Mandy White's Blog: Dysfictional, page 13

As Bright As A Star In An Ancient Sky

One of my all-time favorite holiday stories!

Vampire Maman

As Bright As A Star In An Ancient Sky

The voice on the phone whispered, “Are you coming over today?”

Why Tellias always whispers on the phone I will never know.

“I’m on my way,” I said. “I’m stuck in the never-ending construction, but I’m on my way.”

“Good,” he said in a papery thin voice. “I have a lot to tell you.” Then he hung up.

A 2054 year old Vampire can have a lot to say, so I picked up a case of Poet’s Blood at Dave’s Bottle Shop.

When I arrived at the Queen Ann style farmhouse Tellias and Eleora were waiting for me on the front porch. Tellias was wearing tuxedo pants, a slate blue work shirt with the name Jose stitched on the pocket, and yellow flip flops. His pale blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Elena was wearing white Go-Go boots, a…

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Chernobyl Charlie

I’ve posted this story before, but it’s one of my favorites. For those who don’t know, I am involved with a talented group of writers known as WPaD, which stands for Writers, Poets, and Deviants. We collaborate on short story anthologies in various genres, and to date have published more than a dozen books. You can find WPaD books at most online retailers, including Amazon. The reason I’m telling you this is that we are currently compiling stories for an upcoming pet-themed anthology. This is one of the stories that will be in that book.

~*~ Chernobyl Charlie ~*~

The old man placed another log on the campfire.

“You kids ready for a story?”

“Yes!” Kylie and Joel chorused together.

Every summer, his daughter-in-law Laura brought the grandchildren on weekends for a backyard campout. The kids got to sleep in a tent and enjoy fireside stories, just like they’d done with their father. Since loss of her husband, a Marine, Laura tried to maintain a connection with his side of the family. The old man appreciated the effort she made. The kids enjoyed his stories and he enjoyed telling them, and boy, he had a lot of stories.

“Get comfortable, ‘cause tonight I got a great story for ya. This one’s about Chernobyl Charlie.”

“Wait!” Kylie ran to the tent to grab her blanket. She returned and nestled in her lawn chair with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “Okay, I’m comfortable now.”

Her brother rolled his eyes. “Ok, are you ready now? I want to hear the story.”

The old man began,

“There once was a boy, we’ll call him Nathan. This boy only wanted one thing for his entire life: a dog. He didn’t want anything else, not ever.

Every year, his parents would ask him what he wanted for Christmas or his birthday, and his answer was always the same:

‘I want a dog!’ he’d say.

And every time, the answer would be the same: ‘No’.

It wasn’t that his parents were mean, or didn’t want him to have a dog. It was just that they lived in an apartment, and weren’t allowed pets in the building, other than fish or birds. Birds gave him the creeps and goldfish just weren’t the same. Fish were boring. They just sat in a bowl. You couldn’t take them for a walk or pet them or play ball with them.

But one year, the year he turned twelve, Nathan’s life changed forever.

His father had started a new job a year ago, and was making more money. Enough money that they could finally buy a house. A whole house! With its own yard and everything! Most importantly, there was a fenced area for a dog! This year, when Nathan’s parents asked what he wanted for his birthday, the answer was yes. He could have a dog.

His mother agreed to the dog on one condition: they would adopt, not shop. No pet stores or fancy breeds; they would find a shelter dog that needed a home. Nathan was fine with that. Any dog would be a great dog, and he would love it with all his heart.

They registered with the SPCA and a bunch of other rescue groups, looking for a dog that would be a good fit for their family. One day, Nathan’s mother called him to look at something.

She was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open to some website.

Nathan took a look over his Mom’s shoulder to see what she was looking at. The screen had a picture of a group of dogs on it.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘There are puppies available for adoption, and you’ll never guess from where. Chernobyl!’ she told him.

‘Isn’t that place like, radioactive or something?’ he said.

His mother explained, ‘According to this, hundreds of dogs roam the woods in the exclusion zone near Chernobyl. They are the descendants of pets that were left behind in the evacuation. Some of the puppies are being brought to the U.S. for adoption. The adoptions will be done through the SPCA, and we’re already registered with them. We can ask to be put on a wait list for one of these puppies if you want.’

