Preloader

Original Stories

Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Original Stories, Story Hub

“The Abandoned Church” by Bradley Walker

   The church door was open.

   I’d made a point to visit these grounds every time I came back to visit family, which admittedly, was fewer and farther between over the years. Life has a funny little habit of getting in the way of itself; endless surprises pop up and demand attention, which unfortunately often means wants are erased by needs. Still, with all the erraticism in life, one thing remained solid and stable: That door was never open.

   The church itself had fallen into disuse before I was born, but had been constructed somewhere in the early seventeenth century. I knew the exact date at some point – perhaps some general knowledge I’d imbibed through school – but it’d fell out my mind to make room for more useful information.

   I never knew why it still stood here, though. Perhaps superstition?

   There was a proposal before my birth, early into the eighties, in which they planned to finally deconstruct the great stone husk and repurpose the land. But, the act of digging up and relocating the graves must have been a morbid prospect to those considering the job, or those delegated to the task. Who wants to dismantle the home of the Father above? True, times now pay less heed to the fantastical or supernatural, but I imagine back in the eighties when religion had a much stronger hold on thought and actions, people would rather just leave it be than disturb the resting dead.

   There was a chance they expected it to fall due to negligence of its own accord, and thus absolve themselves of any circumvented blasphemy. If the building crumbled, bit by bit, into a great mounds of rubble and dust, then all they had to do was clean up the mess that nature authored. Time conquers every war it ignites, and if it was left to the endless arm of seconds, the walls were likely to outlive numerous generations. Though, I didn’t see much of a difference between active demolition and abandoned dilapidation.

   Or, maybe the reason was purely fiscal? Maybe the governing bodies wouldn’t siphon any of their budget – our town was hardly a jewel in the country – in to hiring a firm to raze the church, level the ground, agree on what should be erected in its stead, so on, so forth.

   All conjecture, of course, but it wasn’t my place to dwell on – I just liked to come by here and think. It was surrounded by fields that rolled and melded in to one another so perfectly it almost seemed serendipitous. A lake coursed through the centre of the vast green in a meandering journey, and three metal bridges had been placed equidistant to join both side of the green that the river innocently sundered. This all, as if wishing to be kept a secret, was enshrouded in a bosky wilderness that could be home to anything from mites to the homeless, for all I knew. I’d never venture in to there, neither from want or need. The church was plenty peaceful for me.

   To get to the church, there was a little path, wide enough for one car, that cut off from the main road (which lead from the train station to the quaint town centre) and entertained a gentle curve before re-joining a smaller road, which in turn led back in to the main one. The path had a canopy of trees towering above it, so even in the day time, it would appear dim as dusk – and I loved it. I always felt like, religious or not aside, that veering off in to this path was like stepping foot in to the past; a different, simpler world. It was wonderfully romantic, and always put my mind at ease. In essence, this place was quite sequestered from the complications of modernity.

   I’d walk through, make my way in to the church grounds and find a place to sit; the stairs leading up to the main church entrance, an indent in the church’s structure itself (though, it was usually mossy and muddy, or littered with burnouts’ trash) or fight my way through the thicket of trees, and place myself on one of the small shrine-like structures, their aesthetic tainted and marred by unceasing seasons.

   Once seated, I’d read a new poem from a book of poetry my grandfather gave me before he passed (always kept it, never read it, until the idea came on my first trip back when I found it sitting in my bookshelf), before going on to reading whatever novel had won my fancy. Just a chapter, just an hour. That’s all I needed.

   It rejuvenated me on a level, that it almost felt as if it was calling me. This was my happy place, and I was more than willing to heed that call; a long developed symbiosis.

   Though I’d been swimming in my ocean of neutral, half-lazy agnosticism (I believed there must be something, but what the thing may be, I couldn’t even hazard a guess) for nigh on a decade, I didn’t come to the church for any religious reason – but mostly because I, well, I enjoyed the different world I’d created on the canvas it presented.

   There was a newer building that replaced the function of this one, should I have been seeking some enlightenment or forgiveness, in which for some reason, the powers that be – divine or not – had decided to transfer the holiness of this place to. It was smaller, true, and staggeringly less impressive, but it was clearly much cheaper to upkeep, to hire, to heat in the winters.

   I found that bewildering. I’d been brought up to believe that god, the very power this church was erected for, had commanded absolute, unquestionable omnipotence. Yet with all that possibility at his behest – with the philanthropic wonders or devastating judgements the bible claimed he had committed on whim or wrath – he couldn’t extend any of his unlimited might to keep one building safe, warm, steady?

   And so, a building that had boasted over three hundred years of joining lovers in holy matrimony, and comforting them in grief decades later when one of them were lost. Forgotten.

   Welcoming new-borns in to the very faith it existed for, and healing the heartache of any stricken by the cruelties of the world. Abandoned.

   A wonder that was constructed by our ancestors long gone– who were buried in these very graves, and though their blood ran through us they were as good as strangers… Betrayed.

   I didn’t realise until the door that had transfixed my gaze began to shimmer, that I had been crying as my mind wondered. There was no logic behind the forming of my tears. It was just an open door. But it seemed so tragic, so awful. It was all I could to do keep my mind wandering about how many tears had been shed on these hallowed grounds, from either despair or delight. Enough for an ocean, I’d wager.

   The eroding gravestones didn’t escape the plummet into irrelevance. As if tiny static planets dotted about the sun, when it dies, they too, cease to matter. The etched names and messages of love had been nihilistically effaced, so that all that remained were crude, crumbling dents. The names the stones once displayed had families, somewhere in the haze of history. Emotions, likes, wants, aspirations, and now… a worn-down stone whose only job was to remember them, had forgotten them, too.

   The grass, wild and unruly, swayed without resistance in the sporadic zephyrs. It covered the entire grounds, clumping in mounds here and there, and lapped up against the gravestones, the church, and the myriad trees. Light and weedy as it was, I imagined with a stronger gale, it would swish and sway like turbulent waves.

   Speaking of the trees, the mighty soldier oaks who accepted the duty of shading the graves from harsh summers had now crept into their twilight; their leaves bushy and unkempt, and donning a crisp autumn red. They stood guard, in their final years, watching over the saplings and younger trees who would, as is the circle of life for all living things, soon stand in their stead.

   Vines of ivy crept up and around the church. Their thick girth sniffing, searching and finding nooks that my eyes could not. They would latch on to it, anchor a support, weave an ostentatious loop before catapulting off, scaling further up the wall like expert climbers, and reaching such a height that they had knit a blanket over the slated roof, permitting only small patches of evidence for what lay beneath. Nature tending to what humanity shrugged off.

   The Church, in turn for the patronage of the vines, had permitted them entrance through the stone window frames in which the stained glass had either been carefully removed and reused, or cruelly smashed and shattered. Either way, the vines cared not – they gushed over the base of the frames, grabbed and pulled from the sides, and ducked under the tops – pouring inside like a bizarre waterfall of tangles.

   And so too, did my tears still pour. I felt a profound pain ebbing at my heart, crying for attention, crying for me to recognise it, but I couldn’t understand. It didn’t make sense to me what was happening. For a moment, I perceived this spectre of inconceivable size looming over me, its unseen eyes boring through my flesh, and scorching my soul. As if there was a squatter, a lodger, fixing its gaze on me and rearing for an attack. But then, all of a sudden, the anxiety shifted as the menace I’d felt turned in to a mocking jeer. And then a shift.

   I found the entire idea of religion had been humbled in one scene. This whole acceptance by millions that religion was, is and always will be the burning centre of all that exists… this very sight offered challenge to it. It disclosed the truth that god, gods, any divine being or deity, is only powerful and relevant when people decide it to be the case. A montage of images through my travels took precedence, and flitted by so quickly it was difficult for me to process. Ancient temples I’d visited, old shrines, statues that had survived the ages, monuments carefully transported from consecrated grounds to the entrance of museums, war-damaged cathedrals, carvings or halls hewn into mountains, tales and traditions, soul and superstition half-remembered. These weren’t the boundless produce of gods, but the bold invention of humans.

   In the very absence of pious care and reverent footfall… nature, without doubt, would always win out. Should we all die right at this second, the gods that we decided had shaped our world – wonders and sunders – would all die with us. And in our absence, the fields we guarded, the forests we fought back, the parks we tamed? They would grow, encroach, venture forth and assimilate without mercy, but so too, without malice.

   I shuddered a deep, sorrowful sob.

   These gods. We homed them in our minds, not these great, stone-wrought manifestations of faith. No, our thought, our need for meaning, was their pantheon. To the gods we were born in to, and the gods we learned about from dead civilisations – they died with them. And the books. And the garments. Commandments. Rules. Pious practices and prayers and parables… All had been wrought and cooled within the furnace of human thought.

   As I watched a bird – a crow, if the glimpse I managed was to be believed – fly in to the open window, and settle on the vines before dancing from foot to foot, and hopping within. As I realised this collection of stone and wood had now been claimed by ‘lesser creatures’ as a home, I felt a change within.

   A gust of wind rattled at the bleeding leaves of the elder trees, and they hissed their vehement fury to my sudden religious void, or perhaps they were whispering their agreement. But, as they plummeted, twisting and flailing, from the safety of lofty heights to the wilderness below, so too, did the remnants of my wavering faith.

   I felt compelled to walk up to the door, and peer within. It lured me in like a silent siren, as if offering to satisfy this overwhelming emptiness. I wished to bear witness to what had become of such a place. To identify the body of my indoctrination, as it lay cold and blue-lipped on a slab in the morgue. The door itself shifted and blurred, still, through my bleary, teary eyes.

   Each step I felt colder – more alone. I’d never experienced such a sensation in my entire experience of life.

   I glanced back to see the main road in the distance, with cars zipping up and down like ants in their hill – nary a care in the world for the macro scale. Each caring only about their own minor lives, trivial issues and goals. As if one day they, too, won’t grind to dust – the quintessence of us – and be forgotten by all living, and existing. I couldn’t return to that now. Not with such a queer loss stemming from the very place that I would come to mourn, or cling on to it.

   I climbed the last of the few steps and realised the inside of the door had a series of queer patterns around it. Vandals, I assumed. Stars, and circles, triangles and strange symbols that looked as if they could be Norse, or Greek, a form of hieroglyphics or from some strange language.

   And all around these markings, as if framed in lacerations, a series of sharp concise scratchings, cut deep in to the rotting wood.

   For a second, I thought I felt another gust of wind conjure an army of goose pimples upon my flesh, but I soon realised this chill came from within.

   I took a step inside the vestibule and could see all the way up to the sanctuary.

   There was no-one giving a sermon, yet a congregation of detritus held attendance in vain anticipation. Weeds had commissioned emissaries to spread their influence wherever possible; crawling through every crack the stone base had conceded over time – ubiquitous, unruly, merciless.

   Of the wooden pews that remained, all of them were rotting away in soft white blooms, or had become a banquet for undiscerning termites and woodlice. I felt a wry, sardonic smile curl at my lips, God in all his providence…

   Again, an unseen presence seemed to agree. The empty church, the hidden critters, the untended trees or the pervasive weeds. Or, perhaps, something more sinister.

   Most of the pews, like everything else, were completely broken – whether by time or human, it was unclear.

   About the old walls, there were some slight, faint discolorations. All were so similar in the likeness that I deduced they must have had fixtures bolted down, which had evidently found patronage elsewhere – one way or another.

   Wind burst in from the empty window frames, whooshing, whistling, and worrying at my hair seeing as there were no candle flames to flutter and gutter.

   An immense loneliness had all but stolen me, and embraced me to the point of constriction. Though, I was the only human to walk within, even then, I felt like a trespasser to this other I could sense. Yet, I walked on, up to the crumbled, chipped and podium; lacking finery and rife with graffiti.

   It was odd to look back from this vantage point, to see rubble and dust, planks and splinters, rubbish and faeces. All that rather than divinity and order, perhaps a reflection of the tatters my own faith had been left in.

   I could hear the scuttled patter of scrabbling rodent foot and nail on stone, rather than the hushed whispers of a pious audience in waiting.

   Unsure as to why, I laid my bare hands on the stone before me, feeling an inherent chill below the layer of dust and dirt. And like a pretender, a tourist to a land I once had a home in, I crossed myself, and I spoke.

   “The Lord be with you,” I said.

   Strange, there was no echo as would be expected, which I assumed must have been due to my voice fleeing through the windows rather than rebounding about the bare, cavernous wall and arched ceiling. Though, in answer, a series of startled darting took place, from the hidden animals I heard before.

   I smiled wanly, in spite of all, and made to step down.

   “And The Beast with you,” I heard a muffled, subdued chorus respond. A collection of disembodied voices, each barely more than a whisper.

   I stood rooted in my advance. Frozen in terror-stricken paralysis. After a godless epoch, my wits returned to me and I tore my eyes from the ground, so as to discern where in this echo of a once great building, the sound could have emanated from – but was offered no explanation. No answer.

   I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety, clawing within and without, trying to steal what was left of my hope.

   Everything within was telling me to cease, but I wanted to speak on. To check. But whether I would have or not, my voice had diminished in shock, and only hushed squeaks could be heard.

   The squawk of a crow broke the spell, and relinquished me from the ethereal, or panicked hold. I glanced to where the caw sounded, and my eyes caught sight of an upturned cross which seemed to pulse and throng with a thirst, a predatory hunger. It yearned for me. It called to me. It lulled me in, like a moth to a flame, calling for my touch.

   I felt the numerous eyes on me. I felt the presence encouraging.

   I collected my wits, I demanded presence of mind, and I darted. Fleeing, sprinting straight down the aisle and feeling the irony of a hundred unseen eyes on me. Whether conjured from my own thought, or evident in devout spectres I was uncertain. To further my panic, I heard concerned mutterings as I sped.

   Twice I stumbled in my haste, first kicking a rock I hadn’t seen and second, after my footfall landed upon a loose piece of wood that rocked and jolted under my weight. Both times, I heard a cry of laughter, or a ghastly jibe. My cry of terror, yelp of shock, they weren’t unheard and discarded.

   I didn’t pause my flight until I was down the stairs, out the grounds, past the graves – the image of an army of spirits standing, watching beneath that crimson canopy, judging me in my madness roared at my peripherals, but my tears and desperation blurred and distorted them. I scaled the small wall, and didn’t slow my pace until I was on the aforementioned main road.

   My muscles were complaining, my lungs stinging, my heart stabbing at me.

   I dared a glance back toward the church, and to my surprise, I could see that the door was now closed. However, it was clear I hadn’t paused in my flight for such a consideration.

   Though I hadn’t quite recovered, though my fear and spontaneous exhaustion had not been remedied by this rest, nor quelled by any logic I grasped for. I heard, like the faint wisps of dusk, the distant and harrowing melody of a church organ.

   And thus, I turned to resume my retreat.

   I may have lost my religion, but thereon, an afterlife seemed an inescapable doom.

   Yet I ran.

   Confused. Hopeless. Godless.

  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Mystery, Original Stories, Story Hub

“The Whispering Grandfather” by Bradley Walker

   This is a long story, I know. But by rights it should be as it spans the decades of my own life, up until last month. I understand we all find ourselves busy with the ever-present worries, priorities, and goals within our own transience, but I beg those with a little time to read on, and share this tale of creeping discomfort with my old soul.

   We all have issues in our families; skeletons in the closet enough to fill old, forgotten catacombs. Most of these are mundane and ubiquitous. Secret shames that ‘tarnish’ the family name, regardless of the fact that the very skeleton itself is placed in every family’s closet. Affairs, ‘illegitimate’ children, conservatorships, drug addled child, alcoholic aunt, handsy uncle, the list goes on. However, my family were different. We were always a small family, and never really involved ourselves in the lives of any extended blood. My mother’s side was larger, but lived further afield. My father’s on the other hand- me, him, his parents. There was no shame, no silly accident or act of infidelity. Our skeletons weren’t trivialities tucked behind a chrisom or shroud of shame, but something much more sinister. Something that I believe, to this day, is wholly inexplicable. I would go as far as saying: We didn’t have endless little skeletons in our closet, but one titanic demon.

   I think it’s nigh time I tell this story. The burning stitch has been woven in and out of my life over the years, though, I was lucky enough to never wear the garment it birthed directly. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself in a predicament that none should ever face… objectively. And thus, let met tell.

   My mum and dad were always quite reticent when it came to talking about my grandfather on my dad’s side. It’s not as if they’d outright refuse to speak about him, but whenever he was brought up – say, a neighbour innocently asking how the folks are doing – the mood would just change so suddenly that it would almost give me whiplash. I still remember, very clearly, my mum would grow harrished and flustered, then try to commandeer the conversation, talk about her own parents (both deceased before I was born) and then steer the topic in to other territory. “How are yours?” “Did you hear…?” “How’re your babies? They must be xx old now!”

   I was a child, so never delved deeper than the surface level of the circumstance. I had much more important things to think about; games for school, tardy homework, the next toy, the lost toy, the favourite toy. I was an inquisitive child, relatively, but only in things that struck a chord of interest to me. Unfortunately, my mother’s deterrence whenever her father-in-law was brought up, my father’s sudden iron-clenched expression of discomfort, was never really factored in to it.

   The first time I noticed there was something actively queer, as in, it showed up as a curious blip on my juvenile radar, was when I was nearing the end of my primary school years. We were tasked with mapping our family tree as far as we could go back. We were given large A1 pieces of card in which we were supposed to snip out old photographs, or have them copied and cropped, then stuck to the card. These would be linked to show our heritage, and go as far back as was possible.

   I was absolutely ecstatic about this. Not only was it a break from the dull monotony of sums, science and spelling, but it was practical, personal. School back then was hardly either. I was charmed by the idea of finding out about ancestors I’d never get the chance to meet, yet was effectively a product of. I ran home to my mother, as my dad was out on an errand, and told her what I needed. The reaction was instant, physical and visible; jaw clenched, eyes widened, and a blotchy pervasion of red stole over her face. She grew flustered and irate, though I knew it wasn’t with me. She began stuttering and spluttering, before regaining composure after a few seconds, then in a way that is so natural to adults, dismissed me with a “Let me speak to your dad later,” followed by a stern, direct order of, “Don’t mention this again.”

   Later, my dad came home, strolled passed me with a ruffle of the hair and a promise to talk about school after a cup of tea. He headed to the kitchen where my mother was perched with a crossword – though, I’d popped in three times for snacks and noticed she hadn’t spared time for even a guess. I heard her voice, low and mumbled, as she spoke to him. His response was a shout that was quickly stifled in to sharp whisper, and, seconds later, there was a heavy thud. I sprung from the couch to sneak a peek, and saw my dad nursing his fist, which he had evidently slammed in to the marble counter top. He was furious, steely and rigid. My mother, rather than annoyed at his outburst, seemed sympathetic toward him. She spotted me as she began to soak a kitchen towel, and with a quick jolt of the head, sent me to my room. I obeyed without question, but full of guilt for knowing this was somehow my fault.

   The next day in school, I was approached by a fretful and vehemently apologetic Mrs. Frost, who proceeded to paint me with all colours of regret, and then exempted me from the assignment. I was told to sit out and read for a while as the other students worked on theirs. I never complained. I liked reading. At the end of that week, all my peers had bright, colourful family trees; a whole forest of ancestry. But mine? Not even a seed to tell of my heritage.

   There was a smattering of moments like that when I was younger. Snippets of extreme tension, my mother and father squirming in anger, discomfort, sometimes even fear. People behaving differently around me. It wasn’t a constant threat, and mostly, my parents were a typical, happily married couple. But after that assignment, the thought of my grandfather compelled a morbid, forbidden curiosity in me. It was always muted and repressed, but ever-present.

   I’m no longer a kid; far from it as my well-earned beer gut and wispy hair clutching around each side of my head, but for the tuft at the top, will attest to. And still, for a long time I found myself telling my kids that they’re not to ask their granddad about his dad. This initially conjured some questions, as they plied the same curiosity I’d learned to silence, mostly, but sooner or later they stopped asking. This was prudent, because my dad wouldn’t answer me, so I couldn’t answer them. All I told them when pressed was that we don’t know much about him, and that families were different.

   Families were different. I always knew that. My friend had a whole hospital bed in their living room for their nan, who was apparently ‘not long for this world’ but stayed alive well in to my teens. We used to sneak over and look at all the buttons, read the little canisters and examine the devices as she lay still and withered, her laboured breathing a languid, raw rhythm – a strenuous metronome that lulled between the sporadic beeping and sudden gulping bubble of her drip. It was interesting rather than saddening. I knew grandparents were old, could get sick, could pass away – so I had no idea why everything was being shielded from me. My friend knew exactly what was happening with his grandmother, why couldn’t I be offered the same?

   The insight I did manage to glean was harrowing. So, even the little loose, ill-fitting puzzle pieces I’d managed to mentally grasp made no sense when placed together. You see, from the ages of, perhaps, five to ten, or at least somewhere there around, I did get to go to my grandparents’ house. And, though I could tell there was always something out of the ordinary, it didn’t seem at all unnerving or aberrational at first. I was told my grandfather had to stay in the other room, and that seemed acceptable enough for my young brain. He must be sick. He’s not long for this world. That’s all, right? I realised my aim was well off-target for truth.

   Overall, I visited my only grandparents only a handful of times, and it was always due to my grandmother being poorly. I used to get so excited, though, because every visit, I would be driven to the toy shop on the way, and my dad would always pick out something new for me. Toys back then weren’t as varied as you can get today, but my dad used to always say the ones with lights and sounds were the best ones, regardless of whether I wanted them or not. Then, we would pop by a pet store! They loved animals, my dad explained. They help them grow up, then give them to other families. That, as you can imagine, was the highlight of my year. Mostly, we’d get them a hamster or gerbil, something small, furry and cuter than I could handle. Once we got a kitten. Oh, to be a child of no worries, with a brand-new toy and a scuttling little mammal to hold.

   After that, we would be driving to their home which was a little further out than I would have expected. When the suburbs gave away to bosky landscapes, the mood within the car would change, and my mum and dad wouldn’t say a word to each other. My dad would usually drive, and his motions with the handbrakes would be sharp and staccato, he’d be grumbling and grunting swear words at any other driver on the road, and when they seemed to dwindle in numbers, his wrath would shoot at any road sign, or sight, or- whatever he could find to hate.

   God forbid we were ever stopped at a red light. How ghastly that would be… The entire duration would be spent with him leaning forward, his elbows on the steering wheel, and supporting his head in his hands as if this was a travesty. He’d keep glancing in the back seat, and as if I was a spectre, ignore me and fix his eyes on their new pet. As if making sure it was still there. My mother would wait a moment, then when the lights started changing, place a gentle, reassuring hand on his shoulder which didn’t do much to alleviate his mood, but he’d at least look up to the side, lock eyes with her, take her cue and then press on the pedal.

   When I got there with my rocket, or robot or roaring dinosaur (cliché, I know) in hand, my grandmother would be sitting in her little pyjamas of the year (she got a new set sent in the post every Christmas from us), and would pull me in to her arms the second I tottered through the door. Within seconds I’d be met with a thousand kisses from her wrinkled, dry lips, and with the aid of breath that smelled like sugary tea, I was asked all manner of questions about my school life, my friends, and get showered with all manner of sweets she’d been saving for me.

   The house was, by any stretch of the imagination, an ordinary grandparent’s house. My grandmother’s chair was positioned just in front of an antique grandfather clock, and on either side of that were about a thousand pictures of me that I can’t remember being taken, or of my mum, dad and me together. She would have birthday cards and Christmas cards in their envelopes, “The ones we missed, and the one we’ll miss,” she’d say with no sadness, or joke, nor anything but accepted fact.

   In truth, I loved the attention. It was as if all this silence and hush that forced this strange stigmatised super-injunction on my grandfather was remedied in the arms of such a sweet old woman. She had the lovely delicate voice that the kindly, gingerbread making grandmothers in movies had. She would nestle me in to her breast, have one hand stroking my cheeks in relaxing circular motions, and the other playing with my hair – twiddling it this way and that as she told me how lucky I was to have such golden curls (I remember them fondly), and that she thought about me every day, that she was so proud of me and she loved me more than… and then go on to reel off as many items she could list, before deciding any word she ever learned could never do it justice.

   And, I craved it. Just the knowledge that my grandmother was the perfect archetype was enough to offer equilibrium to whatever was going on with my grandfather.

   The only thing, though, was each time, the visit would turn immensely sour after maybe thirty minutes to an hour or so, which is when the sudden normality of the visit would begin to fizzle treacherously. Even at my earliest memory, I remember a shiver of discomfort tickle through my body, because from the other room, there would be a chorus of whispers – just loud enough to be heard – emanating through. As soon as they started, my grandmother would pause for a moment, and I’d watch as she shot a glance to my dad, who would then turn to my mum. I’d usually capture her “don’t-let-Edward-know-we-are-arguing” face, as my dad’s brows furrowed, and his eyes began to fill with rage.

   Then, from the other room, the whispers would incrementally increase in volume, so that I could hear individual words being spoke, but too muffled to make them out. The rhythm and general sound of them didn’t seem exactly natural to me, there were a lot of consonants and more “s”s than I knew a language to have, but that was probably due to the fact that they were still, in nature, faint whispers. Whisper a ‘hello’ to yourself now, and let the breath push gently at your throat, and barely escape past the teeth – that was the quality the entire sentences would form in. Only when there would be a sudden shout, or visceral bark which caused my grandmother to flinch and quickly regain composure, would my dad stand up, in a fit of rage, storm over to the pet, pluck it up and then disappear. Suddenly my nan would forget about asking me any and all questions, and then my toy would be the star of the show.

   The radio would get turned up then, and the television, so the two could wage sonic war on one another. Amidst this sudden chaos, my nan would have me howling with laughter as she tried to copy the noise of the toy, in an absurdly loud and dramatic imitation, that I would have to copy; the two of us bouncing off each other’s mimicry until we were both screeching at the top of our voices.

   …and I knew it was a distraction technique even then, because my mum would only be watching with half her heart. Her eyes were on us, her smile was fixed – almost programmed or rehearsed – in place, but her mind and hearing wERE tuned to the door. The barks, grunt and sudden outbursts from my grandfather were still there, but added to them, the challenger of my dad’s anger, built up and repressed from a thousand trivial driving complaints and then… squealing. All loosed in one bizarre and frightening cacophony, before, it would all settle and after a few minutes, my dad would return, completely composed and almost too jovial. A façade to be sure, but one I was happy to accept at face value.

   Then, the time would come for me to say the briefest hello and goodbye to the man himself. They would act the way I see heads of state’s security act when walking anywhere. They would be checking every corner, and exchanging similar silent glances that spoke a thousand words, until I was brought in to the ante-parlour in which my grandad stayed when I visited.

   The room was dark, and always had a strange dank smell. I was unsure if he was the source, or this was just one of those rooms that had acquired the strange scent and was loathe to relinquish it. Again, my friend’s living room always had a strange, unfamiliar yet simultaneously recognisable scent to it, so I just assumed it was an old person’s smell, and each had their own. It wasn’t a horrid smell, as such – acrid with a softened sweetness. It was just, I suppose, prevalent, and demanded attention. Maybe it was because it was one of the only discerning features within the rooms.

   There was no furniture, and the windows had been blocked off with wooden boards that had been painted black, and bolted in to the walls with thick, heavy-duty bolts that would offer a muffled response to the muted glimmering chandelier. I’m unsure where the thought came from, but I was convinced they were the ones that were bolted in Frankenstein’s monster’s neck – but I suppose that was just a scared kid in creepy room connecting dots.

   In the meek light of the open door, I could see the pictures and symbols. Just a flash of a second. They were scattered across the floor, walls, ceiling – skittering across every surface like a crusade of scurrying insects. I couldn’t make them out, because quickly and carefully, the door would be closed behind us. And there we stood. Us and him.

   In this dark room, with no natural light, my grandfather would always be stood at the very back, dead-centre, flat against the wall. It was an old house, so the height of the room wasn’t quite what it was in our own house, but it was still about three of my full height – yet, my grandfather’s head managed to just brush underneath it. He wasn’t, I suppose, abnormally tall so that it would break any records, but definitely taller than anyone I’d seen before then. His general height and build together seemed to just teeter on the precipice of grotesque, just acceptable for human standards, but part of me felt like this was an illusion. An ill-fitting costume donned to fit in.

   He would just stand stock still, wearing a plain black dressing gown that was cinched at the waist with a simple hempen cord, and though the sleeves seemed to dangle further than they had any right to, I would still see the tips of his fingers poking out. Atop his head was one of those sleeping caps that we associate with the sandman, but this too, was of the same black as the gown – or perhaps the dimness of the room stole away any colour the clothes may have boasted. The dark of the clothes melded so well with the blackness that the chandelier couldn’t purge, that it was difficult to tell where the enshrouding shadow stopped and he started.

   The first time I saw him, I was trembling so much it felt as if the entire world was quaking and I was the only one trying to stay upright. My throat grew dry, my legs felt numb, weak and ready to collapse, and as much as I knew blood dictated that I love this man, the sight of him terrified me. No nightmare came close. I always noticed, after we left, that though my dad brought the pet in with him, it was never in evidence when I followed in the room.

   It got a little easier over the next few visits, especially because they were usually at least a year apart, but he’d always be in that same position, standing the exact same way, in the exact same robe (which by the last visit was frayed, torn, threadbare and crudely patched in many places).

   Yet, the one thing that never got easier was the approach. Each step I was flanked by my parents, and my grandmother would be standing at the door, clenching the handle as if ready to swing it open if necessary. “Say goodbye to your granddad, Ed,” my dad would urge, more of a hurried order than a parental encouragement. Then I’d have to take his hand, and as his fingers touched mine I could feel they were icy cold, and had a strange parchment-like quality to them – tinder dry, and raw.

   I always had a feeling that, around me, he was struggling with something. Holding back some urge, like a predator crouching, ready for a pounce, but never quite allowed to leap. I was told to kiss the back of his hand only once, with no saliva. I did so, and as I looked up, my neck bent at an almost ninety-degree angle to look at his face, I saw only a gaunt, expressionless visage looking back. In the dim of the room, I couldn’t make him out entirely, but his gaze seemed fixed and frail, his eyes vacant and though aimed at me, never really seeing me.

