Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 86

My Most Popular Searches

Every blogger appreciates new traffic.  What's most flattering is when someone finds you via search.  I like to check my traffic and I find the most popular search is about a post I did about the NAPW sending me a semi-threatening letter asking me to take down a post on the Repairman Jack website.  I have since received another email from them asking me to join and in case you have never heard of them (and didn't read the original post), NAPW is allegedly an organization for professional women.

I'm a dude.  And I got the junk to prove it.

But when I check the traffic the most popular search is 'NAPW scam'.  I need to start tracking popular searches and at least posting something about them to move these guys down the list.

The Second Death of Timothy Moseley, ep. 1

Tim awoke with a start. The first thing he saw with his groggy dead eyes was Felicia, staring down at him.

"What am I doing here?" he asked, but it came out as a garbled mess.

"Take it easy," she said. "You're safe now. You're home."

Tim moaned. He was dead. At least he was five minutes ago. That wasn't the bad part, though. Being whatever this was, was. Felicia had been obsessed with prolonging his life for as long as possible when he'd been dying. If anyone could have figured out how to bring someone back, it was his wife.

"Let me go," he said.

"Don't be silly." Felicia stood up. "You're only sitting in a chair. You can get up. But take your time."

She'd misunderstood him. When it came to anything Felicia didn't want to hear, it was easy for her to do that. Tim took his time acclimating to his surroundings, acclimating to being back in his body.

He looked himself over and was disgusted. His body was rotted and worn, naked bone exposed almost everywhere he could see skin.

"Are you hungry?" Felicia asked. "Do you want anything to eat?" She walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bowl. "I have something… just in case."

Tim could tell by the look on her face she wasn't saying something.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Some organ meat… bones… brains…"

"Brains? Gross, Felicia, when did I ever eat anything like that?"

"I don't know." She scratched the back of her neck. "I thought you might have different—y'know—cravings now."

"That's not human, is it?" Tim waggled a finger at the bowl.

"No! It's all from a sheep. I got it from the butchers." He could tell she was flustered by the way her eyes darted around and how she held her arms stiffly at her sides. "Look, I'm sorry." She swiped the whole mess into the garbage can next to her. "I'm just trying, okay?"

"I… appreciate it, but no."

"Whatever, okay? Never mind."

Tim took a deep breath, something rattling inside a lung. He turned to her.

"Felicia. Thank you. Seriously. I'm just not hungry. Can I have a hug?"

"Really?" She turned her eyes on him and he could see she was beaming again.

"Yeah." She was standing by him before he could stand and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tightly. Something snapped and something else squished and when she pulled back, there was black goo on the corner of her forehead.

"I missed you so much," she said. She searched his eyes with such desperation. Tim could tell this was going to be difficult. Right now she was waiting for him to say the same thing back and the truth was he didn't.

Sure Tim had loved her when he was alive and even now he could still feel something. But he was dead now. Things had changed. He took her by the shoulders.

"Look, Felicia…"

"So much has happened since you've been gone. They took the dogs away because I couldn't take care of them. Tim, I almost didn't make it."

30 Tales...

I'm feeling a little guilty for not posting here in over a month.  Still hard at work at stuff, particularly 30 Tales from an Apartment (I've got 7 stories drafted as of right now).  I'm going to pull double-duty and start up Dead Right again. 

But to make it up to you (yes, you, right there) I'm going to have something here after you're done unwrapping your toys and gadgets.  Every other day, starting Monday the 26th I'll post one of the short stories from 30 Tales.  Don't know which one yet, but tune in.  And then after that I'm aiming for a new entry for Dead Right every other day.

30 Tales from an Apartment

It's been a while since I posted on my blog.  I am alive and well.  I had to put "Dead Right" on hold temporarily to finish something that suddenly came pressing.  But I'm also working on a series of short stories that I'm hoping to put out sometime next year.  30 Tales from an Apartment will be just that- 30 short stories that all take place from the same apartment.  It'll be a mix of horror, weird, sci-fi, thriller and will be past, present, future and maybe inter-dimensional. 

I have 4 stories drafted so far and just began a 5th.  Hopefully, I'll have more info soon.

Dead Right, ep XXVI

"Actually, it did." She turned in the chair to face Wenton. "Viable subjects have at least two personality sets implanted. In case one doesn't take. He pulled the cord on your wife."

"Oh." His voice sounded more hurt than he felt.

