THE UMBRELLA LADY

THE UMBRELLA LADY
By Hal Hefner

“She wasn’t paying attention? On her goddamn phone? She was supposed to be watching them!”

The mother’s voice cracked like a whip across the sterile walls of the police station. Christina sat slumped in the metal chair, mascara streaked down her face, shaking. Her phone was still warm in her pocket—still open to the FaceTime call she hadn’t ended, as Nikki listened in, trying to decipher the muffled madness.

“On fucking FaceTime, while my babies were out there alone! How could you?”

Christina choked on her tears. “I—I just looked down for a second. I had to pee. They were in the yard. They were right there.”

The officer across from her—Tommy Mills, a long-faced man with tired eyes, a pointy nose, large teeth, and a wiry mustache that made him look like an overgrown rat—leaned forward.

“Christina. Did you see anyone? Anyone unusual around the house?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah… I saw Lois Helmer.”

Mills blinked. “The umbrella lady?”

“She was pulling her cart—”

“She always pulls that cart. Even if there’s not a cloud in the sky. The kids used to joke… said she was a witch.” Mills stood up, shaking his head. He glanced at his partner, Bob McKinney—an intense military vet turned small-town cop—nodded, and said, “Let’s go.”

The Helmer house sat half-rotted at the edge of the street like it had crawled out of the woods and given up on the sidewalk. The porch sagged and cratered into a giant hole at the end. Cats scattered in and out of the hole. A dozen more felines walked on top of each other as they glared from the windows—like they’d been waiting.

The officers knocked. Then pounded. Christina stood back, arms wrapped around herself.

The door creaked open, and the stench hit them first—piss, rot, shit, and something sick and ancient. Christina gagged as the wind blew the smell of death into her face, the ammonia burning her eyes. Lois stood in the darkness, bones wrapped in rags, her white hair a tangled halo under the wide black umbrella she held even inside. Her breasts sagged and jiggled like deflated balloons as she growled a mouthful of rotted teeth.

“I didn’t take no kids,” she croaked. “Now get the fuck outta here, ya goddamn fuckin’ pigs.”

Mills pushed past her. “Ma’am, we’re going to need to check the house.”

She shrieked and stumbled back, cats skittering under furniture as the officers swarmed the filthy interior. The floor squelched under their boots. McKinney slipped on a pile of old newspapers soaked in something black and fell on his back. Mills looked at him disapprovingly and shook his head.

Lois weaved through the piles of junk and cat shit, evading the officers. She locked herself in the back bedroom, screaming.

“I warned them! You don’t touch my garden, you don’t mock me! This goddamn town—you’ll all burn for what ya done ta me and my family. I’ll fix ya. Mark my words.”

Mills rattled the door handle and called her name. A shotgun blast shook the walls.

McKinney kicked the door in. Blood and pieces of brain matter dripped from the ceiling. Her body slumped in the corner like a discarded doll. The umbrella lay beside her, cracked and tattered, covered in blood.

It was too much for Christina. Mills dealt with the aftermath as McKinney drove Christina home. When she walked in the door, she collapsed into her mother’s arms and sobbed until she couldn’t breathe. “They’re gone. I lost them. I let them…”

Her mother hushed her and held her, rocking her like she was five years old again.

Morning came like a punch to the gut.

Christina blinked against the sun and shuffled toward the front window, eyes swollen. The world was quiet. Too quiet. She had a sinking feeling of dread, then hopelessness. Nobody was home.

She opened the front door to see if her sister’s car was in the driveway.

And stopped.

There, on the lawn, by the tree…

Two small lawn ornaments stood upright in the soil. They were shaped like children. Not statues—just plants, potted in denim shorts and red and yellow sweaters.

The exact outfits the kids had been wearing.

Christina stepped forward on trembling legs.

Their arms—twisting vines. Their heads—blooming with tiny pink flowers.

She opened her mouth to scream. But no sound came. Just the wind, curling through the trees like an old woman’s laugh.

Art and story by Hal Hefner 
Produced by Catmonkey Studio