   They had a strange shape to them, his eyes did. Slightly off-angle, slightly too round. Always just on the edge of reasonable. They would be fixed, focused and staring without truly looking. It was similar to looking at one of those “What’s wrong with this picture?” tests you see. You know there’s something you’re missing, but if you only have a passing glance once a year to discern the hazard, you aren’t going to find it. Then, on my way out, I would be told, “Walk, slowly now, that’s it. Don’t run, Eddy. There’s a good lad,” but, with each forced steady step I took, I’d hear a hint, an echo, of those strange whispers starting from the back of the room.

   I’d never see the pet.

   After those visits, for the next three days I would constantly be checked over. Not just where my hand or lip made contact, but my entire body. They would be asking if I felt okay. Any wooziness? And nausea? Any discomfort? Any tightening pressure? Any issues with hearing? There never was any malady, any marks or scrapes.

   The last time I went through my post-visit checks, I was old enough to be embarrassed about having to get completely naked in front of my parents, and when I tried to fight back and tell them I didn’t want to undress, I was beaten so badly, pinned down and checked with all the more angry scrutiny, until they were satisfied with whatever they were looking at, and then the sheer apologetic fear on their faces was another image I’ll never get out of my head.

   I was showered with gifts for nearly a year after that, and they promised me I’ll never have to go again, unless I wanted to, or until I was old enough to ‘know’.

   Keep in mind this was all over a number of years, and only a few times, so the image of my granddad never left me exactly, and I’d often wake up after having a nightmare that he was standing at the edge of the horizon in my dream, watching. That’s the imagination of a child for you. But the visit was one day out of the year, so school kept me busy, friends kept me busy, games and books and whatever else keeps us company during our time on this planet took precedence, and I believed this helped dilute the experience. So, it wasn’t as if I was subject to this event constantly, but the few times I had was enough, and the fallout of the last was enough for me to not want to go again.

   I got older, as we do, and finished school, went to college, then moved away for university and lived my life. I met my first girlfriend at twenty-three and thus unfolds the usual trials and tribulations of dating, hating, hurting, forgiving, loving, compromising, so on, so forth. Early on in the relationship, I was brought to meet her parents, who just so happened to allow her grandparents to stay with them – both old, frail, and I guess this was the equivalent of my friend’s nan bed-bound in his house. That was all well and good, and though her grandparents clearly weren’t very well, they were happy as anything and were more than willing to engage in conversation.

   This got me thinking about my grandfather again, and, on my next trip home, I brought back a whiskey (it was brewed in the city I studied at, so could get it fairly cheap), and bit back each foul wincing sip, all of which were preceded by a “cheers” and a glassy clink to my dad’s pour, which I made sure was always a little more than mine.

   I hoped the whisky would offer me some amber courage with its welcome warmth, and what defence it bolstered of mine, it would decay and weaken of his. Half a bottle in, and I managed to force the question. “Dad?” I asked, my voice already nearly a screech with the nerves. “What was the deal with my granddad?” My mum, who was drinking her gin literally dropped her glass, as if the question was so out of the blue and unexpected, it physically knocked her off guard. It shattered on the wooden flooring, and the noise of that clung in the air during the tension that followed. She was up in a flash, and though the dustpan and brush were kept below the kitchen sink, she sailed up the stairs with the drunken elegance only she could command, and I didn’t see her for the rest of the night.

   Well, I won’t get in to the way he finally reacted exactly, because he really was overall a fantastic man. But, the long and short of it was, “He’s a sick man.” And, so, I gladly accepted that at face value. I was a twenty-three year old, soon to be twenty-four, and I knew the euphemism of ‘sick’ for the elderly meant they’re due death. Also, I knew that meant that their time may be longer than any expected, yet, death all the same. A sorry subject no matter which angle you view it from, and, I guess I forced square answers that didn’t quite fit in to the circle holes of the questions I had, just so I could convince myself that chapter was over and done with in my life.

   It was probably some bizarre sickness, that rendered him unable to move or talk in such a manner that others could, and stole the colour from his flesh, and- and perhaps it was infectious which is why they checked me over, and- and- everything else, whether it allowed through the sudden open gates of acceptance, whether it was logical or not. But those whispers? The just off-kilter dimensions of his body? The- no! All normal. I was just too young to understand. That’s all it was. It’s easy to lie to oneself when it’s convenient.

   Years trickled by, the girlfriend and I broke up, I met a new one, we shared summer, winters, springs and autumns. Holidays, and proposals matured over time in to honeymoons and mortgage. And suddenly, I get a call from my dad, who by now had lost the colour of his auburn hair to the merciless greed of time, and was offered a face wrought in wrinkles and sad old eyes in its stead. It was about my grandmother. “She’s died, Ed,” he said.

   I came back home with my now wife. The funeral arrangements were quickly sorted and solved, and I noticed, though I daren’t bring it up, that my grandfather wasn’t involved. My wife asked when he’d died, as I’d explained that he was fairly older than my now late grandmother, so was fair to assume that was the case, and I admitted, I didn’t know – nor would I ask my dad when it was held, and why there were no funeral arrangements for that.

   Anyhow, her funeral was a morbid, grim affair as funerals tend to be. She was well in to her eighties by this point, so she’d lived a long life as far as they go. I regretted wholly and truthfully not seeing her more whilst she was alive, but, with moving away and the whole strangeness about visiting, it just didn’t seem to be conducive to my life. My partner comforted me as I shed tears tasting of grief and guilt, staring at the kind face that made me feel special and loved, thinking of how that sleeping countenance had howled, and beeped and squealed with me when I was young, and small enough to be bounced on her old, not-yet-frail knee.

   I heard others sobbing, old women and men I’d never met crying for the loss of a woman whose very blood ran through my own veins, but I knew little of. That made the grimacing guilt even worse, as I turned away from the coffin to see a humble yet sizeable congregation of unknown friends, who could have been with her from school. And me, the grandchild standing at the side of her death, ignorant and selfish, as uninvolved as I was. A betrayer who never made the effort I could have in her life.

   Speeches were spoken, more tears were shed or stifled, sermons were served and prayers were uttered. Then, as the song she’d chosen began to play, reverberating around the cavernous walls resonating within the crematorium, as it did within our hearts, the coffin disappeared behind the curtains. Further protocols were observed, whilst announcements of respect and love were declared, and the gathering – all of us like living black, wallowing wraiths that proved her kindness – began to usher ourselves unguided out the doors.

   I took one last look back, to whisper an apology for the nan I abandoned as people shuffled past one by one, most hunched and shuffling, aided by steel or stick.

   Then I heard them.

   The horrid, insidious whispering that crept beneath my skin as a child. They seemed to be writhing about the hall like a thousand spectral snakes, and though my eyes darted everywhere, from the lectern, to the pews, to the divine decorated corners and flickering candles – there was no sign of him. And there shouldn’t be, because he was a sick man. As I said, it was clear he was much older than my grandmother in the way he looked; so tall, and fragile and thin and pale. Couldn’t have been less than ten years her senior, maybe even twenty.

   But still, the whispering continued. Like when I was younger, I could hear specific words being spoken, it was like listening to a different language. When my wife grabbed my hand, I almost lashed out and hit her in complete shock, being brought back to my sense. And when I saw the fear in her eyes, I apologised profusely which was instantly forgiven, considering the circumstances.

   We left the venue, and made our way in to the sprawl of grouped widows sharing memories, or haggard and lonely individuals wondering who will mourn them when their time came. We moved, trying not to draw any attention from anyone as I searched for my mum and dad. I scanned everywhere, wondering where they could be, when in the distance, I saw standing by the far end of wall, under the balcony so as to be shielded from the refreshing, and lukewarm daylight, the same tall, shadowy garbed sentinel I’d only ever seen in the dark room.

   The figure was dressed in all black, and he was holding a large ivory cane which he clutched from leathern gloves. A bowler hat sat atop his head at an angle, and as he looked up, seemingly aware my eyes were on him, I saw he was wearing sunglasses and had a black scarf wrapped up almost to his nose, though the day was pleasant and gentle as my grandmother had been in life. Only slithers of bone white pale flesh could be seen in the small gaps permitted between scarf, and glasses, and hat. Pallid, mottled, near illuminous compared to the rest of him. A darkness swam around him, though the day was clear; it seemed to shift and undulate like a mist, though there was not a wisp of fog in sight. An aura, a dark nimbus that buzzed around his image.

   I grabbed my wife’s hand, with a sheer iciness clutching at me from within – as if his very hands had found themselves on my heart – and I pulled her to our car deciding that mum and dad could do their rounds of people I didn’t know, and we’d wait for them in the venue we were to drink to the love of a wonderful woman.

   That was thirty-odd years ago now, and the thought of seeing him there still harrows me. A man in his eighties, maybe nineties, standing as tall and still as he had done every time I had seen him before. It didn’t make sense if he was a sick man. That’s when the whole concept of the word sick struck me with an unseen impact. Perhaps when my father said he was sick, he meant mentally. Perhaps my grandfather was fine in physical health, but his mind had rotted and festered long before I was conceived? This, unfortunately, authored more questions than it answered, and unravelled a few of the knots I thought I’d tied up.

   From then to now, we settled in to the routine of our lives. We had children. We celebrated promotions, and ventures anew. We moved to the city she was from, half way down the other end of the country, meaning we only got to see my parents every now and then. It was only ever for Christmas, their birthdays, our birthdays, or the kids’ birthdays, and even then, it wasn’t every time. I wanted my children to know and love their grandparents equally, perhaps out of guilt for my grandmother, and because of what I experienced with my grandfather.

   I never knew if my father saw him there on the day of the funeral, and I never wanted to ask – he was ageing. He didn’t need the hassle. I didn’t need the argument. My wife didn’t need to be introduced to it all.

   Though, I do regret sealing the words behind a coward’s lips, because now I’m well over the best years of my own life, as the aforementioned gut and ghostly grey memories of those once golden locks warned you about, and my dear mother passed away a decade ago, leaving my brave dad to totter along as best as he could, until last month he, too, passed away – outliving his own mother by one month exactly. Bringing with him – to whatever is waiting for us – all the answers I never got to ask.

   His funeral was much of the same, affair, and I’m still finding myself waking up with a suffocating sadness in the middle of the night, that, much like my father in the car, only the staying touch of my wife’s soothing hand can quieten.

   But so too, is the fear suffocating me. So tight and asphyxiating that I can almost feel a vice grip of cold steel around my throat.

   Because as I was thanking the priest at the end of the sermon and shaking his hand in a grateful goodbye, and the congregation had made their way out through dulled conversation, hissing sniffles, muted sobs and the clack-clack of smart black shoes they never wished to wear… there begun the snarling whispers. Those whispers. Those horrid, deafening, burrowing whispers. Then him.

   How?!

   How, in any holy world, did I see that same sentinel. The figure who fathered the man lying dead but ten feet away from me, standing upright and silent as ever. A grim looming statue that denied time and refused death – staring at me from the old crooked candle-lit corner?

   I stood, frozen and anchored; as if I was once again but a juvenile, with no authority of my own. The whispers whipped around, and seemed to surround me like a tornado of hissing. A chorus of hollow voices, all tripping over one another for dominance. To be heard. So many of them were just sounds, though, there was form to them. They were languages I couldn’t discern. Languages that were of no modern home. They sounded the loudest. I’m unsure whether I stood the for a fraction of a second or an eternity, but in the hold, I heard others. Some more common, more understandable; a dark, desperate need in all of them – whether I understood or not. A raw, primal need. Help. That’s what they all wanted. Help. Escape. Relief.

   Then, I heard one voice I did understand. One voice I knew. The voice of the man supposedly laid to rest in eternal peace. My father’s voice. “Don’t let him talk. Run. Don’t take him in. Go. Now. Bef-” the voice was swept beneath the tumultuous wave of the rest.

   I came back to my senses, and realised my grandfather had closed the distance, even though I didn’t see a moment of movement before me. I jumped back, falling flat and scrambling, then as the whispers urged, begged, implored, wailed, I burst in to the sunlight. A few lingering folk turned to look at me in surprise, but I ignored their calls of concern. I looked inside, and prayed that in the darkness, I wouldn’t see that figure.

   I have no idea what has kept him alive this long, nor what abnormalities surrounded him. But, what I do know, is that of all the mysteries that surround this globe we trod on, not all are fantastic and wondrous. Some are evil, vile, diabolic and deserve to not be explored.

   I’ve no idea where he went after I left, nor whether I should have spoken and asked. I have a terrible feeling that those whispering aren’t random, but rather a collection. I have an awful vision of this tall, spectral wraith flitting through dark streets and prowling amidst deep forests, finally unleashed and unchecked. Perhaps I should have taken him in, should have learned just what nature, or lack thereof, surrounded him. But, in sooth, I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing, as long as I never have to hear him, see him, smell him, ever again.

  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Original Stories, Story Hub

“The Widow’s Son” by Graves Asher

Mom raged at the ceiling. Wondered. Why me? She stood on a chair, bringing her that much closer to her God. She looked up at the ceiling and shook her tiny, miserable fist. Why me? Dead. In the ground. Her husband of several years. Decades. Why me?

She wanted those tough answers. Those hard answers to difficult questions. And she wanted them right then and there. Immediately. She shook her fist again. Sixty-six years of life coursing through her veins. Sixty-six years of living. Eighty percent with the same man. Companion. Husband. And now, like that, gone. Vanished. Dust. Into the ground he went, tucked inside a wooden box crafted by his estranged brother. No more laughs. No more smiles.

Nothing.

Just dirt. And memories.

She shook her fist.

God?

Why me? A little girl’s voice. Confused. Hurt. God didn’t have an answer. God kept quiet. As He tends to do.

So, my mom stepped off the chair and returned it to the dining room table. She sat down and began to cry.

God didn’t listen to that, either.

2.

Wednesday morning. One year later. She got in the shower. Turned on the water. Washed. Cried. Turned off the water. Got out. Dried. Cried.

And when she walked into the bedroom, she saw it: an open dresser drawer. The one that contained his things. Socks. Underwear. She dropped the towel. Naked, she stepped closer. Peered in.

“Honey?” she asked.

No answer.

“Honey, is that you?” she inquired.

Nothing.

Silence.

Nothing.

She picked up the towel and covered herself. If her deceased husband was around, he’d want her to remain modest. He was old-fashioned. Traditional. She had liked that. Tradition. Values. Positive values. Religious values. All of them. Any of them.

But what did that open drawer mean? What did it represent? Had her husband returned from beyond the veil? Stepped down from Heaven? To show his love? One final time?

With a drawer. Full of socks. Underwear.

She fell to her knees, she told me. She fell to her knees, and she wept. And she raised her hands in the air in praise.

And she thanked her quiet God.

3.

The next day, we had a telephone conversation. About the drawer. And my dead father. His return. His glorious return. From beyond.

Praise Jesus.

As a ghost. A ghost who loved dresser drawers. Praise God.

“What do you think?” she asked me, excited and giddy, like a child on Christmas. “Do you think it’s him? Do you think this is a sign?”

“A sign of what?” I wanted to know.

“That he’s around.”

“Around the house?”

“Yes, around the house.”

“You think Dad opened the drawer?”

“Who else could have done it?”

“One of the cats?”

“No, it was the top drawer.”

“Did you sleepwalk?”

“Of course, I didn’t sleepwalk!”

“But you used to. Remember when Dad found you digging around inside the fridge on my tenth birthday? That was kind of funny.”

“Oh, you’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“How are you not being ridiculous?”

“Because sleepwalking makes sense to me.”

“What are you implying?”

“What am I implying? I’m implying that Dad didn’t open that drawer. Either you left it open or you opened it in your sleep.”

“You never believe me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Remember when I said something was wrong?”

“What?”

“With your father.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you he was lying on the floor, and I couldn’t get him up. You said he was probably just dizzy from the dental procedure and not to worry about it.”

“You’re blaming me for that?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m saying you don’t believe me.”

“Alright, fine.”

“Fine? What?”

“Fine. Dad is a ghost. And he needs underwear.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“If you say so.”

With that, she hung up on me.

4.

I have not been a good son. I admit it. This is a fact. There is proof. Evidence.

The decline of my appearance in family photographs. The fact that I didn’t speak to my parents for almost two years. And other things. Screaming. Yelling. Drug use. Excessive drug use. Proof. It’s all there. If you look closely. I’m not proud. Not happy about it.

Over the years, I tried my best to make amends. Before Dad died, we mended these broken bridges. We put things in order. We hugged. Hugged. Us. Hugging. Imagine that. Father. Son. Hugging.

One day, he had a stroke. Out of the blue. After a dentist’s appointment. Side effect, they said. Side effect. Yeah, right.

Fate. Birthright. Men in my family tend to die like that. I will probably die like that. As much as I hate to admit it, I will die like my father. And his brother. And my grandfather. Doomed. I am doomed. To die. Like my father. Who collapsed on the floor. Of a small house. In the suburbs. Surrounded by incomplete projects. Reminders of days past. History. And I will lie there and cry because I knew it would happen this way. And I will cry that I predicted the future so many years ago.

And I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t. Fate had my cards. Played my hand for me. I’ll die. Dead. The end. And I won’t come back.

To open drawers.

5.

Dad continued to make visits. To the bedroom. To open that drawer. He never disturbed anything else. Never took underwear. Socks. Spare change. Tiny flashlights. Pocket knives. He didn’t touch the little odds and ends he’d stuffed in that drawer. Instead, he opened it and went about his otherworldly business.

That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And Mom loved it. Adored it. Waited every day. Every. Day.

But here’s the thing:

She never actually saw it happen.

Only the aftermath. During the months that it occurred, she never once spied the drawer sliding open. She only saw the end result. The final product.

I became suspicious. Worried. Concerned about her mental health. Grief is awful. Horrible. Ugly. Crushing. It can and will destroy you. Tear you down.

Mom thought she could deal with this detrimental loss like an adult. She prided herself on the things she accomplished. Cleaning. Improvements. Decluttering. More cleaning. More improvements. Stuff you read about in self-care manuals. Wellness articles.

But it didn’t matter. Below the surface, grief dwelled. Festered. It ate her soul. From the inside out.

On some days, she could hide it. Smiles. Laughs. Jokes. All manufactured.

On others, the facade faltered. Failed. System malfunction. Critical breakdown.

But when the dresser drawer started opening, she seemed so much happier. Her spirits lifted. She smiled more often.

Then it stopped. All at once. Finger snap. Gone.

And her world came crashing down.

6.

I spent some time out of town. Not because I wanted to. No. Not that. No. Because I needed it. Desperately. Needed it. Survival mode engaged.

If I hadn’t taken that time, I would have snapped. Cracked. Right in half. A worn, brittle twig. Sad. Pathetic. Crushed beneath the world. Splintered. Dried out.

So, I told some white lies and escaped to a peaceful world without Mom. It sounds terrible, but I’m not a malicious person. I am kind. Sometimes. I am friendly. Sometimes. I am a good man. Sometimes. I am considerate. Sometimes.

Or, so I am told.

Did I lie? Yes. Did I mislead? Yes.

Did anyone get hurt? No.

Things moved on, as they always did. Guilt trips appeared, as they always did, but I brushed them off. I couldn’t listen. Couldn’t. No. Self-preservation. Self-care. That’s what the professionals say. The experts. In magazines. With beautiful faces on the covers. With all their money.

“Self-care will save your life.”

Except, it won’t. It will earn someone some money and sell a few products. After that, you’re still the same person you always were. Except poorer. Nobody changes. Nobody. Not even the dead. Dad disappointed Mom all the time. Why should he stop in death?

7.

Pandemonium. Chaos. Emotional meltdown. That’s what I came home to after my trip.

As soon as I returned, Mom summoned me. We had a conversation. Deep. Meaningful. No. Wrong. None of that. Strange. Bizarre. Peculiar.

I never dreamed I would have a conversation of any length about my father’s ghost with Mom, but that’s what we did.

Excerpt:

“Look at that drawer,” she demanded.

“What about it?” I asked.

“It hasn’t moved.”

“Is it supposed to?”

“Yes! Your father has stopped.”

“He stopped opening the drawer?”

“Yes!”

“I’m guessing he moved on.”

“But I told him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him if he started this, he couldn’t stop. I warned him. I said, ‘Don’t you start this and suddenly stop it. No way.’ I said that.”

“Mom…”

“Don’t do that!”

“What?”

“Pacify me!”

“I’m not.”

“You are, too!”

“Okay fine. I am. You got me.”

“He’s not allowed to do this,” she said, switching gears. “He’s not allowed to start this and then stop. No way. I told him.”

“What about Heaven?”

“What about it?”

“He may have moved on to Heaven.”

“What… no.”

“What? You don’t want him in Heaven?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Silence.

“No,” she finally said. “He can’t start and then stop. I warned him. I told him not to do it. Why would he leave? That makes no sense.”

“Heaven, Mom. He’s in Heaven.”

“That’s possible.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But I warned him.”

“I know you warned him.”

“I did.”

“I know you did.”

“I liked knowing he was around.”

“I know you did.”

Repeat. Repeat.

“I know you did.”

Comfort. Comfort. Repeat. Repeat.

“I miss him.”

“I know you do.”

Guess what? Me, too.

8.

I thought a lot about death as a kid.

Death was everywhere. Cousin (suicide). Grandfather (brain cancer). Great aunt (brain cancer). Death. Death. Death. Here. There. Everywhere. Death.

As a child, I would cry myself to sleep at night as I thought about life without my parents. Miserable tears soaked my little pillow. I hugged my teddy bear. Tightly. So tightly.

“Don’t you leave me,” I told it.

Teddy bear lives on. In my closet. In a box. Hidden. But alive. My dad lived as well. Not inside the box buried underground, but inside his old bedroom. Opening a dresser drawer all by his lonesome. At least, Mom thought so. Until it stopped.

For a while, she moved on. Cleaned up around the house. Emptied the garage. Had a yard sale. Progress! Sally forth!

I beamed with pride. Look at her go, I thought. Look at her go.

Then, the drawer opened. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. She fainted. Woke up. Drawer still open. Sock dangling from the side. She called to tell me the good news. But I didn’t want to hear it. I really didn’t. I wanted Dad in the ground. Where he belonged. Dead. He died. Died. Death. Death. Death.

My greatest childhood fear. Made flesh. So to speak.

I wanted to move on. But I couldn’t move on, because Mom wouldn’t let me. She insisted he had remained behind to care for her. But what about me? Who will care for me during my grief? Teddy bear? Mom? What about me?

9.

Dad did that one encore. Then, boom. Gone again. G’night, folks. Thanks for stopping by. Gotta go. His bedroom tour had concluded, and he didn’t come back. I like to think he’d found his way to a much better place. Heaven? I don’t know. Valhalla? I don’t know. Hell? Possibly. I don’t know. I don’t. Religion is stupid. And scary.

I tried to explain things to Mom. Make it clear. Dad is gone, and he’s probably not coming back. He may have stopped over to say goodbye, but he had to move on. Sorry, Mom. I really am. But that’s life. People die. They go away. Forever.

You can’t escape it. Regardless of the pain you feel. The hurt. Suffering. Agony. Sleepless nights. They go, and that’s the end. Their story is over. Time for you to write a new one.

But she didn’t write her own story. Never did, really. Dad wrote one for her, as a side character in his personal journey through life. And she smiled. By his side. Always. Always. Always there. Where she wanted to be. Now that story is over. Book closed. Time for bed.

What now? What do the sidekicks do when the hero dies? What do they do when the narrative abruptly comes to an end? They languish. Flail. Try to swim. Try to find footing. Something. Anything. To find a story.

Where they belong.

10.

The drawer. That dresser drawer. That goddamn dresser drawer. Mom watched it. For two days.

One entire weekend.

She didn’t leave the bedroom. She stayed there, looking at that drawer. Hoping it would open. Praying to her quiet God. Willing it to open. Wishing for him to return. To the drawer. That drawer. That useless drawer. That useless goddamn drawer. The holder of pointless things. Junk. Garbage.

Ghost in the drawer. Pushing. Pushing. Performing. On stage. A one-man show. For a one-woman audience.

Leave the house, I told her. Get outside. Breathe. Relax. Live a little.

Let’s go to a movie. Let’s go tour a local distillery. Let’s go for a walk in the park. Let’s do something outside of the house. Away from that drawer. Dad’s drawer. Dad’s goddamn drawer.

No.

“What if he’s there?” she asked.

In that drawer. With his old socks. Underwear. Flashlights. Knives. A mass of spectral energy. Trapped. Because of a sad woman’s will. Imprisoned. By undying love. And grief. Trapped by grief. Endless goddamn grief.

11.

One month later, still no Dad. Goodbye, Dad. Goodbye. See you later. Maybe. Nice knowing you. Kind of. At least, part of you. So many secrets. Little things. Hidden away.

Did I know you helped out after my cousin’s messy suicide? No. Did I know you didn’t understand how to parent a child? No. No. No. But Mom told me. Thank her. She’s swell. Mom told your secrets. Some wife. Some friend. Right? She told me a lot of things. Secrets. Dark secrets. Your secrets. Your dark secrets.

Why? I don’t know. Ask her. Did she want me to feel just as miserable as her? Did I need to suffer right along with her? Was I not sad enough in my own grief? She could have asked. I was right there. The whole time. The whole time. Right there. By her side. But it didn’t matter. At all. She wanted you. Only you would do. But that doesn’t matter much to you now, does it? You’ve hit the supernatural highway. Abandoned the dresser drawer tour.

It broke her heart. I wish I could have warned you. You broke her heart. Twice.

First, you died. Then, you abandoned the drawer. I wish I could have warned you. Stay away, Dad. I would have told you that. Stay away, Dad. Stay far away. Or you’ll be sorry. So very sorry.

12.

Mom invited me over for lunch on a Saturday. I should have known better. Should have prepared myself. Anticipated her intentions. Hidden agendas. We ate sandwiches. Chips. Drank soda. In-between bites, small talk. Work. Life. Work. Life. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Work. Life. Work. Life. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad.

On repeat. Looped. For infinite. A hideous, never-ending cycle.

Once we finished eating, she said she wanted to show me something she added to the bedroom. I took the bait. Hooked. But I knew better. It’s Mom. She does these things. Sneaky things.

Mom showed me a painting.

“Your father did this in college,” she said.

Flowers. Rolling hills. Blue sky. Very pretty. But she didn’t care about that lovely painting. No, she wanted me to believe she did, but I knew it was a ruse. A trick. To lure me. Into that bedroom. Hidden agendas.

She turned to it. The drawer. Her eyes watered. Lip quivered.

“He’s still gone,” she told me.

What could I say? What?

“I’m sorry.”

I said that a lot.

“I’m sorry.”

What else could I say? When someone falls into the depths of grief, you can’t do anything. You can be there for them. That’s all you can really do. You can’t change the present. The past. The future. It’s all set in stone. Rock solid. Unbreakable.

“He left me,” she said again, angry this time.

“I’m sorry.”

“He left me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He left me.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

She smiled. Tears in her mouth.

“I’m okay,” she said.

Lies. All lies. Because.

Then she said, “I have a plan.”

I’m sorry. Dad. I’m sorry.

13.

Mom doesn’t plan. Organize. Think ahead. That’s not her style. Never was. But she had a plan that day. She’d hatched it. Stewed on it. Cooked it. A recipe for unintentional malice.

Then, she put it into motion. I didn’t know what she had in mind. She kept mentioning her plan, her project. But when pressed, she never revealed details. I was in the dark. Again. Mom liked secrets. Dark secrets. Kept things hidden. My cousin’s suicide. Dad’s inability to parent.

What else? Hidden. What else? Tucked away. What else?

I asked about her plan. Did she intend to commit suicide? No, she said. Then what did she have in mind? What was her plan? I got nothing. Silence. Shut out. Shut down. Put in my corner. Bed without supper. Nothing new. Not to me. Flashback. I remember childhood fights. With Mom. About things. Silly things.

Her latest secret felt silly, so I didn’t push. I didn’t pry. I let her have a miserable little party she could call her own. Did she need that? A secret? Did she hoard them? What else did she have tucked away? What else?

I didn’t want to know. Still don’t. I’m okay with that. Fine. But what she did. What she did. No. I felt guilty. I felt horrible. And now there are consequences. Far-reaching consequences. Shame on her. Goddamn it. Shame on her. But, also, shame on me.

I should have pushed. Pried. Pull out that truth. Stomped on it. Some secrets shouldn’t remain hidden. They need light. Or they take root. Flourish. And grow.

Out of control.

14.

She called out of the blue. After texting. Dozens of times. About nothing. Nothing. In particular.

Mom was on her lunch break; I was working. She didn’t care. When she had something to say, it didn’t matter. At all. Busy? Doesn’t matter. Preoccupied? Don’t care. Depressed? Not interested. Not interested in your problems. No. Not at all. Be quiet. Mom’s talking. The adult in this situation. The senior. Do you have problems? They don’t measure up. I’m your mother. I matter more.

Your problems: small.

Mom’s: huge.

Monumental. Enormous. Unmanageable. So unmanageable that they end up on someone else’s shoulders. If they have problems, that’s okay. They can handle more. I could always handle more. In her eyes. Because I didn’t have problems. In her eyes.

“You’re not busy,” she said.

Not a question. A statement.

“Can you drive me?” Mom asked.

“Where?” I wanted to know.

Hid my agitation. Frustration. Anger. Rage.

“Where?” I asked again.

“Does it matter?”

Her temper. Fierce. Misguided. Misplaced.

I didn’t kill Dad. Despite what she thinks. I didn’t. I didn’t deserve that.

“I need you to take me downtown to see someone important,” she spat. “I have an appointment tomorrow. Can you go?”

No. I have a job. Responsibilities. Bills. Debt. So much. Debt. But I put it aside. Dropped everything. To rush by her side. Like my father. Before me.

15.

I thought she might see a lawyer. Therapist. Doctor. Someone important. Special. Normal. Sane. No.

Instead, she visited a man named Dr. Philip G. Winchester, a metaphysical specialist. He dealt in the paranormal. Ghosts. Otherworldly entities. Dead fathers. Haunted drawers.

