Karst, and the happiness she had known there, brought a tear to her eye. She wiped at it absently as she struggled to find any degree of sorrow at her father’s passing.
The next two days were a blur as she took care of the things she would need to settle so she could disappear for a week. She felt she owed him that much, a week of her time to say a proper goodbye and start the process of selling his assets. She had no desire to run a quarry, and with no other siblings, she felt it best to simply liquidate. She would keep enough to secure her own retirement then donate the rest to those who had been closest to her dad.
From Burlington International airport she took Interstate 89 to state route 63 to state route 14 south towards Williamstown. She passed her dad’s quarry on the left as she got closer to the two-story house she had grown up in. A small part of her wanted to stop and check out the quarry, but she pushed on, fighting the memories that flooded her thoughts as she followed that familiar route. Passing through forested land where small niches had been carved out along the road to offer refuge against the vast wilderness waiting beyond manicured lawns and neat little homes.
These places offered lighted refuge against an impenetrable night when the sun went down. She recalled several times as a child venturing out after dark in search of old secrets held within the shadowed depths. She never saw anything. But her best friend Jessica claimed to have heard voices in the forest bordering her backyard late at night. The story had given her chills at the time, and they returned as her gaze was drawn to the gloomy depths of the forest bordering the road.
Reaching the turn off for her childhood home she pulled into the driveway and sat in the car staring at the empty house. The police had over-nighted her the keys, but she remained in the car as the day slowly drained into evening. She was trying to put her finger on what had gone wrong between them. On what event had transpired to separate them the way they had become.
She as also delaying the inevitable sadness she knew she’d feel once she stepped inside. She should have gotten a hotel at the airport. But as her father would say, what’s done is done. Thinking of him in the past tense brought a tear to her eye and she brushed it away.
Those who sign up for my monthly newsletter get to see the fully edited version of each of these stories before they are released to the public. You will also receive a full length novel available nowhere else. So what are you waiting for, sign up and start your adventure today.
When the Omega‑9 comet crosses the night sky, civilization doesn’t collapse, it decays. In a crumbling Richmond apartment building, eleven‑year‑old Jimmy and a small group of children are trapped as the dead rise, adults fall, and the rules of the world disappear overnight. A haunted priest questions his faith, and a war‑scarred veteran confronts humanity’s darkest instincts. The story is a ruthless exploration of lost innocence, survival, and how thin the line is between humanity and monstrosity when the world ends.
Richard Schiver 
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