"Some of her memories remain, but enough for an entire personality set?" She shook her head.

"So do you remember our son?"

There was something in her eyes for just the briefest of moments.

"I… remember. A boy? I can't place a face. What's his name?" She resumed her typing.

"Todd. Our son's name is Todd."

"Todd." She was silent a moment. "Why do you keep doing that? Referring to your child as 'ours'?"

"Because I'm desperate. The whole reason for any of this was to find out what happened to my wife. To know one way or the other if she was responsible for the crash that killed her or if there was someone else… there."

"So you're selfish and irresponsible. Do you have any idea of the investment cost that went into the creation mind implantation?"

"No." Wenton was starting to feel like a scolded child.

"Because you need to know you've stolen someone's property to try to validate your feelings of what—guilt over the death of your wife? Do you ever wish you'd been in the car?"

"YES!" Wenton seized her by the shoulders. His blood was boiling.

Wait. Only Cara knew how to do that to him. He let her go. Her impassive expression had not changed.

"Are you sure… my wife's mind is still around in there?"

"I told you. A few snippets. I can remember places, things she did. Probably the more significant memories."

"Like seconds before she died?"

"Perhaps."

"Look, I really need you to help me out here. I can't go on like I have been with my son. He knows I'm not there and he's… he's starting to get used to it. I just need something—whatever you can give—to help me past this."

"Please forgive my abrupt nature. It's at cross-purposes to what I'm actually trying to accomplish. I'll help you with whatever I can. But I need you to help me first."

Dead Right, ep XXV

Wenton didn't know what was happening. It—she—had just started. They'd managed to make it to his buddy's house on 7 Mile and gotten inside and by then she was talking up a storm.

Mostly nonsense stuff, well nonsense to him, but when she'd seen the computer she'd turned it on and immersed herself in it.

She'd easily bypassed the password screen and could have accessed any number of personal files. But no, she'd opened the internet and had taken to installing software from who knew where.

"I'm upgrading the firewall on this computer," she said. "This computer's protection is from shit—any hacker could have his way with whatever's on here." Wenton nodded his head, not really understanding what she was talking about. Cara had been good with computers. She'd worked for the contractor that had done all the IT work at Thinkbox and that was where they'd met. He'd never understood computers. His technological saturation point had stopped at cell phones, circa 2004. He still had his flip and wasn't giving it up.

"What are you doing now?" he asked.

"You wouldn't understand if I told you." Cara had said that more than a few times over the years. Was she back?

"Could I… ask you something?"

"Yes."

He cleared his throat. The question he'd been wanting to ask for so long felt like it weighed a thousand pounds on his tongue. "What… happened?"

"Excuse me?"

"The day you… my wife… died?"

She stopped typing.

"What?"

"My wife… she died. You have her memories, right? I mean, you believe you're her."

She turned to him. "I… your wife…" She put her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold. Wenton came over and stroked her back the same way he'd done for Cara many times over when she was stressed about something.

"I've never thought about it," she finally said.

"Thought about what?"

"Who I am. What I am. I know things I've taken for granted, that I haven't thought about."

"You say that like you've had a lot of time to think."

"I have. Not in linear time, but since Jack pulled that memory strip out of me…"

"Yeah. What was that?"

"That's their back-up plan. If a veman has been installed with memories and gets out of hand, pulling that strip out is supposed to collapse certain neural pathways. Essentially, he was trying to lobotomize me."

"It didn't work."

Dead Right, ep XXIV

He took in a lungful of putrid air and stepped back to see it was looking at him. It had sunken-in blue eyes with grey-brown skin. Its lips had peeled back and couldn't cover its teeth. The face was gaunt. It looked like… like it was watching him.

Dell smiled. It smiled back. Even after they'd been discarded, most of them could parrot small tasks. Some brilliant engineer at Chrysler had the idea of retasking about forty or some of them into working an assembly line. The UAW had threatened to protest, but in the end didn't need to bother. The engineer was found on his front lawn in his bathrobe with a baker's dozen worth of bullet holes in him. Poor guy still was clutching onto his copy of the News.

Dell took a step back and waved. It waved back. He patted his head with one hand and rubbed his stomach with the other. It did the same. He was about to do an arm-flagging tap dance when it punched him in the mouth, knocking him down.

He had to have blanked out and while he was still seeing double he looked up to see them standing over him. They pointed their fingers at him (which melded together into one finger).