I scoffed.

Mom ignored.

I waited in the car. In a parking garage. Downtown. Seethed. Snoozed. Seethed. Listened to music. Seethed.

Before long, she returned. Knocked on the car windshield, all smiles. Motioned for me to roll down the window.

“He wants to talk to you,” she said.

“Who?”

“Dr. Winchester,” she said, matter-of-factly.

Like I should know that. Like everyone should know that. Everyone. On the planet. Should care.

“Why does he want to talk to me?”

“We need your support.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t think you would have a problem supporting me right now. I’m having a hard time, you know.”

“I know.”

“It’s so quiet there. At home.”

“I know.”

“Will you support me?”

A loaded question. Cocked. Ready to fire. I closed my eyes. Thought of my father. He would have hated this for me, I’m sure. He despised this kind of petty nonsense. Then again, what do I know about him? Anything? At all? Nothing? At all? I don’t know.

I nodded. Stepped out of the car. And followed Mom. Upstairs.

16.

Elevator ride. To the thirteenth floor. Our conversation:

“Why did you make me beg?” she asked.

“I didn’t make you beg,” I said.

In my own defense.

“You made me beg.”

“I did not.”

Silence.

“I did not,” I said again.

One-man defense. Mental and emotional fists up. Ready to fight.

“I wanted your support. All you had to do was show up. That’s all. I don’t understand the difficulty in that,” she said.

I didn’t take the bait. Didn’t bite. Kept quiet. Silent. Just rode the elevator. It was difficult. Not to lash out. Fight back. She hurt. Tremendously. I understood that. I got it. But I wasn’t the enemy. No. No. I was her son. Her friend. I was all she that had left of the man she loved. I was the reminder of his absence. Is this why she made me suffer?

It’s a possibility. A definite possibility. But I was too afraid to ask. Too afraid. Still am. And now. Now. I’ll never know.

17.

Dr. Winchester’s office impressed me. It was lavish. Expensive. Filled with unique items. Antiques. Trophies, he explained. From various global adventures. Statues. Relics. Trinkets. Ancient texts. Some of them frightening.

He believed in a lot of things. Subscribed to different theories. The Afterlife. God. Heaven. Hell. He said it all fit into a complex plan. One we’d never understand. Did he understand it? No. Never. Not until death.

His joke. Not mine.

We said down in his office. Mom to my right. Restless. Nervous. Fidgeting. Shaking her legs. The way Dad used to when he couldn’t sit still. When he needed to get outside and do something with his hands. Anything. To settle down.

“Where do we begin?” Mom asked.

“At the beginning,” Dr. Winchester replied with a smile.

A familiar line. Mom sighed. And began. She told her life story. Birth. Parents. Childhood. Dad. Marriage. Death.

Dr. Winchester looked at me. Sad smile. He knew. He understood. I didn’t fit into the story. Omitted. Cut for time. Extraneous. A deleted scene. His silent response confirmed my suspicions. Mom had collapsed into herself. Her transformation into a bitter widow was complete.

“So, you wish to bring him back,” the doctor asked.

“Yes, I do,” Mom replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t understand. They talked as though I wasn’t there. Absent. Invisible.

“Do you understand the terms?”

“Yes.”

“Did you read them from top to bottom?”

“I did.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“Yes.”

“And again.”

“Yes.”

With that, Dr. Winchester gave her a quick nod. He placed a small wooden box on his desk and slid it across to her. It looked expensive. Very expensive. I shuddered at the thought of his bill. Could Mom afford this?

“Take this,” he said.

She did.

“Open it in your house.”

“I will.”

“Follow the directions.”

“I will.”

“Then, you will wait.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Dr. Winchester turned to me.

“Support her,” he said.

I nodded.

“Will you?” he asked.

I nodded again.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“Yes, I will support her,” I told him.

Mom smiled. I had no idea. No idea whatsoever. What she would ultimately do.

18.

Dead quiet. Pure silence. On the ride home. She didn’t say a word.

“Are we going to discuss it?” I finally asked.

“What?”

“That man.”

“No.”

“What about that box?”

“No.”

“Then why did I come?”

“Because I asked and I needed support.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

More silence. I wanted to punch her. God help me, I wanted to break her perfect white teeth. I’d officially reached the end of my limit. Pushed too far. Over the edge. Screaming. Toward the bottom. But I stayed silent. Bit my tongue. Hard. Until it bled. Down my throat. And back into my heart.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“A man,” she said in a flat tone.

“I figured that much.”

“Don’t sass.”

“I’m not.”

But I was. I wanted to know her intentions with that box. It looked like an expensive cigar container from a foreign land. But it was more. Much more. So much more.

Mom stuck her guns. Dug in her heels. Didn’t budge. We drove to my apartment in silence.

I opened the door. Got out. She sped away. Before I had a chance to close the door. I watched the car. Speed. Down the road. And we didn’t speak again.

For two months.

19.

I took that time to learn things. About Dr. Philip G. Winchester.

He spent some time in Nepal. Thailand. Taiwan. Researching. Studying. Ancient religions. Cults. Tribes. Things of that nature. At one of his many very expensive lectures, he talked about ghosts. Spirits. Haunted places. The stuff that surrounds us. He made declarations. Bold claims. About trapping spirits. Loved ones. From beyond the grave.

Miss your husband? Easy. Accept his help. Pay him money. And receive the box. Follow the directions. And wait. And wait. And wait. For your loved one to return.

That was mom’s plan laid bare. She wanted Dad back. Plain and simple. Not only to open drawers, but to linger there. Forever. In that house. Not Heaven. Or Hell. Limbo. Suburban purgatory. A brick-and-mortar jail for the dead.

I didn’t know how to react. What to say. So, I said nothing. Dr. Winchester was a con man. A predator.

She’d fallen for a charlatan’s game, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I let her have the box and her dreams. Dreams of Dad. Dead Dad. Resurrected. In a sense. Inside that house. Haunting it. Roaming in it. Invisible. Inside a house he hated. He must have hated it. He was so angry all the time. None of that mattered. None of it. Mom had the box. And the box would bring Dad.

20.

Over two months. Nine weeks. To be exact. Silence. No calls. No texts. No visits. No lunches. No dinners. Nothing.

Then, out of the blue, she called me. She was sobbing. She was crying. She was upset. I’d become Mr. Fix-It. Again.

“I’m so disappointed,” she cried.

“About what?” I ask.

No hello.

No “How are you?”

None of that. Mom thinks about herself. Only herself. All the time. It might not seem that way. To outsiders. But you can trace everything. Back to her.

“I am so disappointed,” she said again.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She sounded like a three-year-old. Hurt. Wounded. Scared. Afraid. Alone.

“I tried the box,” she said, weeping. “I followed the instructions. But I must have done something wrong. I must have.”

“Dr. Winchester is a con man.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“He is.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“How much did you pay him for that box?”

Silence.

Again: “How much did you pay him for that box?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business.”

“How is this any of your business?”

“Because you brought me along.”

“Don’t start with me.”

“This is your problem.”

“Don’t hang up!”

“I’m not hanging up.”

“I need your help.”

“What do you need help with?”

“I need help with this box.”

“You want me to help you trap Dad?”

“That’s not what this is.”

“It’s exactly what this is.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because you bought a ghost trap, Mom. It’s a box that traps spirits. Dad is a spirit. He’s dead. He’s a ghost. You want him back.”

She cried harder. Angrier. I peeled away that flap of skin. The one that hid a delicate nerve. And I plucked it. Pinched it. I fucking bit into it.

“That’s not what this is,” she cried.

“I beg to differ,” I told her.

“Well, we don’t have to agree, do we? But you have to help me. I am your mother, okay? I am your mother. Remember?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Help me.”

I said nothing.

“Help me,” she begged.

Again, nothing.

“Help me,” she continued.

She said it. Again. And again. And again. Over. And over. And over.

I closed my eyes.

“Okay, Mom,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

And help her. I did.

21.

On a cold winter night, I drove to Mom’s place. To capture my Dad. And imprison him inside his old home. I drove. Faster. Faster. To feel the rush of speed. The rush of risk. Anything. Anything. I needed it. I thought about things. A lot of things. Heaven. Hell. Literal. Figurative. Morality. Mortality.

I thought about the Bible. The Koran. The Torah. Religion. God. Would His Majesty approve? Would God think we were messing with His plan? Or, did he purposely leave behind these ancient instructions? Did he provide us with the source code? For the smart ones? The hurt? The lonely? The broken? Were these things left for us? To help? To cope? To survive? Are these things part of His great plan? His grand scheme? If not, then whose? Satan? Silliness. Pure silliness.

I held the wheel steady, my mind full of stereotypical religious imagery. Satan making evil plans. God looking the other way. Plain silliness. But my mind often goes there. Against my wishes. Lingers. Dwells. Obsesses.

What am I doing? Going to Mom’s place. Dabbling in metaphysical nonsense. What am I doing? Playing God’s game. Deciphering the code. Unraveling the mystery. Trapping spirits. Preventing them from moving on. What am I doing? What am I doing? That thought never left my mind. It stayed there, sat on the steering wheel. It became my sidekick. My godly co-pilot.

Jesus, let go of the goddamn wheel, please. But my car never wavered. It sliced through the night. Onward. To its inevitable destination.

22.

I pulled into the driveway. Took a breath. Stepped out of the car. Driveway. Another breath. Porch. Breathe, I thought. Breathe. Breathe. Doorbell. Doorbell. Deep breath. Doorbell.

After what seemed like forever, Mom finally answered. She was wearing her ratty pajamas and an unflattering bathrobe. She looked awful. Pitiful. Broken. Sad. Lonely. Very lonely. Was this the point? Was this a ploy? A plot? Did she want me to take pity on her? Did she want me to see this miserable visage and rush to her side? Wrap my arms around her? To help? To help trap Dad? To help trap Dad in this house? Forever?

It’s possible. I didn’t rule it out. But there I was. On the porch. At the front door. Finger on the doorbell. Willing. Able. To help.

“It’s cold,” she said through the front door. “I’m going to the living room. It’s unlocked. Let yourself in. Close and lock it behind you.”

23.

We sat in the living room. Silent. Tense.

She smoked. I didn’t. She offered me a cigarette. I declined.

Conversation:

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I want you to help me,” she replied.

“Help with what?”

“Your father.”

“What about him?”

“I want him back. I miss him.”

“I do, too.”

“But not like I do.”

I said nothing. What could I say?

“Not like I do,” she repeated.

It was a prompt. A nudge forward. I thought about what to say next. Did I lash out? Did I strike like a viper? Eviscerate her soul? Tear her world apart? Like a wounded dog? Like a wounded son? I bit my tongue. Again. Again.

I cleared my throat.

“Then I will help you,” I told her.

“Thank you,” she said.

Flat. Hollow. Did she mean it? Or did she expect it? I don’t know. I don’t know. Breathe.

She pointed to the table.

“The instructions Dr. Winchester gave me are over there,” she explained. “I tried to follow them. I guess I screwed things up. You know me.”

I stood up. Walked to the table. Awkward. Unrehearsed. I gasped. His instructions. Looked like torture. Torment. At luxury prices.

24.

I saw the box. And a scalpel. Ancient documents. Texts. An ornate bowl. Writings. Scribblings. Horror movie props? Surely. Maybe. They looked so real. And then I looked again. Gasped. Unrehearsed.

“Are you kidding me right now? This is the stuff Dr. Winchester gave you? It looks like a goddamn suicide kit,” I shouted.

“Language!” Mom scolded.

“It looks like you’re a budding lunatic.”

“These are tools.”

“Of madness.”

“What?”

“Madness, Mom. Tools of madness.”

“They are not.”

“Then what are they?”

“Tools.”

“Tools of what?”

“Communication!” she screamed.

And then I saw it. That look of desperation. The veneer cracked. Shattered. Scattered across the floor. Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic. And sad. So very sad.

“You think you’re going to get dad back with this stuff? And you honestly believe these stupid toys will help you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re mad.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. You know, Dad was crazy…”

“No…”

“I’m obviously crazy…”

“No…”

“And you’re crazy.”

“No!”

She shouted the word over and over and over and over again as she charged me. Knocked me against the table. Spilled those sad tools. Pathetic tools. Pathetic. Sad. Pathetic. Those pathetic instruments. All across the floor.

“Don’t say that. We’re not crazy.”

Winded, I said, “Yes, we are.”

She cried. I hated that sound. Hated it. With a passion. Always have. Always will. I sighed. Stood up. Hugged her.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

Pathetic. Me. Pathetic.

“Help me.”

“Do what?”

“Reconnect.”

“With me?”

“No.”

Pause.

“Your father.”

Of course.

25.

Of course. I felt like a fool. Not us. Not her living son. No. Her husband. Her dead husband. She sat at the table. I gathered the tools. Set them before her.

“What did you do? Or, I should ask, what didn’t you do? We will follow these instructions to the letter. If that’s what you want,” I said.

Mom smiled. A genuine smile. Dad was on the horizon. Reconnection. Reunion. But at what price? Did she think I would come back here? For dinner? For holidays? Family vacations? No. I wanted no part of her growing madness. Even if it worked, I had no intention of returning to my childhood home after that night. Ever.

Until she died. And it was my turn. To throw things out. Sell possessions. Make hard decisions. Part ways. Say goodbye.

26.

We sat around the table. With the instruments. Tools. From Dr. Winchester. A scalpel. Bowl. Wooden chopping block. Instructions. Documents. Tools. Tools of madness. Tools of desperation. Loneliness. Sadness. Desperation. Desperation. Desperation.

“These are the instructions?” I asked after reading Dr. Winchester’s ancient text. “This is what that con man told you to do?”

“He said to follow the instructions,” she told me.

“These instructions?”

“Yes. Those instructions.”

“This is sick.”

“I did what he told me to do.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Show me your left hand.”

She didn’t.

“Show me your left hand,” I demanded.

No movement. Nothing.

“Show me your left goddamn hand,” I commanded.

Mom held it up. Reluctantly. All five fingers. Intact.

“You didn’t remove the tip of your left index finger,” I told her, smirking. “If you want to do this, do it right, I say. Am I right?”

Was I? I don’t know.

“I can’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“It will hurt.”

“So, what do you want me to do?”

“Cut off your finger.”

“What?”

“It asks for a piece of a blood relative.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re his son.”

“But…”

“But what?”

I stopped. Hesitated. Tried to find the right words. Searched. Dug deep. Deep. I couldn’t. I couldn’t find them. So, I said it anyway.

“I don’t want him back,” I blurted out. “He’s haunting you. He visited you. Not me. If you want him, you make the sacrifice. Not me.”

She screamed. Instantly. Indecipherable words. Immediately. Rushed down the dark hallway. Screaming. Crying. Slammed the door. Hard. Defiant. Enraged. She hid inside the bedroom. And wouldn’t open the door.

27.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. How many hours? I cannot say. But she stayed there. Inside the room. Crying. Wailing. Cursing my name. Calling for her dead husband. Her dead friend. Her only friend.

I sat outside the door, trying to apologize. My words fell on deaf ears. She didn’t want to hear anything. Just kept crying. So, I sat there. At the end of a long, dark hallway. Waiting. For the crying. And wailing. And name-calling. To stop. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Again, I cannot say. At around two in the morning, she opened the bedroom door. Her eyes red, her face streaked with tears. She looked undone.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

“I know,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Make it up to me.”

“How?”

She looked at my hand.

“My hand?” I asked.

“Your finger.”

“My finger? Are you serious?”

“Very serious.”

Cold. As ice. Her voice, dead. Her eyes, vacant.

Mom meant business. Serious business. I remembered those looks from my childhood. It was when she became someone else. Someone to fear.

“My finger?”

“Your finger.”

I don’t know why I caved. I cannot say why. But I did. God help me. I did.

28.

I had nightmares. All the time. As a child. I would cry out at night. Screaming.

“Mom!” I’d shout.

Not Dad. Mom. Mom. Mom. Always Mom. Like clockwork, she’d rush in, listen for the hideous breathing coming from the closet. She would soothe my fears. And smile. Then I would go back to bed. Sometimes I would sleep. Sometimes I would lie there. Crying. Sobbing as quietly as possible. I thought about the future. Mom, dead. Dad, dead. Me, alone. And I cried.

“Mom!” I’d shout again.

She’d return.

“I’m having nightmares,” I’d lie.

In a way, they were nightmares. They were terrors, fears of what was to come. I worried about the future. All the time. All. The. Time. I didn’t want the future. God could keep it. I prayed. And prayed.

“Keep the future, God.”

I would say it a hundred times. Over. And over. Thinking the quantity would make it real. Make it happen. But He didn’t listen. Typical. Instead, the days kept coming. One. Two. Three hundred. More. More. More.

And then I found myself. In the mirror. Middle-aged. Balding. Old. One parent in the ground. And losing the other. To grief. To madness.

29.

Forgive me. Everyone. Friends. Family. You. Especially you. Forgive me. You can blame her. Sure. Her mental illness. Yes. She bears some of the fault. But I am the one who carried this through. I am the one who completed the ritual that night. I brought it to completion. Me. Not her. Me. Under her thumb. Sure. Under her watchful eye. Yes. But I did it. Me. Not her. Me. Even now. I protect her. Forgive me. For this. Forgive me. For protecting her. Forgive me. Forgive me.

30.

Off went the tip of my index finger. Mom smiled. Pleased. Satisfied. One step completed. Two more to go. My finger bled. Wouldn’t stop. Mom handed me a tissue. I took five. Tried not to scream. Show weakness. I put the tissues on the tip of my finger. The blood soaked right through, so I added more. And more. And more. Then, I used a rubber band to hold them on. Instant tourniquet. Poor man’s first aid.

I got dizzy. Sat down. Took a breath. Another. And another.

“You’ll hyperventilate,” Mom said.

Like she cared.

“I’ll pass out one way or another,” I retorted.

“Well, don’t.”

“Thanks for your concern.”

“It will all be for nothing.”

“Again, thanks.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“I want compassion.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“I want you to care, even for a moment.”

Pause.

“Do you want me to lie?” she asked again.

Forget it. I regarded the tip of my finger in the bowl. It looked weird. Alien. Once upon a time, it had a home on my body. But no longer. Now it was on its own. Braving the unknown. The occult. In a bowl. Sitting on my dead grandfather’s table. Inside my dead father’s house. Poor finger. Poor tip. Deep breath. Another. Just breathe. Breathe.

Don’t stop breathing, I thought.

I looked at Mom. She smiled. All teeth. When they smile with their teeth. Like little white lies, all lined up. They don’t love you.

31.

I took Latin in high school. Remembered some of it. Not much. But some. The instructions claimed to be in Latin. According to Dr. Winchester, these texts date back thousands of years. Maybe more. Who knows?

It was probably bullshit. Nonsense. But all that remains. Today. Is the Latin translation. I remembered Latin. That wasn’t Latin. Far from it.

But I tried my best. I said the words aloud. Feeling stupid. While Mom cried. Wept. Dried her eyes. Wept some more. And when I finished, she applauded. I remember her doing this during my years in the elementary school band. Her, the proud parent. Me, the bashful student. With my clarinet. In my Sunday best. Before the whole school. Of giggling classmates. Playing “The Saints Come Marching In.” Proud parent. Bashful son.

And there I stood. Man. Middle-aged. Old. Balding. Performing for her once again. A ritual this time. But a performance nonetheless. And with the ancient text recited, I had completed the second step. All that remained was the final phase. The final step. The final sacrifice.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

“I am sure,” she said.

Cold. Distant. Desperate. And with that. I continued.

32.

The text outlined instructions. Specific instructions. To ensnare. To harness. To trap. The intended spirit. Including the removal of a weakness. A singular flaw. Something you hate. About yourself.

I looked at Mom. She smiled. A warm smile. Genuine. She didn’t care what it cost. She didn’t care about my pain. She wanted Dad, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.

If I suffered? So be it. If I bled? So be it.

I wondered. I wanted to know. How far she would have gone. I know the extent. I saw the line. And I watched her push me over it. Scalpel in hand. But I wondered if she would trade me for him. Would she swap a son for a husband? A devoted servant for a life-long lover?

I wondered. I still wonder. I took a deep breath. Gripped the scalpel. Tight. Knuckles white. Bit my tongue. And shoved the blade into my lazy eye. I screeched, uncontrollable. Primal. The sound came out on its own. I had no choice. No control.

Mom covered her mouth.

“My son,” she whispered.

But she did not stop me. No movement. Nothing. I had passed the point of no return. I twisted the scalpel. Yelled. Screamed. Bled. Fell to my knees. Blood everywhere. Face. Clothes. Floor. Gushing.

“No, stop,” she finally said.

Too late. Much too late. Mom. Too late. I twisted the blade. Screamed. Twisted. Took a deep breath. My lazy eye. Ruined. My flaw.

For you, Mom. For you.

33.

I passed out. Into the darkness. I fell. Reeling. Spinning. Screaming. Agony. Suffering.

Then…

It faded. And I stood alone. In the void. With my father.

He smiled. And I smiled. And we smiled. And he hugged. And I hugged. And we hugged. I felt his warmth. Realized how much I missed it. Forgotten already. His size. His hugs. But wait. Wait. Wait. No. I didn’t remember that sensation. Because I never felt it. As a child. I remember his coldness, his solitude. His demands. I remember thinking Dad was something to fear. A stranger under the roof.

He wasn’t my hero. My savior. My friend. My pal. Buddy. Mentor. Role model. He was that guy. Who married my mom. And created me.

I remember his anger, that furious temper. I remember living in fear of which version we’d get at the end of the day. Mean? Cold? Indifferent? Anyone’s guess. We didn’t know.

My mom and I. We’d wait. For him to return from work. And we’d eat dinner. Together. At the dining room table. Sometimes it was good. Others, bad. But no hugs. No. No hugs. No. None. This void. With Dad. Was a lie. A goddamn lie.

34.

Floating. Listless. Lazy. In this void. I can remember. I can recall. A bowling alley. A table. Giggling friends. I am told by a little red-haired girl that I am cross-eyed. I laughed, thought they were joking. No, my mom said. You have a lazy eye. A lazy eye. A joke. A constant joke. In my life. Why didn’t she tell me sooner? Why hide it? Why not prepare me? Why? Why? Why subject me to humiliation? Why didn’t she prepare me? Why?

“I didn’t think it was important,” she told me.

But it was. It was. Very important. It became a running joke. For years. Through school. Jobs. Relationships. Everything. My biggest flaw. Biggest physical flaw, anyway.

Destroyed. I writhed. In agony. As a result. Of my decision.

And Mom couldn’t have been happier.

35.

Washcloth. Held to my damaged eye. Almost in the socket. I blacked in and out. Like an old television set. Trying to catch an elusive station. Airing a drama. About a family falling apart. I fought bad signals. Static. And then the picture cleared.

I saw Mom standing in the middle of the living room. She stared down the hallway, mouth agape.

“Do you hear it?” she asked.

“Hear what,” I said from the floor.

“The banging.”

“Banging?”

“Yes, the banging.”

“Where?”

“From the bedroom.”

I stopped. Listened. Nothing.

“I don’t hear anything,” I told her.

“It’s there,” she said.

“I don’t hear it.”

“Wait.”

We waited.

“Wait,” she repeated.

Waited. And then I heard it.

A faint banging. From the bedroom.

“He’s back.”

I felt pain. Shame. I suffered. Hurt. I wanted my mom. But no. She wanted my dad. And no one else.

36.

Mom crept down the dark hallway. Didn’t help me. Didn’t check on me. Didn’t ask if I was okay. Not a thing. No concern. No care. Walked away. I pulled myself up. Stumbled. Fell to my knees. Tried again. And again. By the time I finally joined her at the end of the hall, she was slowly reaching for the door knob to the bedroom.

“Should I?” she asked.

Stupid question. Was this all for nothing? If she didn’t indulge, what was the point?

“Yes,” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

My eye oozed. Throbbed. Pain. Suffering. Hurt. Physical. And mental.

I wanted to point to my wounds. The injuries I made to bring this to fruition. I wanted to scream at her. Shove them in her face. Stain her nightgown. But I didn’t. I held back. A coward. Like always.

“Yes,” I told her. “You should.”

She gripped the knob. Turned. The door open. She gasped.

37.

At first, nothing. Silence. Sweet silence. The room sat empty. Motionless. We peered. She, eager. Me, wary. Into the darkness. Moonlight cut through the curtains. Illuminated the scene. Faintly. Whatever had been making the noise had settled down. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Everything in its proper place. Mom sighed.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she repeated.

I wobbled. Pain receptors blinked off and on. Off and on. My body slipped into self-preservation mode. Did its best to keep me conscious. We stood still. Mom and I. And waited for the banging to return.

“Was it one of the cats?” I asked.

“No, the cats were in there with us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Mom pointed down the hall.

There, at the other end, sat both of her precious felines. Both looked terrified beyond belief. They, too, had heard the banging.

“I don’t know what to think,” I told her.

“I don’t either,” she agreed.

“Did we do it wrong?”

“Should we do the ritual again?”

I looked at her. A joke? No. No signs of humor. None. She was serious. Dead serious.

“I am not doing this again.”

“Why not?”

I removed the washcloth from my mangled eye. I don’t know what Mom saw, exactly, but I know she didn’t like it.

“I understand,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Yes, I understand.”

With that, we turned away from the bedroom. Ready to admit defeat. But then we heard it. The banging. Mom’s face lit up.

“He’s here!” she exclaimed.

38.

He’s here. Her words. Not mine. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. Over. And over. Again. Mom looked like a young girl on her sixth birthday. She clapped her hands. She jumped up and down. It seemed so surreal. So childlike. Pathetic.

I leaned against the wall. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. My eye socket throbbed. Finger tip ached. Head felt too full. Of emotions. Pain. I wanted to pass out. But I didn’t. Consciousness held on. For dear life. I leaned against the wall, watching the dresser door open and close, open and close. I watched it with my one good eye. Mom rushed to the drawer. Leaned against it. Sobbed.

“I’ve missed you,” she told my father.

The drawer closed. Opened. Closed. Again. Again. Deep. Erotic. I closed my eye. I felt uneasy. Like I was viewing something I shouldn’t see. A late-night softcore movie designed for the deeply grieved and impossibly lonely.

Mom broke my meditation. Invaded my space. Took my hand.

“Come,” she beckoned.

“Say hello to your father.”

I wanted to run. To scream. To die.

39.

I’d run out of patience. Completely. Tank ran dry. I jerked my hand away. Angry. Fearful.

“No,” I told her. “I’m done here.”

“Please,” she begged.

“No,” I said again.

“Please.”

“No. I don’t need this.”

“But you do.”

“I don’t.”

“You need this as much as me.”

I felt insulted. I am nothing like her. I will never be anything like her. I will go to great lengths to avoid that. At great pains. I am not my mother. I am not my father. I am me. I’ve cataloged their mistakes. Missteps. I have volumes. Of reference material. A roadmap. To how life shouldn’t be. And I will follow that. Instead.

Mom always liked to look the other way. As such, she couldn’t see that I hurt. That I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. Literally. Figuratively. But still she tugged. Pulled.

“Please,” she said.

Eyes watering. Tears flowing.

“Please,” she said again. “Please.”

I fought against her. I did. I tried. But in the end. I gave in. As always. And stepped inside the bedroom.

40.

Mom guided me. Toward the dresser. I felt like I did during my baptism. Scared. Confused. Pressured. Forced. Rewind. I am ten years old. I didn’t understand anything. But that didn’t matter. Mom wanted it. Grandmother wanted it. Family wanted it. So they dunked me in a shallow pool of holy water. The godly liquid went up my nose, made me cough. Everyone chuckled. The holy spirit. Working through my nostrils.

Behold. Behold! The power of God.

I stood there. Grinning. Unrehearsed. Holy water. Coming out of my face. Preacher’s hand on my lower back. Lower. Lower. And those feelings flooded back into my head. God smelled an opportunity to show His power once again.

I am here, He said. Remember that feeling? I am still here. But you have forsaken me. And I have forsaken you. So Mom pushed me. Toward that drawer. Which opened. To accept my love.

41.

“Say hello.” Mom said.

“Say hello to your father.”

The drawer opened wider. Wider.

“Say hello.”

“Hi,” I said.

“No,” she scolded. “Put your hand inside.”

“Why?”

“That’s what he wants.”

“Why does he want that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why should I do it?”

“Because he wants it.”

Sound logic, to her. Mom smiled.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“Because he told me,” she whispered.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Just now?”

“Yes, just now,” she said, growing impatient. “This is what we wanted. Say hello. He’s missed us. Can you feel it?”

“Did he say that?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I do.”

“How?”

“Do it. Please. Now.”

Wide smile. Dead. Wide eyes. Dead.

She pushed again. I stumbled forward. Couldn’t fight. Resist. My body didn’t have much to give at that point. Everything started to turn black. Will, broken. Body, fading.

I kept one hand on the top of the dresser. The other in the air. Away from the drawer. Away from the father-mouth.

“Go on,” she insisted.

“Say hello?” I asked.

“Say hello.”

“By putting my hand in here?”

“By putting your hand in there.”

I nodded. Took a breath. Prepared. To say hello.

42.

I never said goodbye to my father. He was pretty much dead. When I arrived at the hospital. A sack of meat. On a respirator. Mechanical inhale. Dead dad. Mechanical exhale. Dead dad. Over. And over. I sat next to mom. A woman I didn’t know stood beside me. She rubbed my back like a mother should. Like a mother’s supposed to do. Mom didn’t. She was sobbing. Lost in her own world.

Ten minutes later, the doctor bowed his head.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Just like that. Worlds ended. Mom wailed. I cried. Quiet. Reserved. Mom stood. Crossed the room. Kissed my father on the forehead.

“Oh, baby,” she told him.

I sat there.

“Do you want to say something to him?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. Why? I thought. He’s a meat sack. Mechanical inhale. Dead dad. Mechanical exhale.

Dead dad.

“You should say something to him,” she said in a stern voice. “This is the last time you will ever see him. The last time.”

Everyone looked at me. Doctors. Nurses. The stranger with her hand on my back.

Mechanical inhale. Dead dad. Mechanical exhale. Dead dad.

“Say something!” Mom screamed.

I sat there.

“Say something!”

43.

I placed my right hand in the drawer. Waited. And waited.

“Say hello,” Mom instructed.

I felt stupid. So stupid. Beyond stupid. I looked at the drawer. And felt something look back. I can’t explain it. Won’t explain it. But from the darkness, I felt it watching me. It judged me. Whatever was inside didn’t feel friendly. It didn’t feel welcoming. But it did feel like my father. In a way. In a weird way.

“Say hello,” Mom insisted.

It wasn’t him. But it was him. Except darker. Meaner. Colder.

“Say hello.” I knew my father. “Say hello.” I could sense him. “Say hello.” When he would come home from work. “Say hello.” Stressed out. “Say hello.” Bitter. “Say hello.” Angry. “Say hello.” Vengeful. “Say hello.” Disappointed. “Say hello.”

I knew his darkness; it is in me as well. In time, I understood his coldness. I could feel when he hated my mom and me for being around. In the house. That he hated. With every fiber. I knew my father. And I didn’t know him. At all. And this wasn’t him. At least, not anymore.

“Say hello.”

I closed my eyes.

“Hello, father.”

The drawer closed on my hand. And I screamed.

44.

Mom screamed. I screamed. We screamed. And the drawer kept closing. Harder. And harder. My wrist broke. Harder. Then my fingers. Harder. Bones shattered. Harder. I felt my hand go limp. It disconnected from the system. Shut down. A dozen times the drawer abused my hand before I finally slipped free. Overcome with pain, I fell backward.

Onto the floor. Eye, oozing. Hand, throbbing. Life, spiraling downward. I laid there. Hyperventilating.

Staring at the ceiling. Of my old bedroom. That now belonged to my mother. Meanwhile…

She cried. Again. She sobbed. Again. Instead of comforting me, she rushed to the drawer. Held it. Cradled it. Said nurturing, loving things to it.

“What did you do?”

I thought she was talking to the drawer. No. She was speaking to me.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You must have done something.”

“No.”

“Said something.”

“No.”

“He always regretted you.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t want to be a father.”

“I know.”

“Didn’t know how.”

“I know.”

“And he resented you.”

“I know.”

“And me for giving birth to you.”

“I know.”

She cuddled the drawer, and it purred contently. Gurgled its approval. But I stand behind my assessment. That wasn’t my father. At least, not in the way that I remember. He’d become twisted. Demented. I could feel it. In my broken bones.

45.

I started to say something. Tell her how I felt. What I knew to be true. But what could I say? I wanted to protest. Would she listen? No. Never. Never. Too far gone. Lost to me. Truly lost. So I pushed myself off the floor. Wobbled down the hall. Bleeding. Opened the front door. Waited. I could hear her speaking to it. Lovingly. A devoted wife. To the drawer. The father-thing. I sighed. Stepped outside. And closed the door behind me. Forever.

I wandered through the tonight. To an empty bus stop. By myself. With one good eye. I looked at the moon. Full. Bright. I turned my attention to the late-night traffic. All those people, on their way to exciting destinations. Exciting adventures. And I saw a car.

Time seemed to slow. To a crawl. I spied a man and woman in the front seats. A child in the back. Lonely. Miserable. They laughed. He looked out the window. At me. And waved.

And I sat there.

A bitter son. A jilted child. An angry man. All alone. And I screamed at the car. The child. The parents.

In protest of it all.

  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Horror, Original Stories, Story Hub

“A Monster Story: What Once Was” by S.A. Moore

How long had he been down here? The earthy smell of the dirt was like second nature. On the rare days when the wind picked up, he could almost smell the trees. The smell was foreign. He used to love the smell. Now he hated it. It reminded him of the warmth and light of the sun. He shielded his eyes at the thought. How long had it been? He could still see the etching in the sky, but he couldn’t remember how it moved. Was it always there? How did they live above with the constant bother?

Shards of dirt fell near his feet. His feet were grotesque and the wrong color. When had they changed? He couldn’t remember. It had happened so fast. It had been too long ago. His clawed fingers poked and prodded, picking through the dry crumbles along the ground. Something small and warm wiggled free. He skewered it. It made no sound. Did all things die so quietly? More dirt fell. Footsteps thudded above him. Another alien smell wafted through his nostrils. His claws guided the struggling thing to his mouth. He opened wide, exposing sharp teeth before slicing the thing in half. It tasted like nothing. He remembered sweet tastes and sour taste. This tasted like neither. He swallowed the two halves down into his stomach. It growled. Or was that him?

A shower of dirt fell again. What were they doing above him? His eyes scanned the enclosure. It was dark, but he could see everything. They had been there for a while. He wasn’t sure what they were doing. He wasn’t sure what they were. Something that lived with the sun. He shuddered to think of the wicked creatures. Dirt hit him in his eye. It stung. He blinked to clear the abrasive substance. Did they not know he lay down below? His hands picked another thing from the growing pile below him. His hand was also the wrong color. The wrong color for what, though? He knew it was different before. It had been smaller. The worm tasted the same. It was larger, but he still took the two halves in a lazy gulp.

He moved away from the cascade. Three sections of what he called home had previously collapsed. He wasn’t sure when. He couldn’t keep track of something so small. He didn’t know days. He slept when he tired and woke when he wasn’t. He ate when he was hungry. It was a simple life. His mind tingled when he tried to remember what it had been before. There was a time when he could fly. Not with his own body, but somehow, he flew. It was too hard to remember that now. He touched his belly. It was hard. A memory of the smaller things he had seen in the dirt came to him. Did he used to call them something? He was sure they had a name. The tunnel collapsed. His head swam from the impact. What was going on?

***

“General Graman, sir.” 

The General turned from his thoughts. Beside him Scriber Lintel busied himself with work only he knew. Everyone around the place new him better as Paper, which was a play on archaic forms of scribing. No one had used trees for paper in over a hundred years. With such an uninspired crew, Neil Thompson found it surprising anyone even remembered the process. 

“Sir, it is urgent that we discuss a certain matter.” 

The General held aloft his index finger. A tiny signal, but easily picked up by Paper who was intoned to such displays. The specialized VenoPen halted in mid-stroke. A pad with the capabilities to send notes over thousands of light years balanced on Paper’s open palm. 

There were things beyond Neil’s paygrade and the thought of how that thing worked was one of them. All he knew for sure was that Paper transcribed each day on Vobis and sent back home to Earth. What they did with the information or why they cared could stay their problem.  

The General eyed Neil, deciding if he wanted to have this conversation. What he saw was a head of dirty brown hair that was uncombed. Neil hadn’t cut his hair in over six months. He barely bothered with it at all. Keeping it dirt free was enough of a task.

“Report,” said the General. 

Neil looked around. People filled every inch of the communal area. They all pretended complete interest in their daily chores, but Neil could see the shift in their eyes as he spoke.

“If I could request a walk, sir?”

The General sighed. Lintel placed his pen in the side holder of the VenoPad. The General didn’t miss this action. 

“No, Lintel, walk behind. I must finish the notes.” 

Lintel nodded, and Neil fell into a slow stride beside them both. The General rattled off a set of issues while holding a finger for Neil to wait his turn. 

“Six trapped in section 4, have a team of rescue workers trying to extract them now. The air vents are clear and should provide clean oxygen for at least three days. Hope to have them safely in their bunks far before that time.”

The VenoPen glided over the device. It made absolutely no sound. The light sent by the pen evaporated into the screen. 

“No reports of Richard Clarkson, head biologist. Have continued to receive reports from Jennifer Daily in biology.”

Neil knew Jennifer. She was a middle-aged ecologist. She had long, wavy brown hair. Brown eyes with a hint of green in the middle. She was everything Neil loved about women-which is why he married someone exactly like her back home on Earth, but that was over seventy-five light years away. Here, all he had to look forward to daily was Jennifer Daily. He shook his head. He had a wife and an unborn child. Well, unborn when he had left. He supposed it was more likely a year old now. Aside from that, Jennifer also had a husband and two kids.

“There seems to be no hostile life upon the planet. As has been the case for the past two months. We have witnessed nothing larger than a small dog. The creature is strange to look at, but it remains docile.” 

The General talked about what the men called snuffles. A small red and brown scaled lizard-like creature. There were thousands of them upon the surface of the planet. Though only the exploring team went above ground anymore. The mining team hollowed out over a hundred feet of tunnels and paths within the first month. The issued machines were amazing. They cut through dirt and rock like melted butter. Now, the grates of the metal pathways echoed beneath his army-issued boots.

     Neil tried not to show the boredom on his face, but he guessed he had failed in the attempt. General Garman looked at him with saggy, tired eyes.

“Is this report not important enough for you, Neil?”

Neil tried to feign surprise. He failed at this as well. 

“Oh no, sir. I am sure it is of grave importance. It’s just, I don’t quite care about the knowledge I already have attained.”

The General smirked. “I forget sometimes how forward you miners can be. Shoot your report, Neil. Lintel do not transcribe unless I order it.” The pen halted. Lintel’s red-faced betrayed his embarrassment. “I suppose you already wrote those words?” The nod was slow. “Great, now when the call comes from home you can answer.” Lintel looked down at his feet. The General knew full well Lintel could not access the direct line, and Neil doubted they would waste the time for such a trivial thing anyhow. “Well, Neil? I don’t have all day.” 

Neil snapped from his daydreaming. 

 “Yes, sorry, sir. I have been down in the mining pits all day today, with the men. We have heard strange noises from the old corridors. The ones we blocked off over a month ago. Men say it sounds like a man on the growler.”

The General held up his hand. “Just what is a growler?”

Neil should have remembered the correct term. It became a habit to use the talk of his men. “The latrine, sir.”

The General shook his head. “Very well, carry on.”

Neil tucked the lesson of words into his memory bank. “Sir, what I mean is, it is loud, and grunts have been echoing through the dark. Also, on another note, we have found droppings of something larger than the lizard-like creatures. My men have claimed to not make them. I suggest having Miss. Daily have a look.”

 The General bit the inside of his cheek. Neil waited for a reply. “Yes, I suppose she should.” The General turned to Paper. The man lifted his eyes and stood straight, ready for his orders. It was sad to see.

Lintel James Monroe was a man with a dream. At twenty-three, they offered him hyper travel. He accepted without knowledge of his duties. His days as a space explorer were short dreamed, now he was unnoticeable without his VenoPad. 

“Lintel, I want you to find Miss. Daily and notify her to report to Neil at the mining pits. Tell her this could be crucial. So, I appreciate her every effort to comply hastily.”

Jennifer had a habit of waiting until the last minute for things. She had never wanted to get aboard the flight, Sk1001:, it was her debt that decided for her. Lintel’s hand flew to his chest. The correct salute for acknowledgment of the task; the General turned to Neil. 

“Anything else?” Neil shook his head. “Then I shall return to my duties.” 

Neil nodded. He had not saluted. He wasn’t a soldier. He was a miner.

***

Jennifer Daily sat crossed legged upon a flat pillow. She had practiced meditation for fifteen years. She still practiced because she could never quite get it down. She sighed and flicked her hand to the near table, grabbing a long cylinder before lighting it between her lips. Her next sigh was of pleasure. Who needed meditation when you had a cigarette? She inhaled again, letting out a puff of smoke. 

“Does that mean we are done already?” 

Across from Jennifer sat the biggest man she had ever seen. Though saying he was a gentle giant would not do his docile side justice. With hands like a regular man’s head, he refused to kill a bug. Jennifer let the smoke swirl around her. It soothed her like nothing else. She knew it was bad, but so were a lot of other things. ‘Enjoy things while you are alive’, she always said. Though she always tried those healthy things first; they just never worked. 

“Sash, we are finished forever with this junk.” His eyes belayed the hurt. She hated how easily he fell to emotion. She was supposed to be the woman. “Oh, come off it. I will be ready again tomorrow.” 

He quickly found his smile. What a lumbering wreck. She took another quick drag and snuffed out the end on the table beside her. She was supposed to be working right now, but she hated this planet. The sun here was too hot. It made her skin sticky and her clothes heavy. 

“Want to hear a poem?” The joy on his voice was like a child. 

Did this man really exist? She could not imagine being such a pansy. If she was that big, she would have ruled this ship. Turned the thing around and gone home. Home, she thought. She wouldn’t even have a home if it wasn’t for this place. She refrained from lashing out. She knew he meant no harm. 

“Not right now, Sash. I have to get back to work.” 

He tried to hide the sorrow, but she could see right through him. 

The knock on her door saved her. She always caved to the cries. She stood and stretched the sleep from her legs. There was still plenty of youth left in her at only thirty-five but traveling in the ship had worn her down. When she opened the door, sliding it by the knob on the side, Paper stood eagerly on the other side. He was a tiny young man with a boyish frame; she envied his hopeful disposition. 

“What?” She was usually more polite, but right now she didn’t feel like it. 

His face didn’t shift. He didn’t care how polite she was. She liked that. She knew he hated this place just about as much as her deep down, even if he failed to show it.

“General Garman has requested your presence in the mining pits. Neil has found something of interest.” 

Neil Thompson, she thought. Thoughts of shaggy brown hair, corded muscles filling our long arms, and those light brown eyes. She bit her lip in concentration. 

“Did you hear me, Jennifer?” 

Her thoughts came rushing back to her room. She had a husband and two kids. No matter how much the flirting turned her on. 

“Yes, I will gather my things.” 

Lintel nodded. He then turned and made his way down the hall. Jennifer cringed. She hated the mining pits. What had those idiots found?

***

“One more, then I’m done.” This was the fifth or sixth time he repeated that same sentence. The man across from him looked frustrated but complied. He had to comply. Had to keep the captain happy. Who else could fly him off this heat bubble? He jerked forward. He wasn’t tired. It was the damn alcohol eating at him again. He pounded the small shot glass full of amber whiskey. It tasted horrible. He spat on the floor next to him. The man in front of him ground his teeth. Never would he say a word. Captain Jones Clifton smiled. “One more.” His hand shook as he reached across the bar. Maybe that was his vision that shook. He wasn’t sure. His hand found the small glass and his head tilted back. The contents burned all the way down. Why did he drink this crap? It tasted like death.

Again, his head swooned. Throat muscles swallowed tightly. Was he going to puke? Trying to prevent a disaster, he held his breath. The feeling slowly passed. A loud burp came instead. 

“One more.” 

Someone sat down next to him. The bar was made for the mining workers, but the captain spent more time here than anyone else. The alcohol was proposed to keep the miners placated, but Clifton drowned his sorrows just as well. His arm felt heavy, but he grabbed another glass and sloshed the contents down his throat. He turned to the man sitting next to him. 

“That is horrible!” He let his breath wash across the man’s face. The smell of whiskey was strong.

     “Maybe you have had enough?” 

Clifton stopped grinning. He had to stop to focus his eyes. He couldn’t do both at once anymore. The swimming image of the man before him slowed. He knew the face. Adam Harvey. The men called him Rawhide. He was older than the hills, but still looked like a young man. Crazy what that space air could do for a person.

     “I think I will have another.” The captain tried to place his hand on the counter, but it thudded with weight behind it. He chuckled. He could barely control his own body.

     “Have you heard, Captain?”

Rawhide grabbed his attention. He tossed the drink down his chin. Spilling it all down the front of his shirt; he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He couldn’t feel it anyhow.

“Hear what?” What kind of ploy did old Rawhide have?

Staring at him with disgust and contempt, Rawhide maintained a casual tone. “Neil Thompson may have found a new species. Something big they are saying.”

     That was the news?

 “I will have another.” Adam looked away. “

I hope it eats the whole shitty lot of them,” said the captain.

 Adam redirected his attention back to Clifton. He let a smile cross his face. “Let’s hope not, captain. Then who would you have to drink with?”

 Clifton grabbed the shot glass and downed the liquid. He thought to himself, hopefully nobody.

***

Clawing and scraping he rose to his feet. These were his feet, right? They had to be. They looked so different, but different from what? The dirt still showered the enclosure. It was impossible to go back the way he had come. The pain in his head added to the pain in his stomach. He lurched forward, sticking his grotesque hand into the dirt wall. His claws dug deep into the sodden texture. He used the wall to hold himself straight. It took a minute, or what he thought was a minute. What was a minute? He seemed to forget more and more. His head cleared. He could stand on his own again. His claws loosened from the wall. Four deep crevices remained. They filled with dripping water. His hand reached up, cupping the substance. It burned to touch. He moved retracted in pain. What was it? His mouth felt dry, so he put his lips to the dripping liquid. His stomach lurched. He let out a yelp. It sounded like a growl. The surrounding dirt shook. When had he become so loud?

     His hands cupped his ears. The sound of his own grunting hurt them. He didn’t like sound. Something whispered down the tunnel. He looked. It was pitch black, but he could see. Far down the tunnel were lights. They crept across his vision. He froze. Was it some kind of monster? He slipped behind another wall. This tunnel was narrow. His shoulders scraped and stuck against the rough walls.

  He was almost running. The lights faded. He slowed. Turning his head, he watched the opening. What was down here with him? Where was he? He hadn’t always been here, or maybe he had. It was too hard to remember. He closed his eyes and his chest shuttered. A growl emitted from him again. More noises, and then the light reappeared. He turned again, slipping between dirt walls. His legs carried him until the noise and light could no longer be seen.

***

     Neil watched her back arch as she bent over the pile of waste. His eyes trailed down her spine. He hoped a little that he might glimpse something more. Her pants were snug around her waist, and they did not slip. He let his mind come from the gutter.

     “It’s a nice pile of shit, huh?” 

Her laugh made his chest tight. She fliicked off her gloves. His hand lowered the light he had been holding.

“Why do we continue to play this game, Neil?”

He swallowed. There was pressure building in his stomach. He looked down. It was beyond his control. He wanted to catch the curve of her neck and peek down her tank top. She sat still.

“I know you are looking at my breast.”

His face turned five shades of red. Of course, she knew. She was much smarter than him. He had been a fool to think himself smooth. Her hand ran up his arm. He felt goosebumps rise where her fingers trailed. He looked up. Her eyes were wide. With pupils wider still. Her mouth parted. Did she want him to kiss her?

     She cupped his bicep. He felt himself growing stiff in more places. She tilted her chin, waiting for him to make the move. He pushed the thoughts of his wife from his mind. He imagined what her lips would taste like; then he knew. Her lips parted and his tongue slid in. She was soft. Her tongue darted over his. His hand found the small of her back. He couldn’t believe it. She moaned between breaths. His hand trailed under her shirt, heart pounding hard inside his chest. He felt giddy. Kissing her hard, he slipped a hand to the curve of her bottom. It was firm and yet soft. He squeezed. Hips pressed into his thigh. Shifting his lip down, he nibbled on her neck. Nothing else but her smell remained real. Her hand fumbled with his belt. He pulled her pants down with a tug. There was nothing underneath. A moment passed where he drank her in. She was trim and fit, but some pudge still existed on her hips. She had borne children, but it didn’t stop him from lusting for her. He pulled her shirt over her head. Her breast sagged. Yet were fuller than they looked inside her shirt. Her lips found his ear. She nibbled. His pants fell to his knees. Her fingertips brushed over him. He wanted her more than anything he had ever known. She turned. Placed her hands on the wall, ready for him; he stepped behind her. She was exotic.

     The growl echoed. It came from the darkness. Where they had sealed off the tunnels months before. Jennifer stood straight. Neil looked off into the pitch black. He couldn’t see a thing. Fumbling with the light, holding it before him didn’t help. Whatever it was; was far down the shaft. Neil turned to Jennifer. Fear reflected her eyes. The moment of lust had disappeared. He felt it, too. He reached down, pulling his pants back around his waist.

     “We had better tell the General.”

***

“What kind of growl?” 

Jennifer tried to concentrate on his questions, but Neil still fluttered in her mind. Like a pesky fly that refused to be killed. She waited till he repeated the question. 

“What kind of growl, Jennifer?” She didn’t know how to explain a growl. Did he want her to imitate the beast? 

“A loud one, like I said.” 

A wince scrunched his face. They always took things so personally. His type was always formal. Sure, he would try to crack a smile, but it was bland and unreal. His hands came up sweeping over his haggard face. He had looked much younger when they had boarded the ship. 

“Something large, if I had to compare, I would say a lion.” 

His face contorted. She could tell he hated her. At least he didn’t bother to try to hide it. “Lintel, bring in Adam Harvey. Tell him his men are to gather their supplies.” 

He meant guns. They always meant guns. “I am not sure it is hostile.” 

His eyes flashed over her. She could tell he was done with her. He would have forced her from the room, but Neil stood beside her. 

“It did not attack us, sir.” 

He nodded. “Of course, it didn’t. There was three feet of dirt between you.”

 She wanted to smack him. She knew better though. She wouldn’t last a second in the shackles. So, she bit her tongue. 

“Adam won’t be ordered to shoot first. I will inform him to use caution. He will use his own knowledge of situations to perform his duties. You have nothing to worry about.” 

She wasn’t worried. It was clear the only man worried in the room was the General. He turned again towards Lintel. “What are you still doing here?” The boy didn’t flinch. She wondered what his thoughts were. She knew they probably didn’t hold many nice things about old General Garman. Paper gave the proper salute. Then, he turned and left the room. She didn’t envy him much at that moment. 

***

He crouched down. He had heard the yells. The lights bounced off the walls all around him. He had seen their faces. Pink and soft; he felt his own face. Hard and large; his eyes stuck to the sides. Theirs had sat in the middle of their heads. He cringed at the memory. What ugly creatures. Where had they come from? He held his breath. He thought he heard something in the distance. The scrape of dirt and heavy footfalls, he pushed himself lower to the ground. He had run out of space to hide. If they turned down this tunnel, they would have him trapped. He felt something akin to fear, but it was different. It didn’t make him want to run anymore. Now, he wanted to jump out. He wanted to fight. The growl he let out was not of his own doing, but it came from his mouth. The dirt trickled down from the ceiling. 

If they hadn’t found him by now, they at least knew where to look. His belly churned. Why did it always pain him so? He felt his hands grip the dirt inside his palms. His long claws easily displacing the floor beneath them. 

It was several moments before he heard the noises again. Then, the lights bounced from the walls. He couldn’t control it, he growled again. He focused on the light. The creatures rounded the curve of the wall. A handful of them; he couldn’t keep track. He couldn’t remember how to tell the difference between them. They blurred into each other. He stood upon his legs. They were strong beneath him. The creatures growled. Then, they held up something. He stepped slowly toward them. They were going to hurt him. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he knew it. He could slightly remember their pink faces. Something about them screamed pain. Then, the flashes of light came with heat. Small objects hit his hard chest. It felt like rocks falling from the ceiling. The creatures growled again. Were they attacking? He sent his own growl from his chest. It shook the walls. The creatures backed away. His hand swiped at the one in front. It opened his face, red liquid running warmly over his hand; he tasted it. It was sweet. He enjoyed it. The creature fell. It was curious. Much louder than a wiggly creature in death, the others backed away. The little flashes of light came more frequent. They also growled weakly. He stepped after them. 

Two more went down before him. He rummaged their bodies, licking the sweet red substance from them. Three more quickly followed in death. He looked around. None were left. What were these things? He bent, pulling what he supposed was an arm from the body. His sharp teeth split it into halves. He had to half of them again before swallowing. His belly felt different. It didn’t hurt anymore. He smiled. At least he thought it was a smile. He reached down and pulled more of the body apart. His stomach felt warm. The creatures must be the reason. 

***

His head throbbed. Had he fallen asleep at the bar? If so, how had he gotten to his room? He lifted his head off the sweat-soaked pillow. It was flat from over a year’s use. They had packed a switch of linen, but somehow his was lost in the shuffle.

He flicked his tongue across dry lips, but his mouth was no moister. He stood. Then, he wished he hadn’t. The pounding in his head made his eyes close reflexively. Sickness churned deep. His feet moved him toward the privy. He ducked under the door. They made it for a much shorter man. Which didn’t normally matter to him. Usually, he preferred crawling to and from his bed. The liquor had that effect on his legs. He opened the lid. The water was crystal clear with a tinge of blue. He vomited all over it. Some of the chunkier bits, he swallowed back down as he gasped for air. Then, he blew again. The specks flew up, hitting him in the face. He leaned back. The floor was cold. With a listless smearing, he attempted to wipe the spittle from his chin. The extra hair reminded him he needed to shave.

     The door opened. No one even bothered to knock anymore. He had been shaken from stupor countless times now. 

“You here, Captain?” The voice belonged to that little shit Paper Lintel. 

Clifton pulled himself up using the bowl, flushed the remains of his stomach down the pipes-good riddance, and stood. His legs reminded him of jelly. He needed a drink.

     Lintel watched through the bathroom door. He must have heard the commotion. Clifton walked over to the shelves along the wall and pulled down a bottle. Inside was the strong-smelling amber liquid. Lintel stepped before him. He placed his hand on the bottom of the bottle.

“General Garman requests you.”

Clifton pushed his hand away. He was ready to have his drink.

The young boy grabbed the bottle. “He requests you sober.”

Clifton stammered. Damn. He put the lid back on. “What now?” 

Lintel didn’t answer his question, but said, “in the general guidance room, Captain.”

***

     Neil stood next to his mining crew. Down in the pits of it all, the drill sounded behind him. It was almost closing time. Most of the men would head toward the bar. Most likely to be joined by Captain Clifton, others would retire. Those men were his working crew. He could tell who they were and gave them bonus checks at the end of each month.

     At the moment, he spoke to Carter Delaney. The man was dark skinned and foul-mouthed, but he really didn’t differ from most miners. 

     “The crew found acidic water. We have been draining it. It has a foul odor but shouldn’t cause any problems.” 

Neil was used to the weird substances his crew found. If it didn’t slow the production down, he didn’t worry himself about it.

     “Neil.” 

Paper sneaked in beside him. Carter looked on with peaked interest. “General Garman…” Neil cut the boy off.

     “Carter, could you make sure everything gets shut off properly? As many men as you can convince from the bar the better.” Carter nodded. Then, he turned and walked toward the laboring drills.

     “What is it he wants?”

If Lintel held any resentment at the brashness, he showed none. “Just for me to inform you of a meeting in the general guidance room.” 

Neil nodded. Of course, the old General probably found out what that growling beast was. Probably was already having it stuffed for his wall.

“I will be there soon.”

Lintel nodded. Then, turned and faded away toward the steps to the upper world.

***

She hated these documents. These were not what she had signed up for. The tedious cataloging, this creature here, and this one there. She could scream. Tears pooled from the strain. She blinked them away. Was from the stress or depression? She thought again of something that made her happy. Neil’s tight body rubbed against hers, his manhood near stiffened in her hand. She shook her head. Something changed her up here. The planet’s air got to her.

     She flipped another page. It blurred behind the tears. Frustration overwhelmed and she pushed the book away from sight. There was no desire to do this anymore. She wanted to scream and pull her hair. Maybe to cry and kick a little too. Instead, she reached for her cigs and lit one up. The ember glowed in relief. Smoke billowed in a cloud. Her free hand flexed open and closed. There were only a few more notes. That was all. She told herself she could have a drink after. She could find Neil. Maybe finish what they started. She smiled. The smoke filled her lungs.

     The knock on the door was familiar. It was formal. That meant Paper was back again. Twice in one day. She moved to her feet. Then, she sat back down. He could open the door himself.

“Come in.”

He entered gingerly. Just sticking his head through the door. “General Garman wishes audience in the general guidance room.”

Great, more work.

***

     The general room was standing room only by the time Neil slid through the doors. He spotted Jennifer and looked away. He felt bad the entire day about what had happened between them. He moved along the back wall. Every effort made was to put her out of sight. She looked hurt by the gesture, but he couldn’t stomach standing beside her right now. He stared forward. The General used Lintel to scribe some message. As he finished, he turned to address the gathered crowd.

     “Alright folks, we are in alert mode 2. There is no need to panic. As of right now, we are only awaiting the return of Adam Harvey and his men.” He paced as he talked. That meant he was nervous. Neil had noticed the quirk long ago. “They have been gone for longer than expected. I am hoping to hear from them at any moment. Though they have stopped receiving transcriptions and have stopped sending them as well.”

     Neil wondered what that growl was. He had heard nothing again down in the pits, but they worked on the far end. About three miles from the area, they had been inside of earlier today. He bit his lip in concentration.

     That’s when he heard the commotion from the primary facility. The group inside the room turned. They all heard it as well.

“Calm!” The General pushed through. He made his way toward the back. When he cracked the door, everyone looked outside. Everyone ran haphazardly. Many went in the opposite direction of the guidance room. Neil moved in beside the general. He saw a creature that resembled a man but was much more grotesque. Its skin had molded. It looked hard, like a carapace. He squinted to block light from his vision. The feet of the creature were gnarled and large. The hands supported large, hanging claws. It growled and Neil almost lost control of his bladder. He pushed back from the door.

“What the hell is that thing?”

The General looked at him. His face pale. His eyes wide behind his wrinkles, “I think it’s Richard Clarkson.”

     The room churned. At once, everyone pushed to see. As they did, they screamed and pushed themselves back into the room. The creature moved closer. Neil could tell by the growls. Jennifer squeezed in near him.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. He hadn’t a clue.

***

It had hurt at first. The light had filled his eyes with pain. Though after a time, the pain faded. Then, it was gone. He trudged through the tunnels. He picked the creatures off in the pits below. There were so many of them, his belly distended. He had not remembered ever feeling so good. He kept moving. His legs carried him up a hard, strange textured walkway. It brought him higher and higher into the light. After the pain faded, he tracked through the area. There had been nothing there, but a faint smell wafted across the air, leading him further from his home.

    The creatures growled as he approached them. Then, they ran away from him. His claws met their bodies and cut the liquid from inside them. Some tried to fight back with flashing lights. He swatted them away. His hard-shelled stomach barely felt the bites of the small objects. Other creatures stood up to him. They fell just the same. Their tiny bodies looked like bugs at his feet. He hadn’t always been this big. At least he didn’t think he had. Those bodies looked familiar to him, but how could he remember? Everything was so easily forgotten.