"There is no Guy LaTouche," it said in perfect English. Dell had heard them scream before. Had heard them wordlessly sing in-tune. He'd even heard them laugh. All parroting, of course. But he'd never heard one form a coherent word with more than one syllable. They didn't lack a hyoid bone—speech was just supposed to be beyond their limited brains.

"Nibor," Dell said. This had him written all over it. That and the fact the only ones who knew the name were Nibor. And they thought that was his brother.

Crap.

"Two of our minders have been critically injured and the man claiming to be LaTouche has disappeared. You will find and return our property, posthaste."

Dell shook his head, the punchline of an old joke coming to his mind.

"Well that's an awful big word, little girl," he said, struggling to his feet. It didn't try to hit him again, instead reaching to that ring in its neck.

"Midnight tonight," it said and ripped out the ring. A plastic strip about two feet long came out with it. The light went out of the thing's blue eyes and it turned away from Dell, continuing its path up the street.

Dell didn't bother following. He picked up the strip and folded it up before putting it in his pocket.

Nibor and Co. were up to more than he said. He needed to find his brother quick and find out what the hell he was up to. He would tap into some resources later, but for now he was reasonably certain he needed to get to Receiving. Dell was going to need stitches for his swollen lip.

Dead Right, ep XXIII

Dell had just gotten himself together when an assistant poked her head in. He clenched up, hoping she wasn't about to come in with two more assistants and punch him in the stomach.

"Oh, Mr. Glasser, you are still here." Dell did his best to stay as upright as possible. "There's a Mr. Nibor here for you?"

"Sure-sure." Dell held up a hand. "Uh, give me a moment and I'll be there in a moment." She nodded and left, leaving him to silently curse himself for repeating 'moment' like that. He couldn't really blame himself after the ordeal he'd just been through. It was all he could do to keep from throwing up while the assistant was standing there.

Speaking of which…

There was a trash can just to his right by the mayor's desk. Dell walked over to it, knelt, and hurled three good times. He felt better instantly.

He caught up to the assistant downstairs near the front entrance. She was looking around as if she were lost.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Glasser—he was here just a few minutes ago."

"That's fine, Ms. Davies." He hoped that was her name, but wasn't sure. "I'm just going to step outside for some air."

"Mr.—Mr. Glasser?"

"Yes?" he said, stopping midway to the door.

"You have a little… blood right—" she touched the corner of her lips. Dell swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and she nodded. He turned and turned back when she called him again. "Your shirt," she said, pointing down. He looked and saw one side untucked. Dell nodded and stuffed the errant shirt back down his pants.

He strode outside, breathing in the crisp autumn air. There was a veman on the sidewalk, shuffling aimlessly up the street. Dell wondered briefly how it had gotten here. The sun had already crested the horizon, making the partially cloudy sky a dull pink.

On a whim, he decided to get a closer look. If he were going to write the mayor's opinion on whether these things should be classified as citizens, he couldn't be afraid of them, could he? Besides, they couldn't really do anything. Back in those early days when the vemans were first created, there had been a handful that had become violent, but there were so many more docile ones everywhere people looked that only a fringe group of people still thought of them as dangerous.

Dell put a hand on its shoulder to stop its forward movement. It turned toward him, those dull eyes not rising above his waistline. He looked it up and down for what had been harvested from it, but it looked intact. The thing actually looked cleaner than most. The clothes were probably Salvation Army new—probably a couple good Christians had bought the thing something to wear. These things could literally walk around for years before they dropped over, twenty-four/seven, through rain, sleet, and snow. A great deal of them were partially nude. It wasn't dirty enough, either. Matter of fact, when Dell wet his thumb on his tongue and scrubbed at its cheek it didn't leave a clean spot.

So if somebody was taking care of it, why was it out here alone?

He examined it further and spotted some kind of ring at its neck. He stepped in closer to take a look. Dell had examined a lot of vemans, both ambulatory and not (he'd opened up a 'dead' one in a bio class while he was still in medical school) and had never seen such a thing.

Dead Right, ep XXII

Dell washed his hands after his nephew and was surprised to see the boy strip and turn on the shower. He stepped in and placed his palms on the wall, letting the water drum off the top of his head as he let it hang. It had looked very… adult.

Dell pulled away from the thoughts of earlier this morning and tried to focus on what the mayor was saying. Todd reminded him so much of what he and Wenton had gone through as children.

"…breakfast this morning and then I have that lunch with some of the members of SEMCOG. Then we can go for that jog at three, 'kay?"