     He scooped up parts of their soft bodies. The taste sweet on his tongue. The liquid warmed his throat. It made him feel nice inside. He kept moving. Through small, hard walls, some of them so hard his claws barely punctured the surface. He found doorways and more and more of the creatures. They stopped fighting and just ran. Growling and running. He reveled in the chase. It made him feel something strange. He remembered running as a child. Some type of game. He wondered if that was the game he played now. He sliced his claws through another creature’s back. The rush pushed him onward. The surrounding room became bigger. There were many creatures now. So many he could not register them all. The lights were brighter here. He growled. Through the corner of his eye, he watched them watching him. He growled again. He would feast upon them all.

***

     Clifton pushed his way through the crowd. He paused at the door. Whatever the damn thing was, it was big. He looked over at the scared crowd. All he could think about was that he sure could use a drink right about now. He almost wished this was one of his alcohol-related dreams. He pinched his arm. It hurt. It was no dream.

He pushed himself back from the door and took three deep breaths. “We have to get ourselves the hell out of here.”

The General looked at him. Fear filled his eyes. It was so heavy the captain could smell it like whiskey. That thing had killed the best soldiers on the planet. That thing was leaving havoc in its wake. Clifton tilted, sticking himself slightly out the door again. The creature was no further than three hundred yards away. If they were going to act, best do it now.

“I am heading toward the ship.” The faces of those surrounding him froze in fear.

Neil spoke up first. “We can’t just leave my men.”

The captain laughed. He didn’t mean to laugh. It just happened. “Your men are dead. If Adam couldn’t tame the beast, your men are not half as skilled.”

Neil’s eyes dropped. It wounded him, but the captain figured he would get over it. At least, the captain hoped. He needed help to leave this rock.

“Are you all with me?”

The General stepped up. He tried to display his badge of power. It meant shit now. “Those people will need help.”

The captain really wished for that drink. He wondered if he could make it to the bar on the way to the ship.

“Those people will have to fend for their damn selves. If a gun doesn’t kill that bastard-well, then I don’t plan to try with my bare hands.”

 It wasn’t a coward’s move. It was the move of a man who would like to live. 

“So, who is with me? Because you either come now, or you find your own ship off this rock.” 

He wasn’t bluffing. He hoped he showed that upon his face. This was it. He was leaving. He didn’t need them, but they all needed him. He swallowed the lump of fear inside his throat. Now, he had to will his hand to open the door.

***

     She had been in zoology for… she couldn’t even remember. The thing in the hallway was nothing she like anything she had ever seen. The General had said something that tingled her spine. He thought it looked like Richard Clarkson. The man she served under on this trip. The captain was right. They had to go. Had to leave, and they had to do it now.

“I am with you.” Her words were small. She had always been such a strong woman. Now, she was more sniveling than Sash. She wondered at the big man’s fate. Though she didn’t wonder for long, the growl shook the surrounding walls. The creature advanced as they sat in wonder. She still heard the screams of the others.

     “Let’s go!” She was sure she was ready now. She would not sit here and die. Neil grabbed her arm. Did he do it on purpose? She looked at him. He let go. Why was no one opening that door?

***

     Neil thought of his men. He had known them for so long. He couldn’t believe they were just gone. This trip was supposed to be the big payoff. This was his last off-world trip. He had promised his wife. His hand reached out. He gripped Jennifer’s arm. She looked at him. He let go. What was he thinking? He hadn’t meant that. Had he? He heard another growl and bit his lip. He had to decide now.

     His hand acted on instinct. It opened the door. Those around him screamed.

“Well, we can’t sit around and wait.”

The captain nodded. His breath was still strong with drink. Neil hoped he could even fly a ship.

The monster had a strong resemblance to Richard Clarkson, that was for certain. He didn’t stop to stare any longer than he had to, though. The captain rushed into the hall before them. Jennifer followed. Others crammed through the door as well. The general looked rooted to the floor.

     “You coming, sir?” 

His eyes blinked, but he didn’t move.

Neil smacked him on the shoulder. “Sir!” 

The fear had taken him.

Neil tucked his head and ran after the group. There was nothing he could do. The monster roared behind him. The door to the room ripped off the wall. He heard the general scream. There was nothing for it. He tucked his head and ran faster.

***

The room before him emptied. They ran down the halls. He had cleared the surrounding area. Another creature ran from the room. He seemed to be the last of them. As he glared inside the room, he saw one standing still. The creature didn’t growl. He reached his hands, ripping at the door. He liked the power of it. It clanged beside him. He turned and grabbed the creature by the waist. It growled loudly. He shoved the head of it into his mouth. It didn’t fit, but he bit down anyhow. The crunch beneath his teeth was gratifying. The contents slid down easily. He threw the body down. He would catch them all. 

***

     The captain slammed into the wall. His feet hadn’t carried him so quickly in many years. His head throbbed from the exertion and the drink. He moved down the corridor. The ship was above ground. They would have to take the stairs up. He hurried toward them. The others were at his heels. He heard them breathing hard. Most of them were like him. Out of shape and old, they ran like it as well.

He rounded the last corner. There they were. The stairs. Those metal gateways to heaven. He doubled his pace. Then, he remembered the worst thing that could have happened. The keys to the ship were in his room. They could not rig the new models. There were two sets on the entire planet. One with the general and one in the captain’s lodgings. He had neither. He turned and ran through the people.

“Get to the surface.” They didn’t question him. They continued for the stairs. He heard their feet clattering upward. He wished he could have joined them.

“Where are you going?” Clifton barely avoided running into Neil. The man looked scared. He couldn’t blame him. He could feel his own trepidation inside his belly.

“I forgot the key. I will be right back. Just a quick run back.”

Neil gave him a hard look. “I will head back with you.”

The captain didn’t want him to come, but he didn’t have time to argue.

“I will follow.” Jennifer Daily stood behind them, listening to the conversation.

“Well damn, let’s make it a party.” Why were they so ready to go die with him?

He turned. He would surely die if he didn’t run. His legs carried him as fast as they could move. Neil and Jennifer easily kept pace. They were much younger than him. He rounded a last corner coming into the main corridor. His room was three doors down the main hallway. He could see the finish line. He took off toward it. His hand gripped the knob. It creaked open. Nearby, he heard the growls of that wretched beast.

The key hung by his bed. He grabbed it from the stub for the last time.

“Now we can go.” 

He clutched the key inside his hand. Then, he turned toward the shelf. One drink wouldn’t hurt. He walked to the shelf, grabbing the amber liquid.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked. 

He didn’t answer her. He swallowed down the courage. It burned all the way down. He hated the taste. He felt the sudden urge to vomit. He held his breath. It slowly passed.

***

Neil grabbed the bottle from the captain’s hands. 

“You can’t drink this and drive!” His voice sounded angry to his ears. Matter of fact he was angry. What did this idiot think he was doing? The bottle crashed to the floor. The sound vibrated in his ears. He shouldn’t have done that. The growls sounded again nearer than before. Neil pushed the captain toward the door. 

“We better go.” 

The captain didn’t put up a fight, but his face looked flushed.

Jennifer followed them out. They charged down the small main corridor into the lobby. The beast stood in front of them. They dodged to the side. Neil and Jennifer made the move easily. Clifton stumbled. It was that damn drink. His eyes widened further than a man’s eyes should be able to. His hand loosened on the key. He made one last decision. The key flew. Then, the beast bit into his arm. His sharp claws ripped through the captain. Neil caught the key. He hoped driving a ship was a lot easier than it looked.

Without choice, they turned to run. They rounded the last corner. Everyone else had made it up those metal steps. He grabbed Jennifer’s hand. This time he meant to do it. It may be the last time he was to ever able touch her in such a way, and he wanted to at least have done it.

She did not resist him. Instead, they ran hand in hand up the stairs. His body always a stair ahead of hers. The growls grew louder behind them.

***

His hand was sweaty inside hers. He tugged on her a bit, too, tightly. Yet, it comforted her. That beast behind them had just torn the captain in half like a child with a candy bar. She didn’t want to think about it. How were you supposed to forget about something like that? Her feet met the dirt of the planet. The heat existed at all times of the day. The sun near this planet never faded. Night and day were the same, hot, and humid. They kept running. The miners made the path the first month of their arrival. When she still followed Richard’s guidance. What had happened to that man? Something had made him a hideous monster.

She felt her feet pick up speed. They were now shoulder to shoulder. She saw the ship. She let her heart hope. She would see her children again. Her husband. She looked down at her hand. Gripped in with Neil’s, her husband would not approve, but he wasn’t here. She didn’t pull away. The ship’s door opened. People were already safe inside. She heard the distant roar behind her.

***

His feet stopped. The sun beat down upon him. The growl he let loose was something strong from his depths. He shielded his eyes. He could not chase them anymore. Those who had escaped were out of his reach forever. He felt a pang of something, it differed from what he had felt minutes before. He ducked back into the enclosure. He heard the loud roar of something above him. He growled again. The heat hit him in the face. It wasn’t from the sun. He looked above. Something flew. He used to fly. At least he remembered flying. The object moved from his sight. He turned away from the light of the sun. Those few had gotten away. He turned back toward the corridor. There were still plenty left over to feed him. He turned and walked back inside.

  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Fantasy, Original Stories, The Aeonian Fantasy

The Red Flux & the Wunderkind Thief: “Chapter Two”

   Copé opened his eyes to blackness. There was a complete absence of light. Pitch black. Were his eyelids even parted? It mattered not; the end was the same. He could see nothing. A large part of him wanted to panic. Another part of him wanted to do nothing at all. Neither was a viable option, however. Father Toucan Veras had taught him well in his time with The Red Flux. The key difference between a normal person and a member of the troupe was that, when faced with adversity, a member of The Red Flux acted and survived.

   Beneath him, he could feel the vibration and the rickety sound of wheels turning over uneven terrain. He was in a wagon of some kind. On his back, he squirmed and writhed. The first thing he realized was that he hadn’t been restrained. Whoever had abducted him clearly had no idea who they were dealing with or were so very certain that Secrat would be down for the long term. As his fingers scraped against the floor beneath him, he could tell it was wood. His body pivoted around like it belonged to a man trying to get comfortable. This isn’t the bed I left myself on, thought The Thief.

   Copé arched his back up like a dead man resurrected and sat. An aching feeling became heavily apparent. His hand cradled the back of his head. He felt a large egg-shaped bruise but knew that was only the least of it. This was the aftereffects of a far worse head injury he was feeling. A lot of him wanted to drop back and slumber like he had never even awoken. He would deal with the problems when his mind sobered.

   All it took was a bump to make him realize this thought was too foolish to consider. Copé felt himself lift into the air for a second before falling back down. His head ached even more, but beside the pain was the feeling of fear. Not only had he moved out of the home of Azlak Temps, but he was still in the process of being moved. The winnie of a horse made everything else follow. He could hear every stamp it made. The sound of the man at the front slapping at it with the reins to make it gallop faster, Copé could hear that as well.

   He felt it when the wheels hit rock. He, himself, was in the bed of the carriage. Copé felt more assured after this. If there was one thing, he knew better than most, it was how to paint the scenery. Copé felt around in the dead of night. A tarp is what shielded him from the sky and kept him from the moon and stars. Although, Secrat could’ve easily thrown it off, that would have caught the attention of whoever it was that snatched him up from the merchant’s house. Or could it have been the merchant? Copé knew damn well he threw enough knives in the bastard to kill three men, but could Azlak Temps amount to four?

   It didn’t matter to him. If the merchant was still alive, Secrat would kill the last of him. Or better yet, put a knife to his throat and give the combination code as his demand. Toucan Veras would never condone torture, but Toucan wasn’t there.

   Copé felt around his environment, the walls of the carriage were wooden planks. Large gaps were between each of them, and Copé could feel a draft of cold air from the outside. He knew what he had to do. The Thief crawled slowly to the far end of the carriage.

   Feeling around his waist, one of his many daggers remained strapped at his right side. How foolish could his abductor have been to have not confiscated him of his weaponry?

   He placed the blade of the knife between his teeth before he lifted the left corner of the tarp. This act was done with care, so as not to attract the driver. Another big bump happened and once again, Copé’s head felt like it was on fire. He lowered his head down for a second, but only a second. It was time for action, and at that thought, Copé climbed over to the outside of the carriage, hanging on with his feet between the wooden planks.

   The wind slapped hard against him. The sensation did very little to alleviate the pain he was feeling. The chilliness of the outside air caused by the carriage’s rapid pace felt both refreshing and without relent. There was no time to cringe or take enjoyment in anything, however. Instead, Copé poked his head to see if he could have a look at the driver. It was almost as dark as it was beneath the tarp, but the sky’s light lent just enough to distinguish the figures. There was nothing else he could see, only two heads and two silhouette bodies. They looked to both be about an average build. This meant that neither of them were the merchant.

   Copé had one theory about who they could have been. It may have been his paranoid mind projecting his worst fears, however. The Red Flux wasn’t the only troupe in the Unprotected Wilderness. They may have been among the tamer ones, however.

   He had the fear first when he saw the vials underneath Azlak Temps’ bed. There had been stories of human-trafficking, but they had largely been hush hush and built on gossip rather than fact. Why else would Azlak have had a door that only closed on one side? Those women were his guests, but, rather, his prisoners. If what he thought was true, he was in trouble, but he also had a chance at redemption. Maybe he would not leave his first outing with wealth, but he might leave with their heads on a pike. Toucan may not have liked murder, but even he would make an exception for the swine that riddled about the forests. Their deaths would mean more than coin.

   Copé shimmied more and more toward the front of the carriage. The horses galloped at such a very fast pace that he struggled to keep his footing. At one instance, he lost it and had to rely on his arms to keep himself from falling off the carriage. The Thief steeled his nerves, taking a moment to regain his composure. Then, he continued.

   Before long, Secrat Copé was in arm’s reach of the man holding the reigns. In earshot as well, but neither of them said a word. Copé looked at the scenery around him.

   It was too dark for him to see, but something seemed familiar about the place. At the very least, he was certain they had long since left Acera.

   The blade sat, tightly clenched between the thief’s teeth. His eyes could vividly see the outline of the man’s neck. Everything felt clearer than ever. The adrenaline flowing through his veins. All the pain and anguish this night had given, it all ceased to matter. He plucked the knife out of his mouth and looked at it fondly. He held a certain fascination with the knife, like he had never seen it before, reflecting over what he was about to do.

   In his hands, he drove the small dagger to the side of the man’s neck. It went into his skin so easily that it was like fate meant it to be there. Two star-crossed lovers long since separated, but now brought together: blade and flesh.

   “Ah, fuck,” were the only words that the man could utter.

   They would be his last words.

   The man flinched, however, and that was enough to make all the difference. His forearm rudely struck Copé in the side of the skull. Never so weak and fragile had Secrat’s skull been before now.

   Copé fell off of the carriage and onto the hard ground. The Thief rolled aimlessly, feeling his body scrape and bruise along the way. The landing was painful, but it wouldn’t be fatal. His head had just about had it though. After all of this, all Secrat wanted to be back at home with the Flux.

   It wasn’t over though, not yet. There was more to this night. Another man was in that carriage. And the element of surprise was gone.

   Secrat fought back to a vertical position. It was an act becoming much too hard for him to do.

   He felt around for a blade. There was none left on his person. Like a man who couldn’t perform in bed, he felt awestruck, “This has never happened to me before.” Hand to hand combat wasn’t his specialty, but if he could fend off the man long enough, he would be able to pluck the knife out from the other guy’s neck and end this once and for all.

   The horse’s gallops silenced. Copé readied himself. His stance was firm, and his fingers were tightly clenched into a fist. With everything he had overcome in this night alone, there was no way that he would let it end now.

   “Secrat!?” the voice of the man in the carriage cried out. “Secrat!? What in the hell were you thinking? Do you realize what you have done?”

   Those all sounded more like statements than they did questions. Secrat Copé started to realize why this area seemed so familiar. The voice of the man belonged to Lukas Lewis, a fellow Red Flux. But why was he in that carriage with that bad man he killed?

   Lukas and Copé came face to face. Lewis seemed terrified and anguished with fear, but Secrat struggled even to keep his head up.

   “Secrat!?” Lewis yelled for a second time.

   All Copé did was smile at him.

   After all, … he was home.

                                                                                               2.

   Secrat Copé sat handcuffed to a chair.

   His head still hurt, but it was doing much better after a day’s rest. He hadn’t the faintest idea how he had gotten himself into this predicament. Lukas Lewis had tried to explain it all to him earlier, but his head had ached far too much to listen. Since then, his mind had sobered up from stupor and he was once again ready to hear rhyme and reason. Unfortunately, as it stood, ‘reason’ appeared to be giving him the silent treatment.

   There had never been one true home for The Red Flux. In some ways, that was kind of the point. They traveled as a troupe and that meant, when they were together, they were home. That wasn’t where Lukas Lewis had brought him, however. This wasn’t The Red Flux, wide open and free. This was a small, desolate, and dreary cabin. It smelled damp with the odor of mold and cedar, and there was fungus sealing the jamb of the door on the other side of the room. The chair Copé was shackled to was placed on the wall opposite the door. The thief tilted his head, resting it some on his shoulder. A small window partly engulfed by moss was to his left, there was a small crack in the top-right corner of the glass. His boredom had made him observe every eccentricity as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

   Over time, Copé forgot about it and laid his head back against the wall. The action brought a stinging sensation, but he didn’t care. It was worth being able to rest his head.

   The door to the cabin started to be cracked opened. The force it took to push it open meant there was no way it could have been done discreetly. Secrat flinched fast, rattling the handcuffs as he did so. He wasn’t afraid. It was more to say that he was caught off-guard.

   The man entered the room, taking very little note of how grimy and smudged the walls looked. He walked with a purpose. His dark black boots damn near worn to the sole.

   It was Father Toucan Veras.

   Father Toucan Veras walked with a certain stature and poise that couldn’t be taught or rightly explained. It couldn’t be very well mimicked either. The man simply had it, while others simply did not. Toucan walked the way Copé wanted to walk. The Thief’s ego may have kept him from admitting that fact aloud, but it was the truth. The leader of The Red Flux had a presence about him like no one he had ever seen before. When the man entered the room, all eyes lent themselves to him. They belonged to him, like a showman thief, stealing the attention off whoever else was in the room and putting it on himself.

   Veras had a thick black beard and a bald head, he carried a large sword at his side in a scabbard. Olea is what the weapon was called. There was an important detail about Olea, in that, it was called Olea, but not by him. How did it get its name, if not by him? Secrat didn’t know. Any time he asked, Veras would silence him with a pair of shrugged shoulders. The sword was enormous, shaped and structured like a scimitar donning a deep curve at the end. Gifted with an enormous blade, Toucan made the sword look like one of Copé’s knives.

   The statement was hyperbolic, for certain, but the statement stood, nonetheless. Father Veras was a giant of a man. He was the type that was wise about concealing exactly how big he was as well. Whereas the rest of The Red Flux wore armor pillaged from either one of the five major cities, often accentuated by red dye to honor The Red Flux name, Toucan opted instead for baggy robes. By doing so, no one had too much of an idea of how muscular he truly was. Concealment made him easy to underestimate, but also made it easy to assume the most ridiculous possibilities.

   Toucan shut the door behind him before he turned his attention over to the restrained thief. Copé wanted to rub the nape of his neck or clasp his hands over his head out of distress and discomfort, but he could do neither. Toucan’s eyes were cold and serious. The white of his eyes were bloodshot and the rest looked black as night.

   “You’ve really outdone yourself on this one, Copé.”

   There was no inflection in his voice. Toucan’s temper and intimidation were well noted. He rarely showed it, but when he did, it was bad enough for nobody to soon forget. Copé felt no fear, not particularly. He felt discomfort and vulnerability. Which was almost the same.

   Everything was starting to piece itself together for him. His recent traumas blocked some of it out, but he had no doubt the reason he was keyed to a chair was for the murder of a fellow member of The Red Flux. Lukas Lewis brought him here after and confessed Father the sins of his adopted son, and now, Toucan was here to pass his judgment. Lukas Lewis had always been a narc, even when they were kids, so that came as no surprise.

   “Why, Father, it is fancy meeting you here, very, in fact. I wish you had mailed in a letter about your arrival, I haven’t cleaned the place in ages! Over there, you will notice the lovely décor, most vivaciously inscribed walls, marked and scrawled with sharp precision by mushroom!” Secrat offered up a cocky smirk.

   His heart wasn’t in the sarcasm, but he tried his best not to let that show. For his father’s sake, of course. Even beyond all the other responsibilities Toucan had to contend with, like keeping the troupe together or being a strong leader, Copé was his son. The young thief was born and readied before them, poised for greatness, and Father would fight above all else to protect him.

   However, Toucan looked at Secrat Copé with a strange look on his face, a look that signified confusion or bewilderment.

   Copé maintained his smile.

   There was simply no way his father could stay mad at him.

   Then, in one loving swoop, Toucan proved otherwise, bringing a closed fist to Copé’s face. This wasn’t the smack a father gave his son when he stepped out of line. The punch felt more like something Copé might have expected from a sworn enemy. The chair flipped over to its side off the impact, and with Copé handcuffed to the back of the chair, everything came down, crushing his hand. Copé let out a cry of anguish.

   “Elson Mans, does that name sound familiar to you!?”

   Some inflection was in his voice now; it was anger and brewing frustration. Copé continued to whimper at the pain in his left hand. He had confronted a lot of pain in a day. He hadn’t enjoyed any of it.

   On the bright side, thanks to a newly discovered “maneuverability” to his hand, he was able to free himself from one of the handcuffs. The bottom of the chair leg was thicker than at the top, had that not been the case, he could have freed himself from the other.

   Toucan mumbled something under his breath. He didn’t seem at all amused by his son’s master escape.

   “Put out your hand,” Toucan whispered softly.

   Secrat feigned a look of shock.

   “I will not,” The Thief cried, hiding hs hand like an animal would hide meat from a rival pack.

   “Put out your hand,” he repeated.

   The statement carried more weight than it should have. If Toucan wanted to hurt Copé, he would have. This was his way of letting Copé have the choice. Copé put his hand in the air in front of Toucan.

   “Uh-ah, on the floor,” Toucan said, almost sounding nurturing and loving. “Flat.”

   Copé did as he was told. He put his hand down on the floor, flat. The old lefty had certainly seen better days. It looked like his thumb and index finger were already badly swollen.

   Toucan raised his large boot up. Copé braced himself but didn’t pull away.

   At last, his father brought his boot down on Copé’s mangled hand. The yell from Copé was loud. He whimpered loudly soon after, hyperventilating and tearful. His head lying manically twitching against the floor and the chair carried on his back.

   There was no reason for Toucan’s statement. He wasn’t looking for signs Copé wanted to be forgiven or felt remorse. He merely wanted to hurt him some more.

   “I don’t want to hear your comments!” Toucan yelled. It was a wet-yell, unrestrained and crackly. He talked plainly after: “I don’t want to see that smirk on your face. I don’t want to see any of it. Last night was the most disgraceful night for The Red Flux. Do you know?” Veras stopped.

   He couldn’t seem to find the words in his blind rage. “I sent Lukas to finish stealing one of the biggest hauls we’ve ever had. Do you know how many mouths that would have fed? Of course not, in fact, that doesn’t ever even cross your mind. None of that benefits you, and thus, it doesn’t faze you.”

   If Toucan would have made eye-contact to Copé, he would have seen that Copé was too busy whimpering over his gestating anguish to give a damn.

   “Lukas, little Luke, … we’ve known him since he was a small child, since you were a small child,” Toucan stopped once more and looked over at Copé for the first time since beginning his little speech. Apparently looking to obtain some sort of emotional effect, his eyes looked even more haggard and bloodshot up close. “He woke me up to tell that my son, who I picked up off the streets when he had nothing, was responsible for the death of a fellow member.”

   Copé stopped trying to squirm free from the chair for a moment and looked up at Father.

   “If they were supposed to be doing this ‘big haul’,” Copé tried to stress the part with hand-gestures but failed terribly, “Then why did they become involved in mine? I was there for Azlak Temps.”

   Toucan continued to look at Copé as he spoke: “They found you in the house of Gruff Helms. His bloody remains lay not far away.”

   He turned his back from the young thief and walked over toward the window, transfixed on the moss.

   “You never bothered with names or specifics, you just acted, always have,” he said, and then, with finality added: “But this time, you went too far.”

   “I made a mistake.” Copé admitted. He didn’t like that, admitting fault. “You know how many mistakes others in The Red Flux have made? Tell me how many times someone went looking for coin and came back with nothing more than the horse they left on? In fact, you should be thanking me, I killed that son of a bitch! A feat that I shall stress was no easy task, and only made it easier for them to steal the riches off the bastard. They ransacked the place, sooner or later, they found the combination … they found the treasures. You are welcome.”

   “They couldn’t find it. They were sent to extort the riches from him. We had something on him. As it turns out, his money wasn’t exactly the cleanest, and if the rest of Acera had wind of that, he would have been ripped apart and had his head put on a pike. Lukas said that they were really concerned about you. All you had was a concussion, but you looked worse than that. Like you were about to kill over and weren’t in your right mind. But that doesn’t excuse what you did, Copé.”

   “That merchant won’t be missed.”

   “That isn’t the fucking point!” Toucan yelled.

   His eyes grew wider, redder with rage more than disappointment. Copé could even see the veins in his neck beginning to pop out.

   “We don’t kill in The Red Flux. This isn’t something to keep us from finding misfortune. It’s a matter of morals, something that I am starting to feel like I failed to stress while raising you.”

   “What does that mean?”

   “It means that in one night, you killed a brother. Then, you killed two people before that. You don’t belong with us.”

   Copé’s ears pricked once he heard those words. An influx of fear started inside of him. There was nothing else for him. A thief was all that he knew how to be. It was his home. The Red Flux was his home.

   Toucan Veras turned his back and started away from Secrat, but The Thief wouldn’t accept that. He couldn’t accept that.

   Copé crawled with the chair still attached to him.

   He grabbed Toucan’s ankle with his uninjured hand and pleaded with him. “Please, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” it was lies, and Copé knew it, he bet Toucan knew it as well, but he didn’t care, all he cared about was having his way.

   He couldn’t deal without the troupe.

   His father seemed to have little sympathy for him. His eyes seemed apathetic and uncaring, but Copé knew there had to be something beneath all of that. He had to be hiding his feelings. Copé was his son, dammit.

   Secrat looked in his eyes. Tears streamed down Copé’s cheeks, dripping down his chin and dampening the wood floor. Almost entirely because of the pain that he felt in his left hand. Toucan didn’t know that. To him, Copé felt deep remorse for his actions.

   Toucan dropped to one knee and looked at Copé.

   “Find a way to right your wrongs,” he said somberly. “I don’t know how you’ll do it, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. This is your mistake, and now it is up for you to find your way.”

  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Fantasy, Original Stories, The Aeonian Fantasy

The Red Flux & the Wunderkind Thief: “Chapter One”

   Secrat Copé could feel the decadent blood drip down his arm and off his elbow. Things hadn’t gone according to plan and the bastard wife of a merchant came at him with a knife. She managed to slash him a good one too, right after a punch to the jaw for good measure. This all, of course, happened before Copé had a chance to muffle her screams and end her days altogether.

   It was a rash decision. Father Toucan Veras wouldn’t be happy about that. Subtracting from the world was frowned upon in The Red Flux, but Veras would have to understand the situation. Even still, Copé anticipated an inevitable shouting match coming his way when Veras found out. For now, all that was that he’d have to savor his heist and make it all worth it.

   And so, he took time admiring his handiwork and appreciating his quick reaction time. If he had been one second slower, the woman would have squealed and blown the whole heist. After a small wince of pain, Copé looked at his bleeding arm and supposed he might not have been quick enough. His lock picking wasn’t nearly as discreet as it could have been either, making a lot of unneeded noise while he prodded at the lock. To his credit, Secrat had handled his mistakes well, especially given it was only his first time pillaging on his own.

   These mistakes were to be expected.

   He grabbed one leg and the other as he began dragging the unlucky woman’s dead body into the corner of the house that the moon’s glean didn’t bring to light. Copé looked around but could only see what the windows let the moon in the sky expose, and that wasn’t much. That didn’t bother him though, as he put one foot in front of the other, he already knew there wasn’t anything that would surprise him too much. A keen eye was mandatory for the task at hand, and he took pride in his intuition. For his age, he was already skilled. Very much so.

   He felt around the pouch in his leggings for a light. A match was such an amusing contraption, far ahead of its time, white phosphorus on a pine stick that caused flame with friction. Some also used white phosphorus to poison or cause severe liver damage but that was neither here nor there. The latter fact made pine sticks both rare and particularly expensive in the major cities. The Red Flux often had to go to the Thieves’ Network in the Whispey Deserts to stock up.

   The makeshift torch shed light on his surroundings. Secrat had known there was something beneath his feet beyond dirt. Now, he knew it was an Italinian rug.

   If I wanted to rob pompous jackasses, I’d have gone to Italina, not Acera, thought Secrat to himself, but knew better than to say anything aloud. It was a playful joke to himself. He didn’t care in the least who he robbed, coin was coin. The rugs were expensive, anywhere between one-hundred coins to a thousand, depending on potency, purity, or vibrancy of fabric, as well as the artistic value in the design. He bid it adieu and paid it little mind as there was no possible way for him to steal it. The rug was much too heavy and awkward to move by himself. There was a wooden desk was to his left, a quill and inkwell atop it along with a piece of parchment, scrawled upon it were various names, presumably individuals the merchant had done deals with over the years. Secrat’s eyes skimmed through the names, a couple here and there he recognized, but they were far and few between.

   The sound of ruffling leaves outside almost caused Secrat to flinch; a strong wind was picking up outside. Although he could afford to leave a dead body (so long as it couldn’t be traced back to The Red Flux), he could not afford to be caught. Although Acera and its civilians were softer than, say, Hardan or Urgway, meaning he wouldn’t be sentenced to death, their prisons were a real dump.

   Copé continued walking through the house, noticing some of the abnormalities while doing so, such as the little trinkets of useless junk lining the walls. There were bizarre looking masks, crude illustrations, and other useless items that merchants tended to deem as absolute delicacies. Maybe they knew something Secrat didn’t, but Copé had no interest in such items. He was only looking for one thing and only had the faintest idea of where to find it.

   All he knew was that people believed themselves to be cleverer than they truly were. In general, that is. They tried to go with eccentric and sporadic hiding places for their wealth and fortune, but oftentimes ended up choosing the same places as other citizens of the town would have. They had the same culture, similar lifestyles and influence, so it was understandable.

   For larger cities, like Italina, Hardan and Jalint, it was easy to judge simply by using the popular consensus as a rule of thumb, but Acera was smaller, and therefore more individualized in terms of trivial things like where wealth was hidden. In part because so few of them had wealth.

   While he was on the prowl, Secrat noticed one of the houses in Acera had an especially magnificent garden. If he was a betting man, it would be a safe gamble to assume if he kept ripping at flowers long enough, he would eventually discover a small fortune.

   Before long, he hid his hand over the match, shielding the light from potential onlookers, and carried on his way through a small walkway, leaving the Italinian rug and welcoming cold, hard wood floor. As he traversed further, he was met by several illustrations – all gaudy stuff, really. Of it, Secrat didn’t see anything worth taking, rather, it was all tasteless trash that wouldn’t fetch a penny in most markets. As he continued, he eventually went onto find a more robust piece; at last, an illustration that looked to depict the Aeonian’s on top of the Mountain of Jalint. Veras would be pleased, Secrat joked to himself, recounting all the times Father ranted and raved about The Aeonians. There was nothing he hated more than how civilians worshiped the magical beings. Their presence was among the main reasons The Red Flux existed, acting as a rebellion against an inherently authoritative society.

   The Thief clutched one of his wrists with his hand, keeping himself from the temptation of stealing the painting, knowing its quality wasn’t worth his debauchery. No, Secrat was looking to rob this bastard merchant blind, and that meant tackling his whole wealth. Pockets and pockets full, big pockets too, a big characteristic in most clothes worn by The Red Flux, and even both hands for good measure, whatever coins Copé would have the chance to leave with, he would.

   There was a doorway to his right. He moved his hand away from his match and shined it over the door. This wasn’t your standard everyday wooden door with hollow insides. Something was very strange about it; elegant and kempt for an abode that was otherwise neither of those things. The door looked to be made from copper and appeared durable and resistant. Where would this room lead? Would it lead to the master bedroom, or was it his riches being hidden in plain sight? He inspected the door handle, for durability and strength meant nothing if the lock mechanism could be rendered useless, but … what was this?

   There was no door handle for him to behold, and more importantly, no hole on the door to try at picking the lock. Instead, there was a small, circular device where the handle belonged, and it was every bit as small and feeble as a keyhole. Secrat brought his eyes closer to the contraption, inspecting it in disbelief and curiosity. There were three rows of numbers, each counting in order from one to ten, and capable of being easily rotated. It didn’t take very long for Secrat Copé to figure out what he was dealing with, he needed a three digit code that would provide him with the means to divulge the room’s contents. It was not at all uncommon for a safe, but was much rarer to see for an actual door.

   The hand not toting the flame descended to his side and felt the hilt of one of his knives, resting sheathed in one of the many leather scabbards that made up his attire. There was one strapped to the side of his left leg, and two on each side of his waist. He came prepared. His training made him very accustomed to using knives. No doubt, he would be able to get the merchant to blurt out the code, given the right “persuasion,” but afterward, he would have to kill him.

   Toucan might understand the lady as self-defense. If he would have let her live, there’s a chance she could have identified him and put himself and The Red Flux in danger. If too many wanted posters started popping up, before long an entire city could be off the market for his troupe of thieves.

   With that knowledge, there was only one foreseeable alternative to help him unravel the means of entry and that was finding the numbers written down somewhere in the house. He didn’t even know for certain the merchant wrote down the grouping of numbers, but it was probable; a confessed insecurity against one’s ability to remember things. Unfortunately, Copé didn’t have the haziest idea where to look. His own intuition told him that the combination was probably written somewhere on a piece of parchment in the merchant’s master bedroom, but that was something he didn’t want to accept.

   If this were the case, then, there was no chance whatsoever that he could finish the heist without killing a second special someone. And so, with a strong stubbornness, he backtracked to the Italinian rug and lifted it up. Beneath it, he found nothing, at the underside of the rug, shining his match down to see if he might have written it down there, he found nothing. There was the writing desk! Secrat went to it and began riffling through the pages and pages of scrolls. There were names and lots of information, but nothing that seemed relevant to Copé.

   Worse off, Secrat found his finger cut by one of the papers, a stinging sensation more aggravating than having a sword thrust into one’s chest (or, perhaps not)! He brought himself back into the hallway of the merchant’s house and began plucking one precious item after another from his wall, quietly tossing them onto the rug. It could have been one mask or an item with sentimental value to the merchant where he had stashed the numbers.

   It was a slow and quiet investigation, he only had one hand free, with the other carrying the aflame pine stick, but it had yet to yield any results. Secrat brought his knife out again and drove the blade into the Aeonian illustration, hoping to find something hidden behind the artwork. There was nothing…

   Nothing. Nothing? Nothing!? That is, except the sound of a door closing at the other end of the hallway. Secrat blew out the flame of his match, bringing them both into the darkness. The merchant didn’t notice Secrat Copé in his dreamy stupor, or at least, he didn’t react in a way to suggest Secrat’s anonymity had been compromised. The man might have seen a light, but that was it, and as far as he knew, Copé was his wife. This was not the loveliest of images, but it was a logical line of reasoning. His lady friend either never came to bed or left and never came back. The merchant, curious about the whereabouts of his companion at such an ungodly hour, went looking for her.

   This was only natural, but his reaction after finding her could be very bad for Copé. The footsteps of the merchant as his feet stamped the ground were loud. They hit with such an oomph that they surely would flatten whatever came in his path. The idea of tripping wasn’t even an option, his burly body crushing whatever might have made the attempt.

   Before long that skill would be handy, thought Secrat, thinking about all the items that he threw on his living room rug. The thief moved haplessly in the blackened night, taking good care not to step in front of windows, or anywhere that could bring him in the view of the merchant.

   He passed the desk but kept close to it as he walked on the rug, knowing for sure where he threw nothing for himself to trip on. At the end of the desk, he lowered himself to a crouched position and waited for the man to leave the hallway, and he did.

   “Jen, Jen,” he whispered a couple of times almost quiet enough to be under his breath.

   Secrat wondered why he was whispering, considering that it was his home, nobody was asleep, and it was Secrat that had to worry about being discovered.

   The girl didn’t reply.

   Odd, Secrat thought to himself sarcastically, remembering the smell of flowers on her nightgown. I wonder where she ran off to, Secrat jokingly said in his head, but then felt a certain reality enter the sanctity of his mind.

   Where was it she had gotten off to? Or more accurately, where was it in the room Copé left her? His eyes followed the sound of the man’s breathing, if he continued in the direction he was heading, he would eventually come to his scullery, and thankfully, there were no dead bodies there (to Copé’s knowledge).

   “Lady, where did you run off to? Left us all hot and bothered like that, it’s not good manners.”

   There was a snort that followed soon after from the man. He didn’t make it to the scullery. Not right away, of course, because there remained the pesky fact that almost all the merchant’s decorations had been scattered about his house. The man stumbled over something or another, and Copé could hear him falling and crushing whatever it was he fell on. It sounded like a mask, but it could have been the shiny diamond encrusted skull or the glass Copé remembered pushing that way. Whatever, it mattered not, unless it somehow sent the man out of consciousness, but Copé doubted that fate would be so kind to him.

   “Dammit, ah, Jen, what is this?” He yelled out, but there was only silence given to him as response.

   Secrat stilled his breathing as he began to navigate past the desk, his sights set back toward the hallway.

   “Where the hell, what did I just fall on, so, help me, if it’s what I think it is, then, but why would you even …? Dammit! Light up a torch or something!” The merchant yammered a few more mumbled words while he tried to return to his feet.

   In that time, Secrat scurried quietly off through the hallway, hoping the merchant’s confusion would be enough to buy him some time.

   Once passing the door with the number lock on it, Secrat lit another pine stick and hurried more toward the master bedroom. The combination would most certainly be in there, under his bed, perhaps, or his pillow? Maybe in a noticeable item of some sentimental value? It didn’t matter where, just if Copé would be able to find it before the merchant returned.

   He grabbed the handle of the door and twisted, trying to be as quiet as he could. The door squeaked a bit, so he readjusted, opening it slower. It was densely lit in this room. That was the first thing Copé noticed. There were an assortment of candles placed all around the room.

   Once his eyes were allowed the means to adjust, they beheld a more appealing decoration. Not one, not even two, but three broads resting, unclothed and naked atop the merchant’s fine, violet-colored blanket. They were marvelous and seemed to be endless with creases and crevices that couldn’t be described by words alone. The cover looked nice as well.

   “Uh,” is the only thing that Secrat could muster the strength to speak.

   They were asleep. That was good, but it didn’t change the fact they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The merchant, … the merchant, Azlak Temps, that was his name, was married and (according to the Grandfathered who gathered information for the troupe) happily so, but happily married men didn’t usually fuck random whores. There was a hole in the plot, but Copé couldn’t find the logic to fill it. All that he cared about was finding the numbers, getting his loot, and getting out of sight. That was The Red Flux’s mantra, or at least, it would be if they were conspicuous enough to have one.

   He crept quietly into the bedroom, waking the whores would bring nothing good. He admired their bodies from afar but tried his best not to get mesmerized by their lustrous figures. The bed was large. Big enough for all three sluts, one more slut, and of course, the merchant, but the ladies were being spacious with their limbs. This made it difficult to see whether there was anything hiding beneath a pillow. And so, with a heavy heart, Secrat began to wander more feverishly about the room; a decent size, the room, that is, enough that a bed made for a king would only take but a small portion. Otherwise though, there wasn’t a whole lot else to see.

   Merchants oftentimes migrated from city to city. It all depended on where would pay more for whatever product they had in abundance. It made sense why his abode would be empty. Except Temps took the time to take out all his stupid souvenirs and set them all-over his hallway and even rolled out his Italinian rug. Why was this room so empty?

   Secrat turned where he had shut the door behind him and the loophole filled itself for him.

   On this side, the door had no handle. All it had was a large keyhole. The thief pushed at the door. He poked into the keyhole as if his index finger was part key. It was not. No windows in this room. Secrat couldn’t help but smile. He was screwed beyond repair. It would have been easy to knock down the door; one or two kicks and it would be off its hinges. This couldn’t be seen as an option though. The merchant would be alerted, and he’d absolutely wake up all five of the ladies. As skilled as he was, Copé doubted he could fend off and fight naked ladies coming at him. He didn’t know if he wanted to fend them off either.

   A small jolt of fear struck his chest. He washed it away shortly. Certain necessities had their way with being a thief, and one of them was the ability to act even when it seemed all was lost. He stared around the room. If there was anything that could help him in the situation, he wanted to find it. He blew out the pine stick in his hand and threw it down on the ground. It wasn’t like he would need it. The only thing in the room was the bed, the sluts, and the candles.

   Copé went closer to the bed, looking over the feminine tabbies. He expected one of them to wake up and make a jump at him at any moment.

   His left hand touched the hilt of the knife strapped to his waist. He dropped to his knees and looked beneath the bed. A wooden box sat about midway underneath the mattress. The box was barely close enough for him to grasp with his arms stretched as far as they could reach. No combinations and no keyholes, Copé took refuge in that one singular fact. The numbers to the vault would most definitely be here.

   The thief readied himself to open it. Everything felt slower, elongated, even. The moment was being preserved as if it were some kind of special occasion.

   Secrat Copé heard the door handle turning behind him. He didn’t have to think about it. All he had to do was react. He shoved the box back down under the bed and crawled under the bed with it. He hid under the bed like a small child did from The Carvers. Azlak Temps opened the door, his feet being the only thing Copé could see. They were bare, without shoes, and dirty. His ankles were thick as well. Temps was a heavier fellow. Secrat was surprised the whores weren’t awakened by Azlak Temps’ knees crying out for help. Azlak crept towards them slowly, the integrity of the wood floors being put to the test with every movement he made.

   “You’ll have to excuse me, ladies. Our dearest Jen has taken it upon herself to stray out of my ever so humble bode. I have to fetch her.”

   He followed his words with a laugh. It was a nasally laugh that sounded more obnoxious than joyous. Copé wondered how much the man had to pay these ladies for their company. He thought about how that wealth would soon belong to The Red Flux.

   Azlak walked deeper into the room. And then, something happened. The sound resembled a small twig breaking beneath the paws of a grizzly bear. Copé watched from under the bed while Temps moved his foot. The pine stick he had thrown down had shattered away into something like soot. He could hear the loud groan from the large man.

   “Thief!”

   Secrat felt every hair on the back of his neck spike. It was the shock of it all that really scared him. Once more, he knew he had to react swiftly. He rolled out from beneath the bed and leapt to his feet. Had he not, he surely would have been dragged out by his feet. He couldn’t afford to allow Azlak Temps anything more than the home field advantage.

   “Aha, well to whom do I owe the pleasure?” the prodigious man yelled out.

   Copé assumed that was what he said, but he wasn’t for certain. In truth, he was too taken by the sheer stature of the man to pay much mind to what came out from his mouth.

   From under the bed, Secrat couldn’t even have begun to appreciate the weight that Azlak Temps brought with him. Now, he and all of his excess flesh stood naked in front of him in all his splendor; except for a small pair of tan-colored cloth that acted as shorts. His size was insurmountable by even all the broads and Copé combined. Copé wondered how Temps managed not to kill them during sex. He didn’t have long to envision the spectacle before Temps let out a grunt before going on the attack.

   Copé moved out of harm’s way. His speed was an advantage he would need to make the most of. He readied a blade in his hands before making a stab to Temps’ ribcage. The knife pierced his belly. The blood shot out fast, but Temps paid it little mind. The large man simply threw a clubbed fist at Copé, sending the thief spiraling in a daze. Copé struggled, haplessly trying to regain his composure. If he couldn’t, the monstrous man would certainly bring an end to his life. He was turned around with his back to Temps, but behind him, Copé could hear the loud footsteps of his combatant racing toward him. He desperately threw a kick behind him. It connected, but whether it did much damage, Copé knew not.

   The distinctive groan from Temps told him that it did. Secrat Copé turned around as fast as he could. His leg ached from having the large man rammed into it so heinously. The moment he turned, he was met by a wall of fat – Azlak had run toward him and rammed him with his full body weight. Secrat fell to the wood floor, the wind knocked out of him and a rib or two bruised. He reached over and touched the back of his head, wet. On inspection, he saw that his hand was now a crimson glove of his own blood. The view around him seemed to be fading. It was flickering on and off again like a candle at wit’s end.

   He fought his way back to a seated position. If he lost consciousness then everything would be over. He looked up at Azlak Temps. The knife was still stuck in his gut like a splinter.

   Copé let out a breath and watched the man hurl his burly body toward him. He rolled out of the way and shot back up to his feet in a last ditch effort. He winced, cradling his wounded midsection and still felt disoriented from the blow to his head. He had hoped Temps might have lost balance, but that was thinking too much like an optimist. As he waited for Azlak to turn around while he took another knife from his ensemble. This one had been strapped to his left leg. Once Temps obliged, Secrat threw the knife at him. It pierced his skin and went into his stomach, same as the other.

   Remarkably, it didn’t seem to bother him. The man carried forward as though it were nothing more than a flesh wound or a mild inconvenience. The Thief sighed. He wanted to curse, but couldn’t find the ability to make words. He wanted to flee. Beyond all else and more than anything, he wanted to escape. His eyes went over to the door.

   It was closed. The key was most definitely on Temps’ person, but that meant nothing.

   “Stop your running, bug!” Azlak Temps yelled. “I’ll crush your skull in!”

   The pain was worsening, making it difficult to concentrate. The ache from his head felt piercing. He could feel the blood dripping down his back.

   Copé readied another knife in his hands. This one had been strapped on his right leg. However, before he could wage his next attack, Azlak punched him in the stomach. Copé leaned forward at his whim only to be taken down to his knees with two locked fists to his back.

   The knife flung itself out of his hands as Azlak towered over him.

   Copé looked in his eyes. They were eyes of ignorance and impractical strength. The look of somebody that knew he would always be on the offensive. Azlak stared back at him, a sadistic grin on his fat face. A grimace came to his eyes momentarily as he plucked one knife out of his stomach and threw it to the ground. He grabbed the other and pried it out as well. Blood dribbled out of him. In time, if untreated, the giant could bleed out. Unfortunately, time wasn’t something Secrat had.

   Azlak didn’t discard the second knife. Instead, Azlak held it by the handle and made a fist. His hand nearly swallowed the knife whole.

   Copé felt a spark of fear jolt in him. Things didn’t look good. It didn’t look well for his legacy either. Taken in by Toucan Veras off the outskirts of Italina, a boy with real potential, offed by some merchant in his very first solo heist. He was better than that. And like somebody that was better than that, like somebody with the utmost of class, he drove his head into the giant’s crotch like a whore lobbying for a tip. This seemed to get his attention, Temps dropped to one knee holding his groin.

   “You fuck!”

   The fuck mustered the strength to once more find his footing. His head felt like the Amisoic Seas, swishing and swashing in waves.

   He walked toward the door where Temps threw one of the knives. He retrieved it and the one Temps had kept. After finding his third, Secrat readied his next attack. He threw a pair of knives back at Temps’ stomach. They punctured two more holes for blood to be let out.

   The last one, he kept. This one belonged on the side of Temps’ neck. Copé moved toward him.

   As the blood left his sides, Temps seemed to understand it as his end. Although relieved, Copé didn’t have the energy left to smile. The only energy Secrat had left would be saved for the killing blow.

   However, before he could add the final nail to Azlak Temps’ coffin, the man fell flat, … he was dead. Secrat Copé sighed of exasperation. He was never seeing either of those knives again.

   He let his eyes wander off the fallen man. The whores were there, lying unresponsive and lifeless to everything that had happened. Heavy sleepers. Beads of sweat fell from Copé’s neck. Sweat and blood, he supposed.

   He dropped down. Under the bed, there was the box. That was where the combination numbers were. In the box was the key to all the merchant’s wealth. He slid it out weakly and opened it. Inside, Copé’s eyes wandered about the contents. Vials of all different shapes and sizes, all of them containing a brown powder Copé had never seen before. He flipped the box over, emptied it all out and looked around. No combination code to be seen.

   He didn’t have the energy in him to be upset. He didn’t have the energy to do much of anything. The feeling of light-headedness overwhelmed all else. His fingers caressed the thigh of one of the ladies before he used her leg to pull himself up onto the bed. He crawled inside, beneath the covers, pushing and shoving between the drugged whores.

   That is where Secrat Copé lost consciousness.

  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Crime, Horror, Mystery, Original Stories, The Black Sands Saga

52 Corpse Pick Up | Chapter One: “The Smell of Burning Jacob”

   The bullet went off like a force of nature – a blunt act that immediately changed everything and claimed dominion over the room. The temperature of the room had changed and it was very clear whose hands were on the thermostat. The bullet went off as though it were in accordance with a grander scheme or a master plan. For Jeremy Crider, it struck like it was the culmination of what must have been the culmination of a lifetime of bad choices. It didn’t even feel real after it happened. Jeremy felt removed from the situation, as if part of him understood it on a basic level, but the rest of him hadn’t yet begun to comprehend it.

   Jacob Halwright’s head exploded! Such a phrase seemed too dramatic, but, there Jacob Halwright’s dead body laid; head all ‘sploded-like. It was crazy the way the right handgun could blow off the top of a person’s head like a magician’s trick gone tragically awry. For a fleeting moment, Jeremy let his mind wander, imagining being a child at a birthday party, everything being well, til his mother went to slice him a piece of cake, then, stopped, suddenly, removed a fleshy mother-shaped mask, and revealed Jacob Halwright, whose head then exploded.

   Jeremy could tell he was spiraling, doing anything he could to disassociate from the situation unfolding in front of him. Unfortunately, another part of him was doing everything it could to force him back to reality, the part of him that realized there was a man with a glock whose actions could very well spell out his last moments on the planet. Shock scrambled Jeremy’s mind while he tried again and failed to process what happened.

   Jacob had been an acquaintance of Jeremy’s only a few seconds. Jacob owed Jeremy fifteen bucks from a bet, not even a minute prior, but did the shooter give two squirts about that? Jeremy could feel his hands trembling, each drenched with sweat.

   The person with their index finger on the trigger was none other than Robert Spade. At first, Jeremy had a dead, unwavering stare aimed at Jacob Halwright’s corpse as the gun that added the final digits to his epithet. He had never seen a dead body before this moment. He had thought about what a dead body may look like, but, in all those times, he had imagined the body with closed eyes and a solemn expression. Jacob Halwright’s was now an expressionless thing on the ground. Once he brought his eyes away from the body, however, he found himself taken in by a new fixation – Robert Spade. Once their eyes met, he felt his attention taken hold of and grasped tightly.

   The expression on Robert Spade’s face was neither a devilish glare nor a fiery stare. That wasn’t what kept Jeremy so invested and enthralled by the man. Besides the obvious, it was the nothingness behind his eyes and how unchanged he seemed from any other time Jeremy had seen him. Robert’s eyes could have easily told the story of a man who had just finished reading his morning paper, instead of having just murdered a man. There was no discernible change in Robert’s eyes. That, in itself, Jeremy was more intimidated by than if there had been a reaction. It would have been one thing if he had been remorseful, but, even if he had been outright ruthless, that would’ve scared Jeremy less than looking in the eyes of a man who just smited someone and felt nothing of it. Even worse, by there being no emotion to read off the old man’s expression, Jeremy had no way to say for sure if that was the only bullet he intended to fire off.

   Robert’s eyes took themselves off and away from the pieces that were now Jacob Halwright and returned Jeremy’s gaze, but his head didn’t nudge an inch, like the hand of a clock coming around to let him know that his time had come. This would be it. This would be Jeremy’s demise, a fact he had no doubt of in this moment. He was now face to face with death, and death had a thick-gray handlebar mustache and a big-ass handgun that fired bullets off like it was a fucking bazooka.

   Jeremy held the stare with Robert intently, only breaking off in small intervals to keep for certain the barrel of Robert’s gun stayed lowered, pointed toward the pile of Jacob that had been spilled out onto the fake hardwood vinyl floor.

   A small smirk formed on Robert Spade’s face shortly thereafter. Perhaps it was an attempt at comforting Jeremy, a subtle change to let him know he wasn’t the target of Robert’s aggression, but it only served to make Jeremy feel even more uneasy.

   Robert was a middle-aged man, in his late fifties or early sixties at the latest, with wiry limbs and a lanky frame, all except for the small bump over his stomach. Maybe it was a beer belly or maybe he was pregnant with the spawn of Satan? Jeremy did not know enough about Robert to say for certain, all he knew was that his father had always respected and feared the man a great deal.

   At long last, Robert lowered the gun to his side, a relief that kept Jeremy from bursting out at the seams. Robert was not a particularly strong or stout man, he was not a burly guy who Jeremy would ever bet on in a bar fight, but, even now, with his weapon lowered, Jeremy couldn’t imagine a time he would not be intimidated by him.

   “Jacob Halwright,” Robert Spade said plainly. “We will no longer be requiring your services.” He spoke in a monotone, deadpan cadence, before letting a small, almost giddy, chuckle escape him, like a little kid laughing at a dirty word they found scrawled in their school textbook. It was a toothy laugh that reminded Jeremy a little of a rabbit – a terrifying, evil, little rabbit.

   As a way to sooth his own nervous discomfort, Jeremy forced out a hearty laugh of his own. Beside Jeremy, a person Jeremy had momentarily forgotten all existence of, was a man named Bill Meiner, one of the two men Jeremy had spent the last three hours with, robbing one of the wealthiest families in Hardan. He was now the only other one of those three men alive and, judging by the look on his face, this was not the first time Robert Spade had killed one of his co-workers in front of him. Bill looked more inconvenienced than afraid, but he held his tongue, much to Jeremy’s approval.

   Robert Spade swaggered around the room. Every echo made when his white and red (originally, only white) shoes met the floor felt amplified. This was what it meant to have a presence, Jeremy supposed. Although, had that presence been there since before Jeremy watched him kill a man? Jeremy couldn’t be for certain. What he did know was that he would always have it from here on out.

   “Although, as I am for certain you have since discovered, your first day was not without any unnecessary …,” Robert stopped for a moment to reflect. “Excitement. I do believe that things could have gone considerably worse,” he continued, his voice softening and feeling more like the man Jeremy had spoken to earlier in the day.

   Jeremy inspected the man carefully as he spoke, as though he was looking for an explanation to a problem he hadn’t yet come up with. He inspected the black tar in between the gaps of the man’s teeth made by chewing tobacco and took note of the stale scent from his cheap cologne.

   “There is only one more thing left for you to do before you can clock out for the day and be given what you have coming to you. And, I will tell you what, as an added bonus, I will even throw in something extra for your troubles. All you have left to do now is get rid of the body.” Robert’s voice deepened with his final demand and his face was now only a few inches away from Jeremy’s, waiting for his response.

   What came out of Jeremy’s mouth did not have the needed cogency to be considered as actual words. Instead, what came out of Jeremy’s mouth was more comparable to that of a guttural clearing of the throat, resembling what happens when a fork is caught in the garbage disposal. Be that as it may, the response seemed to please Robert Spade. Robert smiled again, patting his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. Jeremy flinched, instinctively pulling away from him, an act that seemed to only further amuse him.

   “See to it that he does,” Spade said, looking over toward Bill, who, in turn, nodded in agreement.

   Like that, Robert Spade turned his back from the men, and with every second that went by after he made his leave, the sense of finality in his decision began to sink in. Jeremy tried to find the words to speak, but couldn’t. He wanted no more to object to Robert’s absurd demand, but couldn’t muster the courage or will to do so. All he wanted was for Robert to be out of the room and for reality to be allowed to un-pause again.

   As Jeremy heard the door shut, it felt like a pair of imaginary hands, once clutching his throat, had finally released him. He now felt aware of how drenched in sweat his body had become and felt free again to breathe. As the oxygen returned to his brain, he was also able to now truly appreciate his own predicament – there was a dead body in front of him and he had now been appointed the warehouse’s janitor.

   He looked over to Bill in search of comfort, but, instead, the overweight man with a saggy, pug-shaped face offered an ambitious look. It was ambitious in the sense that he said more with the curl of his lip than a mere mortal should have been capable of. With his look, he may as well have shrugged his shoulders and said, “Shit happens,” as though he had not spent hours with the same man as Jeremy, the same man whose head now resembled uncooked ground beef.

   It was a cold night, and even though Jeremy had anticipated this and knew he would be exposed to the elements, he chose to wear nothing more than a thin hooded sweatshirt and no gloves – just one more example of his lack of preparedness for the night. The whole way Bill had chosen to ignore his pleas to stop at any nearby convenience stores to see if they carried any, and so, Jeremy had spent a good deal of the night rubbing his hands together to prevent having to chop them off from frostbite later on. To top it off, Jeremy had developed what he chalked off as an ear infection from the cold. Every now and again, they would start to right and his hypochondria would make him wonder if this would be the moment everything in his life went silent. If Jacob Halwright’s death accomplished anything, it was that the shock filled Jeremy with a red hot warmth in his chest. Unfortunately, his ears were ringing far more now than before and he still desperately longed for a pair of gloves.

   “What does he mean by ‘get rid of the body’?” Jeremy asked, at last, finding the words to express the terror he felt.

   “It is not a euphemism, kid,” Bill belched back, then turned his back to him as though that explanation was enough for them to move on.

   Bill lugged his prodigious frame over to the kitchen. A few seconds went by again, comprised of Jeremy flinching every time he heard a rat or cockroach or whatever other vermin were crawling around the rundown trash-heap where Spade conducted his business. His mind fluttered with paranoia, thinking the movement might have come from Jacob Halwright’s remains.

   “Fuck,” Jeremy cried out, letting himself get rattled by his own fear more than any actual act provoking it.

   At last, Bill Meiner returned to him, carrying a filthy mop in one hand and kicking around an empty plastic bucket with his boot.

   “You can’t actually be serious with this!” Jeremy shouted, looking to the door where Robert Spade had stepped out, like a child afraid of being heard badmouthing daddy. Either that, or waiting for daddy to come back and tell him it was a bad joke. Gallow’s humor, Jeremy thought to himself. Gallow’s humor.

   “I am as serious as a heart attack,” Bill answered, freeing the mop from his hand and letting gravity do the rest. Thereafter, his hand went to his back pocket.

   “You can’t be serious, you can’t be serious,” Jeremy mumbled over and over again, circling around the dead body, trying to wrap his head around how to even begin such a task. His eyes found their way back to Bill in time to see him un-peeling a banana.

   “You have said that already, boy, and again, I am,” Bill said, taking an unsanitary bite from the fruit, the night’s events not enough to stifle his appetite, it seemed.

   “You can’t expect, …,” Jeremy stopped for a second, thinking, “Someone will have heard the gunshots. They will have reported it. They’ll call it in and we will have the cops breaking down the damn door, and when they do, they’ll find you and me with a dead body, then, they’ll arrest us. They will take us to prison and throw away the key. Is that what you want!?”

   “No one will call.”

   “You can’t possibly know that for certain.”

   “I can,” Bill countered with matter-of-fact confidence. “As you will come to realize, Robert Spade does not make a whole lot of mistakes. Do you know who owns this building, this beat-up, shanty-town lookin’ hellhole? Well, it’s the same one who owns its neighbors and its neighbor’s neighbors. No one.” Bill laughed at the thought. “This is a ghost city, Jeremy, or haven’t you noticed that? The only ones stopping by Ordos Town are drug-dealers and squatters, either ones too poor to afford a phone-call or ones who don’t want the law sticking their noses in their turf. Even if they did, no two-bit cop has the balls to come out here in the middle of the night.”