"Uhh, yeah. Absolutely."

The mayor slapped him on the shoulder and he almost fell over. He had to have been fifty-plus, but he was still a substantial man. Six-foot three, probably two-thirty. "Buck up, kid. It's only five miles."

And then he was gone. The mayor had a way of dominating a room and when he was gone, it was like a vacuum. Even his absence was felt.

"'Scuse me, Dell?"

Dell turned around and saw one of the EPU officers leaning into the room. Robert, his name was.

"Can I talk to you a minute?"

"Yeah, sure."

The man was about Dell's height, but he had the swagger of a much larger man. Two other men built like pylons strolled in behind him and someone outside the room pulled the door closed.

Uh-oh.

Dell didn't try to run. They were blocking the exit. The two in back grabbed him by the arms.

"You must think this is funny." The short one punched him in the stomach. The wind sailed out of Dell, but he didn't make a sound. He looked left and right and noticed the other two guys were EPU as well. "You got what you owe?"

"Probably not." Dell honestly wasn't certain. The man rifled through his pockets and took out his wallet. He made a show of pulling out two crisp hundred dollar bills from his own inside jacket pocket and placing them in Dell's wallet.

"C'mon, man, don't do that."

"Your friend owns a little bit more of you now. Until you have what you owe to him—all of it—you will be his boy. Misters Benjamin say so." He dropped the wallet back into Dell's pocket. "Got it?"

Dell took as deep a breath as the knives in his belly would allow. He nodded. The short man did an about face and when he was about halfway to the door he snapped his fingers. The pylons let Dell go and his legs slowly folded beneath him as he sank to the ground.

He'd completely forgotten about that guy. What with this Nibor thing going on and not knowing what the hell his brother was up to, how was he going to do anything more?

Dead Right, ep XXI

"What did… what did you do?" he asked.

"Had… to," she said. She stumbled and Wenton jumped to catch her before she fell. His knees knocked together to hold her upright.

Dead weight, he thought, but it wasn't quite as funny as it should have been as he strained not to fall over.

"Tony, you should have gotten a report in your email." The mayor did his ties, standing in his office with his dress shirt untucked and no shoes on. For whatever reason he hadn't approved of Dell's first name and had taken to using a nickname of his middle, Anthony.

"Already perused it, Mr. Mayor," Dell said, holding a pair of cuff links. It wasn't even six in the morning and he was already here. Lucky for Dell, he'd remembered to call Gwen to tell her not to come over. The last thing he needed was her showing up with his brother and a veman there. Despite it being his job, the things gave her the creeps. Vemans—not brothers, that was.

Thanks to polyphasic sleep, Dell had plenty of time to consider exactly how deep in it he'd gotten himself. By making it his goal to not have to take care of his nephew, he'd managed to wind up taking care of his nephew. He had no clue how to take care of a three year old. What do they eat? What do they wear? What do they like to do?

Dell had raided the fridge and made some of everything. Wenton would have been surprised that his big brother had taught himself how to cook. It was for practical purposes, really. Hot chicks don't cook and dinner in was a good way to get in. By 4 AM, he'd made spaghetti, hamburgers, pizza and fried chicken. He'd found a lunch container on top of the fridge and used that to load up with a fruit cup, banana, yogurt, and some granola. Either the kid was going to eat hearty or everyone in the cafeteria was going to want to trade with him.

But there had still been an hour to kill even after he'd taken a thirty minute nap. How was he going to explain to the kid that Daddy was running around the city with a thing that had the memories of his dead mother?

Probably should leave that last part out, he'd thought.

Toddy had scared the hell out of him when he heard a tinkling noise coming from the bathroom. He realized his nephew was in there, taking a leak and turned the bathroom light on.

"'Morning, Toddy."

"G'morning."

Either he was still half sleep or it wasn't a big deal Daddy was gone. Dell found himself getting agitated for reasons he didn't want to figure out. Better to explain to the boy for himself to assuage the feeling going through him.

"Uh, Daddy had to go somewhere for work," Dell explained. "But he'll be back in a few days. But until then you can hang out with your Uncle Dell, okay?"

"M'kay." Todd flushed the toilet and mosied over to the sink. He'd left a little puddle by the toilet. Dell squeezed between his nephew and the cabinet and fished out the cleaner. He dabbed up the pee-pee with a paper towel and wiped the floor after giving it a few spritzes.