   Jeremy said nothing for a few seconds. This was not how things were meant to happen tonight. Jeremy was an actor. Not a criminal. He was an actor. He was a failed actor by accounts, most certainly, but, he was not a criminal. He ruffled with the unkempt hair on his head, feeling the sweat travel down the back of his neck in beads. This was the type of situation he fought his whole life to stay out of. He had fought such valiant and proud battles to stay on the happy, thumbs up side of the law, and not the side that had robbed his father of the last years of his life. Be that as it may, even failed actors faced hardships, in fact, surprising as it may sound, they were even more likely to face them than the successful ones. Even valiant, law-abiding do-gooders could find themselves on the business end of their landlord’s shaft, having to decide between eating that month and paying rent.

   Jeremy laughed, and didn’t know why, and, for a moment, he thought maybe he knew why Robert Spade had managed to smile after shooting Jacob Halwright. It was hysterics. It was a flicker of madness in a life of pitch-black normality. It was only for a moment, however. Jeremy knew it was the same. If it were hysterics that made Robert Spade smile, it was a refined, harnessed version of what Jeremy felt. Robert smiled because he enjoyed it. And, someone who enjoyed doing something, was all the more likely to do it again.

   Jeremy rubbed his hands together, trying to find a good starting point to his newly assigned task. Jacob wasn’t a very heavy man. That was a relief. In a moment of morbidity, Jeremy couldn’t help but thank the heavens that Robert hadn’t decided to shoot Bill instead. Bill was a heavy man. Thankfully, Jacob was light, and, in fact, due to recent events, he had become even lighter (minus one head). Rolling up Jacob’s pant legs, Jeremy grabbed each of his ankles, hunching over while he did so. He looked up at Bill, still eating his stupid fucking banana. Bill looked at him skeptically and shook his head.

   “Oh, I am not a lifter. Have a bad back, you see,” he explained, feigning a hurt back to further demonstrate the fact. For good measure, the bastard even feigned wincing from the small exertion.

   “Bill, …, we have spent the last five hours loading a van with heavy boxes!” Jeremy shouted.

   Bill shrugged his shoulders, “That must be how I hurt my back. It’s a new development.”

   “You’re a new development,” Jeremy mumbled beneath his breath, trying to stagger his feet and get a proper footing.

   “That’s an outrageous accusation,” Bill said dryly.

   “If Robert Spade is so fucking brilliant and ‘doesn’t make mistakes,’ then why would he leave me, a person who has no idea what the hell he is doing, to clean up his handiwork?”

   “Well,” Bill began, at last, finishing his banana, throwing it into a nearby garbage bin in the corner of the room, one that was already long-since overflowing with trash. “For starters, he would be smart enough that he would never use that handgun again. He has many friends who will be able to provide him an alibi should he need it, no questions asked. And, the only person who has left any fingerprints on the body so far … is you.”

   The second the words registered with him, Jeremy leaped back, stumbling on a nearby coffee table and spilling over an ashtray. “Gloves! I should be given gloves for something like this.”

   “Buy them,” Bill said, sounding uninterested with Jeremy’s concerns and ignoring the irony of how he would have had a pair had Bill allowed him to buy some earlier when he’d asked.

   The sweat running down Jeremy’s face was now starting to make it harder to see. He nearly freed one of his hands and wiped it off, but fought the reflex. The last thing he wanted was to touch his face right now. He shook his head back and forth to try and bring himself some relief. He watched all of his sweat hit the ground like little droplets of rain. All of that precious DNA evidence connecting him to the murder of Jacob Halwright. His heart pounded. Which arm was it that hurt when someone was having a heart attack!?

   Jeremy looked around his surroundings, in search of what, he was not exactly for certain. There wasn’t exactly a “get away with murder” kit anywhere he could see.

   On the car ride back from Robert Spade’s trailer with all the loot they had stolen, Bill explained that Robert liked to meet his new recruits face to face. It was a different approach to what Jeremy had expected; a noble, almost business-like tactic. Most criminals Jeremy had ever been around (mostly drug dealer, mostly low-end, mostly weed) were either completely casual because they didn’t think anyone would ever care about them selling pot or were so high strung that you’d think they were human-traffickers. Robert was neither. Robert reminded him of a mafia film, where the head honcho treated his men as employees, providing them with benefits and shit, pamphlets and 401k’s, running it like a real, actual business. Now, however, Jeremy’s perception of Robert had taken a hard left from his initial impression (the mafia similarity remained though).

   Jeremy sauntered over to the kitchen. As far as home decor went, it had certainly seen brighter days, but it did have supplies from squatters and whoever once called it their home. Jeremy searched the cabinets under the sink, finding trash bags and crinkled up plastic shopping bags that had been wedged inside. There was a selection of bottles that had their labels ripped off. Why were the labels ripped off? As an extra in a couple low-budget films, Jeremy had watched the directors rip off labels as a way to prevent a lawsuit. The reasoning these labels had been taken off likely had something more to do with confusing your apple cider vinegar with liquid PCP. They had all of that, and, of course, enough manure to start a garden.

   “God fucking dammit!” Jeremy yelled, then, rubbed the back of his neck. He relented, remembering his failed quest of not touching himself after handling a corpse. In that lapse of judgment, he had been able to feel the stress knots starting to form on the back of his neck.

   He came back to Jacob Halwright without the supplies he would have preferred, instead, bringing back a broom and a poop scoop.

   “And, what the hell do you expect to do with that?” Bill asked, by now, having relocated to an old recliner.

   How Bill was able to stomach sitting in a tattered recliner that wreaked of cat piss, Jeremy knew not.

   “Anyone could walk in here at any moment and see something!” Jeremy exclaimed, now beginning to scoop up Jacob Halwright’s brain fragments in the aforementioned poop scoop.

   It was easy enough, scooping the brain shards(?) no longer intact to his body. Would you look at that, the brain isn’t actually pink, Jeremy thought. You know, I read someplace that salmon isn’t actually pink either. It’s a white, grayish-color like this, and they dye it to make it more appetizing to the public. Cannibals would be so disappointed in Jacob’s brain. Jeremy hated his life at this moment. Finally, he finished scooping what he could. The entire top half of Jacob’s head was now wedged into the scoop, all except for a flap at the back end.

   He knocked over the trash container, spilling out its contents on the floor, then, once light enough, flipped it over completely, emptying it. He looked over to Bill, still sitting in his disgusting recliner.

   “If you grab his feet, both of us can shove him in,” Jeremy pleaded.

   Bill Meiner looked at him as if his suggestion was the craziest, most outlandish thing anyone had ever said, which, it may very well have been. Jeremy sighed, understanding fully now that Bill would be little to no help in this endeavor. He positioned the trash container, hiking over it like he’d just laid a barrel-shaped egg, he yanked Jacob’s hands and pulled him forward. In spite of the horrible technique, he made steady progress, eventually pulling the upper part of Jacob’s torso into the barrel. After some maneuvering, pulling, then, pushing, and even, scooching, Jeremy was finally able to shove the rest of him in as well. Standing the trashcan back to a vertical position and holding it steady, Jeremy was left with the unpleasant sight of Jacob’s legs still dangling out from the container. After some forced bending, however, Jacob was soon able to fit into the trashcan like an everyday gymnast. Then, as Jeremy lifted the metal trash can lid that had been buried beneath all the trash, he stopped for a moment. Aha, he thought, almost forgetting the final remains of his fallen comrade. Once he finished pouring the remainder of Jacob out from the poop scoop, he closed the lid – the closest thing Jacob would ever have to a closed casket. If nothing else, pretending the body was no longer there brought him some level of relief.

   “This all seems … distasteful,” Bill commented, his tone suggesting he was being facetious and that he didn’t give two shits one way or the other.

   “I don’t see you coming up with any ideas. You do realize that if I fuck up that you will be written as an accomplice to all of this,” Jeremy fired back, walking to the abandoned bedrooms of the apartment, hoping he would be able to scavenge up some old towels to wipe up the blood with.

   “Untrue,” Bill countered. “If I thought there was any way you could jeopardize me, I would kill you and be home before breakfast, because I know exactly how to get rid of a body, whether it be one or two.”

   How casually the words escaped from Bill’s mouth sent a small shiver up Jeremy’s spine. It was a sad fate how inconsequential Jeremy’s own life felt in this predicament. He wasn’t a bad guy or a criminal. That wasn’t who he was. He was only looking to take a small risk that would pay handsomely, and now, he was caught in a disaster.

   Robert Spade had been the name his father had always mentioned, growing up. Robert Spade was the guy. Now, in hindsight, he was beginning to wonder if his father said his name as a disclaimer and not as a call to action.

   When the bullet was fired off, all Jeremy cared about was his own life, about making it out of the building and living to see another day. All Jeremy thought about was avoiding a bullet of his own, but now, as he soaked the blood with some tattered blankets he had stripped off from a filthy mattress, he allowed himself to consider some of the alternatives he had overlooked. He thought about the very real possibility he might go to prison for the rest of his life over this.

   Without wanting to, he felt tears stream from his widened, manic eyes and down his cheeks.

   Bill seemed to take notice of this, nodding his head knowingly, “I should have brought you a banana too.”

   Bill, Jeremy had learned, was an asshole.

                                                                                                        ***

   Jeremy hadn’t done very many crimes in his twenty-three years in the world. He once stole a stick of gum from his mother’s purse, only to return it before she noticed. Oh, what an adrenaline rush that had been for him. That moment didn’t help him prepare for this one, however. His father had always been sketchy, dealing hands on the wrong side of the law, but he had always made an attempt to instill in Jeremy a sense of right and wrong, as ironic as that may have been. Maybe it was an effort to prevent this very moment from coming into fruition. The double-edge sword came with the fact that his efforts not only failed to keep him from the path, but kept him without the street smarts to know how to walk it. He momentarily considered searching online on ways to dispose of a body, but the paranoia of his search history coming back to haunt him negated that.

   Bill Meiner was of no assistance, making snide remarks every now and again to remind Jeremy he was along for the ride, but otherwise he did his best impersonation of a mile; useless and irritating to look at.

   He thought about trying to dissolve Jacob’s body through the use of acid or something, but didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about or even the slightest bit of how to go about it. He remembered reading an article somewhere once about how a serial killer buried a dead body six feet underground, and then, after filling the hole about halfway or so, buried a dead animal carcass in there as well. This way, the police officers would chalk up their cadaver dog’s findings as a false alarm. But who could find a possum or a raccoon at this time of night?

   It was a bitch dragging Jacob up the flight of stairs that led to the building’s rooftop, but Jeremy believed it would be a safer approach than dragging the trashcan out into the parking lot. Every step came with a quiet prayer that he wouldn’t end up dropping him and have even more of him spilling out. How stupid am I being? Jeremy thought, then, without even having to ask Bill’s question, he heard his answer in his head: Very.

   If law enforcement walked into this building, the amount of evidence he was both creating and leaving behind would be massive, but, in his head, he supposed he was banking on the idea that no law enforcement ever would. This was a random rundown building in Ordos, and, as Bill said, no one came visiting this place except for criminals and dope fiends who wanted nothing to do with the cops. No one knew where Jacob had gone because Bill had driven to the van to this address without speaking a word of where they were headed. Finding the building would be like finding a dirty needle in a haystack.

   Once he arrived at the rooftop, he removed the lid to the trash barrel and sighed. Next, he poured lighter fluid into the can, starting the flame with a paper ripped out of some tattered magazine he had found, headline read: “Is your husband cheating on you?” Well, if he is, chances are he could still be doing worse things, Jeremy thought.

   As the fire roared on, Jeremy stepped aside, unable to stomach his actions and what was literally the smell of burning flesh. Bill didn’t step away, instead, he stood by and stared at the flames.

   “This won’t be enough to dispose of Jacob, … at least, not all of the way,” Jeremy said, not expecting confirmation or denial of the fact from Bill, but, instead, wanting to think out loud. “Once the bones have burned awhile, they should be brittle enough to pulverize with a hammer.”

   “Seems reasonable,” Bill said, seeming as though he was only halfway listening to Jeremy.

   “What exactly is going the fuck on right now, Bill!?” Jeremy asked. The longer he had the chance to become acclimated with his fear, the more he found himself in touch with his other emotions, in particular, his own anger and frustration. “Does Robert Spade always blow people’s heads off and leave his recruits to clean up the remains?”

   “Everyone has their hobbies, Jeremy.”

   The fire roared. It had a little more oomph to it than Jeremy had initially anticipated. With the amount of homeless people frequenting the area, he doubted anyone would come to investigate a barrel fire, but he still tried to calm the flame and make it less conspicuous.

    “What happens after this?” Jeremy asked, the heat from the fire reminding him of how scared and afraid he had felt the second Robert fired his weapon.

   Jeremy’s body had already felt beaten and worn down after a day’s work, but with the night sky overhead and the adrenaline wearing off, he felt exhausted. It all felt so surreal to him. For a reason he didn’t understand, he stepped forward, until he stood side by side with Bill. He looked at the fire, he felt the heat of it. It soothed his worn body from the chilly night air. Maybe it was because he thought he deserved it, that he had to literally stand by his decision, the other part of him felt like it had disowned and disassociated from the whole situation and just wanted to stand by the fire.

   “Everything happens a day at a time, kid. You will take your share of the money that is in my back pocket, … Robert has even added to your pay, and you will head home and sleep this off like a bad dream.”

   “When, …,” Jeremy began, two parts of him, once again, being at different wavelengths, realizing something at different times, “When did he give you the money?” He asked, taking his eyes away from the fire and looking at Bill.

   At the same time, he re-imagined the painful memory he had of Robert Spade coming into the room, a vision he had repeated for himself again and again through the night. At no point did Robert Spade hand Bill an envelope, as afraid as Jeremy may have been in the moment, he felt sure of that.

   “Robert trusts me, kid. We go way back. He paid me in advance before I even took the job.”

   “But, how would you know the bonus he was going to give me? How do you know how much that is? Are you generously taking it out from your own cut?”

   Jeremy knew the answer to the last question without Bill needing to answer. Bill did nothing generously.

    Bill merely stared at Jeremy. It was another moment where what he didn’t say spoke volumes.

   “Both of you planned this. Even you knew what he was going to do!? Did I survive tonight because of some fucking coin toss!?”

   “After you dispose of the body, I will pay you your cut, and a bonus on-account of the incident that occurred, a fixed amount Robert Spade has informed me of in such situations. We are splitting Jacob’s cut, kid. It isn’t rocket science. You will go home, and, like I said, this night will be nothing for a bad dream you had after a few too many beers, a bad dream you were paid handsomely for.” Bill Meiner spoke like he was reciting lines; a fact Jeremy did not know what to make of.

   Jeremy tried to nod, but it was a half-heart effort. His head ached and his body and mind were both at the end of their rope. If he was to be arrested and imprisoned for the rest of his life, at least it could be done after a full night’s rest. He did not offer Bill a second glance, opening the rooftop door and heading back down the flight of stairs to retrieve a hammer.

   Once Jacob’s bones were crushed and reduced to dust, he would be free to dispose of them in their final resting place. His remains could be spread across the Amisoic Sea, perhaps. That would have been an almost thoughtful and sentimental gesture on his part. The chance of a scuba diver swimming by them and identifying them as human remains was unfathomable, but part of him still felt apprehensive. Besides, it was a long drive to the sea – one that he’d be driving with a persons’ cremated remains in his car. What he would do instead was drive out into the first woods he found and scatter them.

   When he returned to the rooftop, he saw that the fire no longer blazed on. Looks like Bill is finally making himself useful, Jeremy thought. Deep down, Jeremy imagined that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to put this night behind them.

   “What will you do with the remains?” Bill asked, thrusting his large gut forward to pop his back, feigning it as though he had made even the slightest effort in helping the situation.

   “I will drive until I find the nearest forest. I will spread them over the ground or bury them someplace, spread it out. No one will ever know,” Jeremy replied, feeling relief in his own confidence to the fact. Anyone who stumbled on the remains, by some chance, would see, at most, the remnants of an animal carcass, and if he buried them, that would make it years before they found the body and, by then, any chances of identifying the remains would be long gone.

   “It sounds like you have it all taken care of then. I will leave you to it,” Bill said, putting his hand out in front of Jeremy. “It has been real, kid.”

   Bill Meiner had a shit-eating grin on his face that showed he took some amusement in the Jeremy had been dealt. Had this been an initiation of some kind? Was Jeremy the one of the two that had “made the cut”? Why did he need to get rid of Jeremy’s body. None of the night made any sense.

   Jeremy shook his head at Bill, “You are lucky I am too tired to get rid of a second body tonight, Bill.”

   Bill chuckled. “You will be alright, kid.”

                                                                                                    ***

   Bill stood by the van outside and watched as the headlights to Jeremy’s car sped off and away. The poor boy had been so nervous and afraid Bill was surprised his car didn’t rattle along with him. Bill, on the other hand, was mostly fine, if a little amused. He smiled, going over everything in his head. When the moment came that he felt for sure Jeremy was gone for good and wasn’t coming back, he took out his phone and dialed.

   “Yeah,” Bill said, at once, responding to the person on the other end. “Yeah, he sure did. Kid’s a go-getter, but he is also a complete and total dumb ass.” Bill laughed, as the person on the other end spearheaded him with one question after another. “Man, … I don’t know where to start. The kid didn’t even try to clean up the blood. Just kind-of forgot not to do that. I tell you, there are a bucket’s worth. I thought he’d at least scrub it down, try to use bleach or something, but, … nah. Dumb as a box of rocks. Burned the body in a trash can … left the barrel!” Bill stopped for a second, laughing some more. He was almost at the point of tears, the longer he thought about it. “You guys are going to want to track him. Says he is going to just ditch the burnt remains someplace. Guess it could’ve been worse – guess he could’ve just flat out panicked and left altogether. Maybe that’s enough to pass for Robert, I don’t know.”

                                                                                                    ***

   True to their word, and to his own surprise, Jeremy lived to see his apartment again, a feat that had never seemed like an accomplishment until this moment. The agreed upon payment of a thousand dollars for what was intended to be a small heist had since been raised to fifteen-hundred, an amount that frankly seemed like a bargain given all of what Robert Spade fucking got. Sometime later the next day, Jeremy reflected on how he benefited from Jacob’s death. It was a realization that didn’t rest easy with him.

   The hot water from his shower beat down on his head and soothed his aching muscles. Once or twice during, he flinched or shivered, brushing off his arms or thighs like a spider was crawling up them. It was nothing – all in his head – like he thought some of Jacob Halwright’s brain goo became sentient and was trying to crawl into his ear and take over his body like something out of a cheesy, low-budget horror flick. For what it was worth, Jeremy would have loved to have been in that movie. It would have had terrible special effects and ugly fuck actors whose buck teeth looked like they somehow went cross-eyed, but at least he would have been paid and at least he would not have had to buy a hammer. And, at least it would have been acting and not reality.

   He slid into bed and the covers held him in a warm embrace, welcoming him to the soundest sleep he had ever had. The money earned would be enough to cover a month and a half’s rent, and would be enough for him to land back on his feet.   The lesson may not have been easy to learn and, in truth, he was not exactly sure what the lesson even was, but he had definitely learned it. If you see Robert Spade, duck. One thing he did know was that a life of crime was not for him. The hammer would not be bought in vain. With it, he would build a better, more wholesome life for himself. Either that, or he would start his screenplay.

 
  • no reactions
0
0 Share
Wesley Nyx published in Mystery, Original Stories, The Canes

The Canes Files: “The Grand Illusion”

   Vulpecula Noel fidgeted with the fur on his chin, stepping out of his cramped hotel room for the first time in what felt like a century. He looked up at the bright, roaring sunshine overhead, feeling the warmth hit his fur and make the green scarf nestled around his neck feel redundant.

   At long last, a stillness befell the winds, and a settled, lukewarm temperature brushed up against the fur of each civilian as they roamed the streets of Acera. For all the scrutiny they were subjected to, the meteorologists yelled to the skies that this would mark the end of Acera’s frivolous weather patterns, and that prediction proved to be right as rain (or the lack thereof). It was unfortunate that it took them failing five earlier predictions to finally get it right.

   Although his colleagues Apus and Lacerta nor anyone else with a passing knowledge of The Fox Detective would ever accuse him of being particularly outdoorsy, he welcomed the settled, calm weather with open arms. The idea that all the bad weather was, at long last, behind them, was a delusion of grandeur he was willing to get behind. He had withered by the weather and its inconsistencies, with the heavens being unable to decide between attacking the city with rain, heavy winds, or outright snowfall. Who was up there at the reins, he wondered, with it beginning to feel as though God was unaccounted for. Needless to say, he welcomed the sense of normalcy that conventional summer weather brought with it.

   He stepped forward, perusing the streets of North Rites with a newfound pep in his step, poking his walking stick into every nearby puddle, regardless of whether it was in his path or not. It was a discourteous act that didn’t appear to sit well with his lizard friend Lacerta, who sometimes found himself in the cross hairs of each puddle’s splash. Lacerta glared at Vulpecula, an act that made him relent.

   Like a little fox in a candy store, Vulpecula was unable to help himself, because, above all else, what Vulpecula wanted was to return to work on his cases and that could only happen if the weather behaved itself. Vulpecula was largely considered a rookie when it came to his detective work – with the ‘detective’ title in and of itself unofficial and, frankly, unearned (but The Fox Private Investigator simply didn’t have the same ring to it when he was written about in The Rescue Tribune). Regardless, it was rarely difficult for him to find clientele, with his father Hensley Noel being held in high regard in Acera and the greater Maharris. Animals lined up to bring Vulpecula and his friends in to help them solve whatever mystery they’d run into.

   Most of it was vanity for vanity’s sake. Haunted houses that weren’t, in fact, haunted. Creaks and bumps that were actually old houses settling and mysterious specters that were actually old men trying to spook children into staying off their property (they would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for the meddling lizard and owl, and their stupid fox). Some of them were even more disappointing – with fans of Hensley Noel either looking at it as an opportunity for a photo op or to have Vulpecula appear on their podcast. Vulpecula didn’t care for these particular cases, both longing to stay out of the public eye as much as he could while also realizing its importance in allowing him to do what he did – a double-edged sword, he supposed.

   What he had to realize, however, is that much like the rest of Acera, criminals didn’t like to leave the house in bad weather either. Which meant no crimes were being committed, which meant no cases to be solved. It was another of those double-edged swords.

   There was something to be said for the thinkers that did their work inside of small cubicles or little, teensy-weensy bedrooms, but Vulpecula wasn’t among those list of thinkers. He was a special type of thinker – carrying a blank chalkboard inside his mind, a crude euphemism for his equally crude photographic memory. The best thing about his blank chalkboard? Unlike a computer at a desk, his chalkboard was completely portable. This was essential, because if there was one thing Vulpecula couldn’t do very well, it was sit still.

   Thankfully for him, he didn’t have to, because the sun was once again ready to shine upon them and, as luck would have it, he had also been welcomed with a new case.

   “Everything feels so much merrier now, doesn’t it? It’s funny but one really does feel happier in the summertime,” Vulpecula said, beholding the great outdoors with a newfound optimism that perplexed his colleagues.

   As a nearby vehicle drove forward, ignoring the white pedestrian’s crossing sign in favor of his own convenience. Vulpecula smiled and waved him off, brushing off the driver’s casual murder attempt and taking it in stride. Oh, how he loved people. Today, at least. Thankfully, for the most part, there was never too much traffic in Acera; it was, after all, the smallest of the five major cities in Maharris, with the North Rites district also being relatively small in scale.

   “The whole town really got wrecked, didn’t it?” Apus said.

   Lacerta nodded. “I heard the hotel clerk talking, apparently some peoples’ houses got destroyed by the floods, cars totaled, yards filled with debris, the whole twenty-seven feet.”

   “I can’t imagine what those people are going through. I heard Rescue was sending out food trucks for people, trying to scavenge up volunteers to clean up the city.”

   Vulpecula stared down at the sidewalk in front of him, noticing all the cracks and crevices, while, at the same time, trying to approximate how much further they still needed to go.

   “It all happened so late at night, too. Imagine waking up and feeling like your whole life was ruined?”

   “Let’s hope the people worst affected will have some good insurance.”

   “For whatever good that’ll do. You see, Apus, that’s the beauty of insurance – is that, when you have it, you actually don’t.”

   Vulpecula could hear the clash in cadence between both Apus and Lacerta’s inflection, one sought to see what was right in the world and the other had a more cynical outlook. Whichever was right or not, Vulpecula’s mind was too preoccupied with his own fairs to pay any mind to what they were talking about. And so, instead, he spoke with urgency: “Where is this McKinley Halls and are we getting anywhere closer to it?”

   Apus peered at his phone, tapping his talons against the screen to zoom in on the map he had pulled up. “It won’t be very much longer now.”

   Lacera chuckled, “On edge a little bit, V? We’ve only been walking for, maybe, a minute or two.”

   “I just want to do … something,” Vulpecula mumbled beneath his breath. “Idle hands and such.”

   Right paw, left paw, right paw, left paw, … Vulpecula took a moment to appreciate the way all their footsteps had become synchronized, then, maybe a conscious decision to quicken his pace to see if they would follow suit. Lacerta wasn’t wrong to think Vulpecula was on edge. There was no denying he was feeling a little bit antsy, wanting so desperately to have something to sink his teeth into.

   “Apus, …,” Vulpecula began, his mouth speaking before his mind knew what it planned to say. “You received this email from Eric Leon, correct?” Vulpecula stopped, and then, continued speaking again, unwilling to wait for an answer. “Eric Leon messaged us last night at eleven o’clock at night and said, as follows, excluding formal salutations:: ‘I am writing this because I know that Vulpecula has proven dignified in his short tenure dealing with unknown mysteries. Colleagues of mine have recommended you repeatedly. While I have only read what the newspapers will share with me, I believe that you will likely find this to be among the strangest cases that you have ever experienced. The sensitivity of this case is all too noteworthy to discuss the contents of in a message over the internet.’ Then, of course, it is followed by the closest remarks, as well as information about McKinley Halls, is that correct?”

   “Amazing,” Apus started, prepared to offer Vulpecula praise for his prowess for recollection.

   Ever since they met, Apus was always able to see the best in The Fox Detective, calling brilliance what others called crazed irregularities and social ineptness. Apus’ friendship was one of the best things to ever arrive gift wrapped at Vulpecula’s doorstep. Unfortunately, Lacerta interrupted him before Apus could pile on the praise. It was for the best. Vulpecula had chosen to intentionally omit the parts of the letter where ‘real‘ law enforcement were too preoccupied with current affairs to give Eric Leon’s predicament the time of day.

   “You can remember, word for word, something that Apus read out loud to us a day ago, but can’t name the mayor of Acera, a place where you have lived for all of your life?” Lacerta shot Vulpecula a look of disbelief, and not in the dumbfounded, impressed way Vulpecula would have liked.

   “To tell you the truth, Lacerta, I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast before we left.”

   It was true, Vulpecula had the memory of an elephant, but, not just any elephant, for that would be bigoted against elephants, the elephant of Vulpecula’s mind had long since been dead. That is, of course, except for anything he etched into his blank chalkboard. The chalkboard was for important things. Things that mattered. Whoever called themselves the mayor of Acera wasn’t among what he would call important.

   “I believe the Rescue Tribune has written a small piece about Eric Leon’s predicament. It’s a pity though, that they haven’t been shipped out yet. The early bird may catch the worm, but they still have to wait for the post office like everybody else, I’m afraid,” Apus said.

   “So, we’re going in blind, as I’d prefer. I would rather not have myself tainted by whatever propaganda The Rescue Tribune has inked and had the audacity to call journalism,” Vulpecula replied, unable and, more accurately, unwilling, to hide his disdain for the organization. His father’s organization.

   “I know you have a bone to pick, but The Rescue Tribune is about the only reason anyone brings us on for these investigations. They did a full-page article about the alien abduction story, everybody we ever help out tells us they found us because they read that story,” Lacerta said.

   “The ‘alien abduction’ story was a bunch of nonsense hysteria from a nonsense district, mistaking kids playing hide and seek for being picked up by an alien aircraft. The Rescue Tribune knew that when they printed it. They have the courtesy of trying to hide it, but the Rescue Tribune is filled with the same type of propaganda as the newspapers printed by the Canes Vinatici were – an us versus them mentality.”

   “I think that might be a little bit of a stretch.”

   Vulpecula looked at Lacerta, but said nothing. The Canes Vinatici was an organization led by dogs throughout Maharris that advocated for the supremacy of itself and the suppression of anybody who dared to stand against it. It was a regime that went on for decades, resulting in innumerable casualties and heart-ache that sent ripples throughout the greater Maharris that was still felt today. It was only after resistances, like the aforementioned Rescue group, that The Canes Vinatici fell from power and a more balanced status quo was restored – one that generally saw puppies paying for the sins of the dogs that came before them.

   “Maybe,” Vulpecula said, once more fidgeting with the fur on his chin. “Then again, maybe not.”

                                                                                              * * *

   They arrived at McKinley Halls some time later, with Apus and Lacerta preoccupying themselves with their company and Vulpecula trying to fan the flames of his own unease. As they arrived, both Apus and Lacerta marveled at the spectacle the building brought with it. It was a large theater, one that was far nicer than anything one could ever expect to see in the North Rites district (they had crossed district lines, welcoming themselves to Acera’s larger, more pristine and busy Mulan district). There was a large sign at the top of the building that said ‘McKinley Halls’ in big, gold lettering with a heavy font and red outline behind a green backdrop. Beside the logo was a statuesque depiction of a human sitting in a director’s chair eating from a classical red-and-white striped bag of popcorn. Although he wasn’t taken by the theaters’ gaudy aesthetic the same way as his colleagues, Vulpecula couldn’t help but find some amusement at the idea of a human of all things sitting in a chair and watching a movie. Vulpecula beheld the large sign in front of the building.

   Welcome to McKinley Halls Theater!

   Home of the Magnets!

   We are Currently Closed.

   Although The Fox Detective knew very little about the theater itself, he had at least heard of the Magnets in passing. They were a traveling troupe of stage performers made up exclusively of Acera-born performers. The troupe took part in many different forms of entertainment, never subscribing themselves to one particular specialty, and, in fact, rebelled against their own comfort. Everything Vulpecula had ever learned about the Magnets had been unintentional, but their outreach couldn’t be denied. They specialized in performances that could best be described as over-the-top, excessive, and bizarre, oftentimes using the spectacle of shock value as a way to go viral online and sell tickets. As the sign would suggest, McKinley Halls Theater was where they preferred to perform most.

   Vulpecula stepped past the sign and began toward the front entrance, hoping not to be thwarted by the rattling of a locked door. To his good fortune, before he could, they were welcomed by a doorman wearing an overcoat and a top hat, an old fashioned ensemble clearly meant to fit the general ‘theme’ of the establishment. The suited penguin quietly let them into the building, informing them that they were expected.

   Soon after, they were introduced to a unique-looking (a generous description) and small stature fellow with a rather eccentric outfit. He wore lavender dance shoes with a sparkling silver embroidered on the laces. He also wore an elegant bright-red coat that had buttons and emblems scattered about, giving him the look of somebody of royalty. His leggings complimented the coat nicely in color, but up close, Vulpecula could see for certain that they were spandex, meant for easy maneuvering. No doubt, Vulpecula was easily able to assume that he was in the presence of an actor (‘actor’ being pronounced with their arm outstretched as ‘ac-tor’). Upon further inspection of his facial features; the puffy and red, blood shot eyes emphasizing his lack of sleep, an unkempt mane, and the fact his boat was messily unbuttoned, Vulpecula realized that this lion went by the name of Eric Leon, the very same who had emailed Apus asking for their services.

   The fact that the doorman introduced him as Eric Leon may have also helped Vulpecula in making this assessment.

   “Welcome,” Eric said in a raspy voice, “I am happy that all three of you could come.”

   Eric Leon’s words, at face value, seemed upbeat and optimistic, however, his voice indicated that he was feeling anything except for happiness.

   “I don’t suppose that I offer you anything before we start, a refreshment of some kind, or, uh, …,” Eric stammered, looking around himself like he would stumble upon some other hidden delicacy to offer them.

   “I would be happy if we could go ahead and jump into what you need help with,” Vulpecula answered coolly, doing his best to both express his urgency and remember his manners, which could sometimes become misplaced when he wasn’t careful.

   “Very well then. I suppose that we should make our way to the stage before we begin, I have no doubts that the scene will be invaluable to you.”

   Eric Leon turned his back to them and began to lead the way – the inside of the building having all the traits of a commonplace theater with some added eccentricities and flourishes. There was a ticket booth as he entered, then, a counter for concessions to his right, meant to sell food and refreshments. To his left, there were framed, back lit posters on the wall for several different plays they had on the docket. Some of them had dates for when the shows were and some of them had little ribbons pinned on them with the names of awards that they had had bestowed on them.

   At last, as they continued following the distraught lion, the rows of posters came to an end, and instead, they were met by doors with numbers on them, each leading to a different theater two watch a different show being performed.

   “So, what exactly is this all about?” Lacerta asked rather abruptly.

   Vulpecula appreciated this, if only because it got things moving and kept him from having to think of a polite way to ask the very same thing. Their eyes went to Eric Leon. Eric didn’t stop to answer, not until after he opened one of the doors, this one had a big, red number ‘3’ written on the top of it. He walked inside and ushered them in to do the same. Vulpecula, Lacerta, and Apus complied, stepping inside and beholding the theater in all its majesty. It wasn’t an enormous venue – when they were walking, Vulpecula made careful note that the first numbered door also had white text beneath it that read ‘Main Stage’. That would seem to imply this was a smaller, less prestigious theater. This theater was capable of sitting a couple hundred theatergoers, at most. Between all the rows of chairs was a walkway leading to the stage which had a large, red curtain draped in front of it.

   “Four days ago, three nights before I sent for your assistance, we were doing a play called The Blood Lane Starlet. Now, I needn’t go in depths about the play’s contents, but I will tell you that the lead part went to a female by the name of Molly Louise, a snow leopard that played the role of the starlet in her rise to fame.” Eric Leon stopped momentarily, as if anticipating that he was about to become emotional. “She was kidnapped before the end of the self act.”

   “So, you’re saying that somebody came in and took her from the dressing room or something? Were there any witnesses?” Lacerta asked.

   Eric Leon started to speak, and then, stopped for a moment, his voice cracking. “No, they kidnapped her during the play!”

   Before, Vulpecula may have only been listening halfheartedly, fearful that he had been hoodwinked with another ‘I saw God in my toast this morning’ type story, but, now, as those words escaped from Leon’s lips, the lion now had his complete and undivided attention.

   “Go on,” Vulpecula said at once, fidgeting with the fur on his chin and staring at Eric Leon intently.

   “While we were doing one of the scenes, she stepped over one of the stages’ trap doors and it was abruptly triggered. There was no scene in the play that called for the trap door, and so, obviously, this should not have happened. The audience was bewildered and confused, and rightfully so, as Molly Louis’ vanished out of sight in the midst of her character’s closing monologue, and are actors were taken aghast by it as well – still, it would be right to say that none of us were in a frenzied panic. The audience thought it was nothing more than part of the act, whereas the performers thought it was a flub by the crew. They lock the trapdoor whenever it is not being used, so these kinds of things don’t happen, but, even still, it didn’t seem like a big deal. Molly would fall safely on a cushion, laugh it off, and we would all carry on with the show as planned, but, then, she didn’t come back.”

   Vulpecula felt his mouth water that the prospect before him, but he didn’t think too much about why that may have been. What it meant, most of all, was that he had a kidnapping to solve! It may as well have been his birthday with the gift Eric Leon had brought him, and although he managed to refrain from breaking out in song, he did find his foot tapping to the beat of his own enthusiasm. Eric Leon seemed unperturbed by this, but Apus poked at Vulpecula with one of his talons to express his dislike for the gesture. Don’t get excited for other peoples’ kidnappings, he thought to himself. It was advice to live by, after all.

   “Did you conduct a search for her?” Apus asked.

   It was a question with an obvious answer and yet, it was simply procedural to ask it. Clearly, Eric Leon wouldn’t have bothered asking for their help if he hadn’t exhausted every other option available to him. Perhaps, as a kindness, Eric Leon didn’t say as much to Apus, and simply offered a nod as an answer. Then, Eric Leon continued: “We contacted the police, but they weren’t able to find anything to go on. They are doing searches and say they are following up on any potential lead they can find. They promise that they will find her, but I just felt like there was more that I could be doing to help than what I was.”

   Eric Leon sauntered over to a row of steps that led up to the stage and disappeared, momentarily, behind the curtains. In the meantime, Vulpecula himself fidgeting with one of the theater chairs, rocking it back and forth for no reason at all whatsoever other than to satiate his own restlessness. Seconds later, Eric Leon returned once more by opening the curtains by yanking on a braided rope.

   “And that’s why I came to you guys for help.”

   “What was your relationship with Molly Louise?” Vulpecula asked.

   “She was my partner.”

   “Your partner?”

   “Yes.”

   Vulpecula may not have been the best at reading facial cues, but, even he was able to read between the lines on what Eric Leon meant by partner and also infer why the puffy-eyed lion appeared to be single-handedly leading the charge for her safe return.

   “And does your partner have a family?”

   “Yes.”

   “And where is that family?”

   “I haven’t heard from them.”

   “And why is that? Surely, a family would have something to say about a missing family member, … or am I wrong about that?”

   Eric Leon hesitated for a moment, but, then, he spoke: “She never really spoke about them very much. I guess, to understand it, you really have to know Molly Louise. It’s kind of why she is such a talented stage performer, she doesn’t carry any baggage with her. This lifestyle fits her like a glove, and I mean, we would always talk about her one day being able to join the Magnets. They say that it’s like a big family with them, and it just seemed like a good way to get away from it all.”

   “This building is home of the Magnets, is it not? Are you a member of the troupe?”

   Eric Leon shook his head. “It isn’t that easy to join their group. Unless you are something special, people will spend years trying to even get an audition for them, much less join. Someday though. Maybe.”

   “Molly Louise has no ties whatsoever with her family?”

   “Correct,” Eric Leon answered simply before elaborating. “She is from Hardan. That is where her folks are. From what I understand, she hasn’t spoken with any of them in several years.”

   With every word Eric Leon let escape, Vulpecula soaked in the man, learning more and more about him every second. His disposition carried a certain eloquence and poise, but it wasn’t enough to hide his roots. He looked and talked like a showman and did everything he could to sell The Fox Detective on that fast, however, in his scruffy, scrambled composure, he let more of himself out than he thought. Eric Leon was an Acera native. Vulpecula could see that well enough, however, it also came with a certain asterisk. He was from the country as they would say, for a reason Vulpecula didn’t actually know why. This by no means meant he was lacking eloquence or a lack of intelligence, but rather to say that he had an accent inherited from what many deemed to be the more ‘lowly’ parts of Acera and was making a conscious effort to hide it. Was this because of an insecurity he had of himself or was it a front he put on because he believed he’d be penalized in some way by the Magnets?

   “You said that everyone was taken by surprise, but what steps were taken after everybody came to realize Molly’s disappearance? The police officers were here before us, did they share any of their discoveries with you?”

   Eric Leon shook his head, “They didn’t do a whole, whole lot, unfortunately. They said that she hadn’t been missing long enough for it to be a proper missing persons’ case, and, you know, with the storm and all the wreckage that’s come with that, they said they’re stretched pretty thin.”

   “Were there any witnesses? Anyone who may have seen anything suspicious?”

   As Vulpecula spoke, he walked up the steps leading to the stage and welcomed himself at eye level with Eric Leon, albeit, not with proper eye contact. Instead, Vulpecula’s eyes looked down toward the trapdoor, head tilted like an old-school slasher villain.

   “A man claimed that, while he was walking out of the theater, he saw a gentleman running outside to his car, as if trying to make a quick getaway. Alongside him was a female, who the man claims was Molly. He said that the man clutched her hand tightly and that she seemed to be afraid.”

   “Can anyone corroborate these claims besides him? Is there any surveillance footage we can pull from?”

   Eric Leon shook his head. “No surveillance footage, before now, we’d never needed it. No one else claims to have seen Molly Louise leave, which makes sense, given that most of them would have been in the theater at the time she would have been taken.” Eric Leon’s voice started to sound a little resentful and agitated but he regained his solemn cadence by the end.

   “Did he see anything beyond that? Surely, whoever the person was she was allegedly walking with would be the key to finding her. What description did he provide for the man?”

   “It was as simple as that,” Eric Leon answered plainly. “As he opened the door, beginning to leave the theater, having seen one of the other shows that McKinley Halls had been running that evening, some older man saw two people leaving the theater. To be as specific as possible, he said that the gentleman leading the way out was of a medium build, perhaps taller than average, wearing a leather trench coat and a black top hat. The man was described as aggressive, pulling her toward the vehicle while she acted both apprehensive and weary.”

   Vulpecula nodded his head. “Who was the older man, what did he look like?”

   Eric Leon looked at Vulpecula in confusion, but, answered, “He was a, uh, rhinoceros, normal size for such an animal, I guess. He wore glasses, I think.”

   “And the man Molly Louise was walking with, you believe this man abducted her against her will?”

   “I see no other explanation other than that. I think, for you to understand better, I should offer a little insight in what it’s like being a theater performer. The performing arts are a tough life, especially someplace that may not have the brightest lights like our district. If it wasn’t for the Magnets sometimes performing here and calling it their home, we would barely have enough business to get by. There is a lot of competition because there are only so many positions that can be filled. It is all about image and it is easy to make enemies without even noticing that you did it.”

   “I will keep that in mind,” Vulpecula said honestly. “Thank you for your time, Eric Leon, but, for now, I must ask that you bid yourself adieu from us. I am sorry to say it, but, unlike you, I am up to the task much more when I don’t have an audience. I hope that I will be able to bring you new information very soon to your partner’s whereabouts.”

   Eric Leon seemed disheartened by the request, but, to his credit, he obliged and left the trio alone to revel in their thoughts. Vulpecula didn’t say anything to either Apus or Lacerta, and they said nothing to him. Apus and Lacerta stood quietly, leaving Vulpecula to attempt to unravel the situation before them.

   Eric Leon meant well, Vulpecula believed. Still, the idea that Molly Louise had been abducted straight from the stage was an unlikely event. Why would any criminal commit such a crime? There was simply too many dramatics and too much risk involved. The Fox Detective’s mind immediately considered the idea of extortion or blackmail, but that wouldn’t have explained why the kidnapper would commit themselves to such theatrics. Surely, it would have been easier to find Molly Louise sometime after the show and abduct her when there were less witnesses to call upon. For whatever reason, the criminal clearly wanted there to be showmanship and for a powerful message to be sent.

   “Do you think it’s possible that Molly Louise was kidnapped?” Apus asked.

   “It is possible, certainly, but, whether or not it’s plausible remains to be seen.”

   “I thought I saw you biting your tongue while Eric was talking,” Apus said sharply, a small smirk somehow visible from his beak.

   “He referred to the man that allegedly saw the kidnapper and Molly Louise leaving into the car as an older rhinoceros, an animal species known for their bad eyesight, who wore glasses, no less. Furthermore, consider how dark it would have been and how erratic the weather has been lately. The witness would have had their vision considerably obstructed by the pouring rain, coupled with the high likelihood that they already don’t have the best vision.” Vulpecula once more didn’t make eye contact with Apus or Lacerta; he continued to find himself transfixed on the trap door.

   There was another thought bouncing around in Vulpecula’s head as well, one pertaining to the rhinoceros’ testimony. As defeated as it sounded, he wished that he had not let Eric Leon leave like he had, now finding himself with a new question he otherwise had no way of getting the answer to. Vulpecula descended the stairs, half his mind still drawn by the trapdoor itself, but the other half of him that took the reins knew he needed more information to, ahem, set the stage (a joke he kept for himself as an audience of one). Leaving Apus and Lacerta to further investigate the theater – which included Lacerta snapping photographs of every possible object, whether it was the stage itself or the fancy, sparkly chandelier over their head (it wasn’t about evidence or clues, per se, but, rather, it was about having photographs to sell to The Rescue Tribune or for their website – a gaudy, but, alas, important part of why they were able to do the things they did).

   The Fox Detective opened the large door, leading to concessions, his eyes surveying the area for the fancily-dressed lion. As he did, however, he found himself unable to spot him. He did, however, see the doorman.

   “Pardon,” Vulpecula said, getting the penguin’s attention. “I don’t suppose you can tell me where to find Eric Leon? I had a couple of small questions to ask him before I returned to the investigation.”

   The doorman shot him a peculiar look, “The investigation? That’s why you’re here? This is about Molly Louise?”

   “Who else?” Vulpecula asked.

   The penguin shrugged. “When Eric Leon told me his friend Vulpecula Noel was coming to look around the theater, I figured you were here because you were a theater buff or something. I didn’t realize you were going to conduct an ‘investigation’,” The doorman smirked, with the emphasis on Vulpecula’s last name and not his first making it clear he was familiar with his father’s work and not his.

   Vulpecula bit his bottom lip and decided to pick his battles, everyone started somewhere, he supposed. “Can you tell me where I can find Eric Leon?”

   Once more, the penguin shrugged: “Probably doing his job.”

   “What, … you mean, rehearsing, or … ?”

   The penguin chuckled, “I mean, he’s cleaning, I think he’s sprucing up the main theater.”

   “Eric Leon’s a custodian?”

   “A custodian,” The penguin laughed some more. “Trying to look important, are we? Guy’s not even a janitor. Janitors’ get paid. He’s like an intern. He cleans up and helps out with things, and, in return, they let him put on his little costumes and shadow the actors. Basically, in McKinley Halls, if you aren’t a Magnet, you aren’t nothing, and if you’re nothing, that means you’re probably a local stage actor for the Mulan district, and Eric Leon is somewhere below that.”

   This time, Vulpecula wasn’t able to withhold his disappointment, letting out an audible sigh. It was remarkable how easily perception of something could change and a whole investigation could be unwound. This wasn’t Eric Leon giving Vulpecula the reins to lead an investigation. Eric Leon didn’t have the reins to pass off in the first place. This was an underpaid (in-fact, unpaid) employee asking a wannabe sleuth on the internet for his two cents before the theater opened to the public. Eric Leon didn’t maybe, exactly, lie, but he absolutely misled him. What else had he lied about, a voice in the back of Vulpecula’s mind whispered.

   “Okay then, maybe you can help me. Eric Leon said that law enforcement had a witness that claims to have seen Molly Louise leaving the building after another play had just gotten let out. What time did the other play and where would that overlap with the time of The Blood Lane Starlet’s third act when Molly Louise went missing?” Vulpecula asked.

   “I don’t know if I should reveal information involving an official investigation.”

   “Trying to look important, are you? It’s simple math – you either tell me or I assume you can’t, and I find out myself.”

   The doorman smiled again, but this was a different kind of smile. This was the kind of smile that came from someone with a freshly bruised ego. Vulpecula could empathize.

                                                                                                       2.

   The Fox Detective stood on the stage once more. Vulpecula closed his eyes and looked through the innermost confines of his mind, his blank chalkboard, as he called it in his mind. The chalkboard stared back at him, wrapped in vines, sprouted from the seeds of doubt planted in him by every naysayer. Beyond that, it was filled with all the notes and information he had taken in regarding the case. On the surface, he remained quiet. As a child, his Uncle Rockwell called this Vupecula ‘putting on his space helmet’, a euphemism for what he perceived as simple daydreaming. It was something more than that, however. At this moment, he could see everything. Sooner or later, the blank chalkboard would be erased, making way to keep new information, but, for now, he had it all.

   In his head, he saw Eric Leon. All the movements that he made; every mannerism he had done during their conversation was accessible to him. What was the endgame for asking Vulpecula for his aid?

   Out of his head, Vulpecula looked down at the trapdoor. The door was simple, unlike some other trapdoors that may have been lever activated, this one had a latch to unlock the trapdoor under the stage. Surely, more complicated, expensive theatrics were reserved for the main theater. What did this mean? The most obvious was that this had to be carefully deliberated. All it took was applying enough pressure and the trapdoor gave way, sending whoever triggered it down, beneath the stage. Anyone could have triggered it at any moment. The kidnapper would have had to have eyes on the stage to know when Molly Louise was in position or, at the very least, have the timing down to know when the rest of the performer’s had no chance of sabotaging their plan.

   “Did you hear me,” Lacerta called out, snapping his fingers in front of Vulpecula’s eyes, trying to get his attention. “Did you hear what I said?” He asked again, uncertain if he was getting through.

   “Not a word,” Vulpecula answered honestly.

   Lacerta sighed. “I said … do you believe that we should just throw out the witness’ account since there is a chance the rhinoceros couldn’t have Molly Louise and her abductor?”

   “No,” Vulpecula said, shaking his head. “It’s a variable, for certain, but I think the witness testimony is a very important part whether they saw Molly Louise or not.”

   Vulpecula looked around at the stage, appreciating the scenery. There were props strewn about, background decorations such as trees that enshrouded themselves around a makeshift fire escape – the trees serving the purpose of hiding the wheels used to lug the fire escape from place to place. There were sandbags and pulleys and other things that Vulpecula understood the general purpose of, but appeared foreign to him in the context of how they worked to create the overall presentation. He eventually brought himself to Stage Right (one of the few insider terms Vulpecula knew of – basically, it meant, ahem, the right of the stage) and looked at a white prop wall with red paw prints speared across it, meant to resemble blood.

   As he went down the stairs leading to the backstage, he opened a door and was then able to behold the area dedicated to makeup. It looked the way he had always imagined it in his head, with a row of five empty stools, each in front of small tables with mirrors outlined by large light bulbs. On the side closest, facing the theater, there were racks with clothing, out-of-place ladders (a clear violation that Vulpecula would leave ‘The Fox Safety Coordinator’ to cite), and pieces of plywood. The opposite side had doors clearly designated as fitting rooms. Finally, however, Vulpecula found the room he was looking for – a small, red push and pull plate door with a sign at the top that spelled out its purpose: “Storage”.

   He opened the door and, true to its word, there were plenty of boxes and props stored away, collecting dust. It wasn’t the most aesthetically appeasing room. There’d be no ‘behind the scene tour’ videos showing off the loose nails that poked through the ceiling and ‘do it yourself’ support beams that were scattered around the area. In the greater Maharris, Urgway was considered the poorest of the poor, the worst place to live altogether, riddled with crime and bad living conditions. At this moment, Vulpecula couldn’t help but wonder what horrors Urgway could truly have if this was considered one of the nicer districts of Acera.

   His eyes searched the room, not looking for anything in particular, but also looking for exactly what he needed. He walked over to the cushion lying in the middle of the room. In a choice that felt, almost poetic, the cushion was a scarlet red color. Above him, he could see the bottom of the trapdoor as well as the latch that looked it in place.

   What would she have imagined at this moment? The Fox Detective did his best to place her in his shoes. He imagined himself on the stage. Stepping around, an uproarious audience watching on. The doorman may have been a lot of things, and a lot of those things may not have been good, but one thing he had also been was helpful and informative. This was Molly Louis’ time to shine! This was the first time she was front and center as the lead in a play at McKinley Hall and The Blood Lane Starlet was exactly the kind of play for an actor to prove themselves to her audience. To her audience? To the Magnets, Vulpecula thought again. If you aren’t part of the Magnets, you’re nothing. This was her chance to get their attention. Of course, even then, she’d have trouble being accepted, Vulpecula thought. Why did he think that? Eric Leon had claimed she was a native of Hardan. That was directly against the rules for entry into the Magnets – an Acera-only troupe.

   Unless she could do something to force the issue, he supposed. Like faking her kidnapping? Or maybe not. Vulpecula tried to imagine it as though she hadn’t. That she felt astonishment as the trapdoor fell beneath her feet. This wasn’t in the script, … but then, what? She walked out from the dressing room and no one saw anything at all? No one saw The Blood Lane Starlet herself fleeing out of the theater? No one except for a single rhinoceros? Why did she let herself be kidnapped by the older gentleman? She wasn’t incapacitated. She left on her own accord. Was there a gun to her back? Was this extortion or blackmail?

   Vulpecula didn’t have enough information to have an answer yet. He imagined what Molly would have seen the moment the floor fell from beneath her. Either she was expectant of it or disoriented by it, that all depended on if this was a grand illusion or an actual kidnapping. Where would she have gone next? At first, The Fox Detective looked at the door he had come in from. That couldn’t have been it. Surely, the moment Molly Louise fell, members of the production crew would be scurrying to retrieve her. The idea that none of them saw her meant that door was not an option. His eyes surveyed the area in search of an alternative way out, and, he found it. The small door stared back at him with a proposed answer to the case spelled out for him in blunt lettering: Maintenance.

                                                                                                    3.

   “So, you’re saying you believe that Eric Leon was in cahoots with Molly Louise and helped stage her kidnapping?” Apus asked.

   Lacerta chuckled, clearly finding some amusement in a ‘staged kidnapping’ happening on a stage.

   “I am,” Vulpecula said, stopping for a moment, “Not saying that?” The Fox Detective answered, not originally planning to end his sentence with a question mark.

   “That doesn’t sound very confident.”

   “Why would Eric Leon ask for our help if he was the one who instigated the crime in the first place?” Lacerta asked.

   “Because he underestimated us, he didn’t think we’d find anything because the police didn’t but also didn’t want to look like he was hiding anything either,” Apus said.

   Vulpecula fidgeted with the fur on his chin. “Everything we do gets reported to The Rescue Tribune. Every case we solve gets put on Lacerta’s website and stirs up conversation. If this was all a giant ploy to bring eyes to Molly Louise and get her accepted into the Magnets, then it makes sense they’d call on us to add a little more publicity to the affair.”

   “So, you are saying Eric Leon asked for our help because he thought we’d bring more eyes to the case?” Apus asked.

   “I,” Vulpecula hesitated again, “Am saying that. But I am not ready to say it was for the same reason we’re thinking.”

   “What?” Lacerta asked, clearly confused.

   “I don’t think Eric Leon’s worry is fake,” The Fox confessed. “I don’t think he could fake that.”

   “He’s an actor.”

   “Perhaps, but not a good one. The penguin upfront claimed there is a hierarchy and that Eric Leon was, more or less, at the bottom of the heap.”

   “The only other possible exit from the bottom of the stage was the maintenance room, it would have offered a straight shot from backstage to the main lobby. Eric Leon could have easily been waiting for Molly Louise and then helped her make her clean getaway.” Lacerta argued.

   “The witness claims to have seen her walking out from the lobby with an older gentleman,” Vulpecula said plainly, awaiting the holes to be poked in the statement.

   “And you said it yourself that a rhinoceros contending with bad weather and bad eyesight is a tough sell.”

   “Perhaps so, but Eric Leon also has an alibi. I spoke to the doorman about the rhinoceros. When the trapdoor fell through, leading to Molly Louis’ disappearance, that would have been about half an hour before the end of the Blood Lane Starlet and about fifteen minutes before the end of the play said rhinoceros had attended. That tells us two things. One is that the rhinoceros would have seen Molly Louise walking out in an otherwise empty lobby, meaning that our witness and his weak bladder would have had a clear shot of Molly Louise leaving the building. The second is that Eric Leon was present and accounted for to help clean the theater after the next play was let out.”

   “So, you think Eric Leon wasn’t involved? That it was Molly Louise and, what, a member of the Magnets?”

   “I believe that Eric Leon was involved,” Vulpecula said, then, added: “But not directly. When I was a young boy, I remember I would sometimes be babysat by Vivian Herms, believe it or not.”

   “Sounds awful,” Lacerta fired back.

   A small smile broke on Vulpecula’s face. Vivian Herms was his father’s right-hand, a stoic, serious-natured woman who now called the shots as the leader of the Rescue organization. “As you can probably guess, there weren’t exactly a lot of toys to play with or things to occupy a small child’s mind in her office. There was, however, a small nest-egg doll I remember sat at the front of her desk. It was a simple wooden toy shaped like a bowling pin and when you pulled it apart, a smaller version of the same toy was tucked inside. You open that one, and there was another, and so on and so forth.”

   “I’m familiar.”

   “At McKinley Halls, you are either a Magnet or you are nothing, and if you aren’t nothing, by the door man’s assessment, you must be Eric Leon.”

   “Harsh.”

   “And, untrue. Eric Leon was a contingency. Molly Louise knew she was going to disappear before her audiences’ eyes, but she couldn’t account for the storm to hit and everyone’s attention to be pulled elsewhere. She thought it would be breaking news and the media would run with it, but it simply wasn’t. In simpler times, the police would have overlooked their forty-eight hour rule and went straight to work, but they were simply too stretched thin to take on a case with nothing to go on. Her last ditch effort was Eric Leon. In Eric Leon’s email, he claimed that colleagues had recommended us to him repeatedly. Unfortunately, by the door man’s account, Eric Leon had only one colleague and that colleague would have had everything to gain from him knowing the one detective in Acera that hadn’t been caught up in the storm. When he saw no one was helping her, he followed his heart.” The Fox Detective explained.

   “Then, what do we do now?” Lacerta asked.

   “Nothing,” Vulpecula said honestly. “This is nothing more than a performance. Another case that went nowhere. When the police officers’ hands are freed, they’ll investigate further. When they do, they’ll find an answer, but, by then, all of the momentum and drama will have spilled out. Molly Louise won’t get what she wants and may very well miss out on her one chance to join the troupe.”

                                                                                                  ***

   It wasn’t long until what Vulpecula said would happen, in fact, happened. He had kept his tabs on the investigation and had advised Eric Leon to inform him of any new developments. The last thing he wanted was to have gotten it wrong, so it was a relief to see that he hadn’t. By the time the forty-eights hours expired, allowing the Mulan districts’ police department to officially call it a missing persons’ case, all of the air had been let out from the fiasco. Without even as much as a two-bit detectives’ two cents on the case, that added up to a one-two punch on any hopes Molly Louis had at becoming a viral sensation. Then, in a week’s time, since Molly Louis clearly wasn’t about to become the overnight starlet the Magnets’ expected, but still needed money to live, she returned, pretending like nothing had happened.

   As one could imagine, McKinley Halls wasn’t too thrilled about their main-actress disappearing in the middle of a stage production, and she was demoted – in an ironic twist, she became the smallest doll in the nest-egg.

   Vulpecula looked at the sky somberly.

   “So, that’s it then?” A voice called out to Vulpecula, breaking him out of his little trance.

   Eric Leon looked back at him, dressed in his usual theatrical ensemble. Vulpecula stared at the ‘Welcome to McKinley Halls’ sign. He wasn’t certain why he had returned, but the moment he saw Eric Leon, he felt like he had a good idea.

   Vulpecula ignored the question, not really knowing the answer: “That’s an interesting suit, Eric. It looks a little like tiger fur. It’s strange to see on a lion. Strange, in a good way. Looks nice.”

   “It’s faux fur,” Eric said a small twinge of enthusiasm escaping his otherwise melancholic disposition.

   “I would hope so.”

   “I had it specially imported from a place called Paw Prints, they specialize in the finest faux fur.”

   “Very cool.”

   After a small pause, Eric Leon finally asked the question their awkward small talk was leading to, the only reason Vulpecula would participate in small talk.

   “Why didn’t she tell me, Vulpecula? What did I do wrong?”

   “You didn’t do anything, Eric. Your only crime was being genuine and real.”

   Eric Leon chuckled. “Being genuine doesn’t get you very far as an actor.”

   “Maybe not, but it means everything to me.” Vulpecula said, letting a small smile show through. Below the sign, he observed a small listing of upcoming shows, finding Eric Leon’s name among the cast. V pointed his walking stick at the listing and looked back at him. “Break a leg, Eric.”

   “Thanks.”

   Vulpecula turned to make his leave, and, as he did, Eric spoke once more.

   “You think it’s going to rain?” Eric Leon asked.

   Vulpecula looked back at him, then, up toward the sky, “I think a storm’s coming.”

   “Better buy an umbrella,” Eric said in jest.

   “I think I’ll be okay.”

   I’ve got my space helmet.

  • no reactions
0
0 Share