It sounded pretty cool, but Nathan had some concerns. He asked his mom, ‘Is that even safe? Like are they mutants or anything?’

‘No, not at all,’ she told him, ‘Many of the dogs are perfectly healthy. No radiation sickness, and they are carefully vetted before they are put up for adoption.’

Nathan was sold. ‘Cool! I want a radioactive puppy!’

‘And if we don’t get one, we will find another shelter pup that needs us, agreed?’ his mom said.

‘Okay!’ Nathan said.”

“What happened that they had to evacuate, Grandpa?” Kylie asked.

“It was a meltdown!” Joel said. “We learned about it in school. Some kind of power plant in Russia. It went nuclear. Like, psssh!” He made a sound that mimicked an explosion and motioned with his hands.

“Well, it didn’t actually blow up, but it was really bad. It happened back in the eighties. They used some pretty dangerous stuff to make electricity in the old days. The power plant at Chernobyl had a bad accident. All the land around it became poisoned from radiation, and the people had to evacuate. The place is still deserted today. You can see pictures on the internet of all the empty buildings. There’s even a deserted amusement park. And nobody can go there even now, because it’s still radioactive.”

“But what about all the animals?” Kylie asked.

“A lot of them got left behind to fend for themselves. Some died, and some just went wild. There was still a working power plant there, thirty years later. And the workers started feeding some of the wild dogs that were running around. And, as dogs do, some of them became friendly again. Eventually, some rescue organizations got wind of it and started to capture the dogs. The wilder ones got checked by vets, fixed so they couldn’t have any more puppies, and then set free again. And they started catching the puppies and finding homes for them.”

The old man took a sip of his coffee, which had gotten cold, and continued the story.

“June twenty-fifth was a date Nathan never forgot, because it was the happiest day of his life. School was out for the summer, but most importantly, the time had come to bring home the new puppy. Surprisingly, their application for a Chernobyl pup had been accepted and they were minutes away from meeting their new family member. Nathan and his mother paced the waiting room of the SPCA, too excited to sit down.

They didn’t know much about the puppy, other than it was a male, approximately four months old, and would grow to be a medium to large-sized dog. The breed was anyone’s guess, but it was said that some of the wild dogs had been running in wolf packs, so the puppy might even have had some wolf in it.

A woman came from the back room, holding a wriggling bundle of black-and-white fur in her arms. When the puppy saw the new people, he squirmed away from the woman. He ran to Nathan, slipping and sliding on the floor on huge, clumsy feet. The puppy whined and wagged his tail so hard his whole body wagged. He licked Nathan’s face, covering it with dog slobber, but Nathan didn’t mind.

‘I’m going to call you Charlie, and we’re going to be best friends!’ he told the dog.”

“Oh!” Kylie squealed. “Just like –”

“Will you shut up and stop interrupting!” her brother said.

“That’s ok. She’s just excited. Right sweetie?” The old man gave Kylie a knowing wink.

“Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. Charlie. He named the dog Charlie, and they were the best of friends from that day forward. They were inseparable.

To most people, Charlie seemed like an average puppy; he liked to chew, had boundless energy and loved Nathan more than life itself. As far as Nathan was concerned, Charlie was exceptional. He was bright and obedient, and easy to train.

Charlie loved to fetch, and his favorite toy was the Frisbee. After he had shredded several regular Frisbees, Nathan bought him a special chew-proof one designed for dogs. Every day they walked to the dog park, rain or shine, to play fetch. Charlie didn’t really need a leash, but Nathan put one on him to and from the dog park to keep the neighbors happy.

One particularly blustery autumn day, Nathan threw the Frisbee and a gust of wind caught it, sending it sailing over the fence and onto the busy street next to the park. Charlie was in hot pursuit. Without missing a beat, he leaped over the fence – a six-foot-high chain link fence it was – and dashed into the traffic. Nathan didn’t have time to wow over the amazing feat of fence-jumping he’d just witnessed – he had to get his dog.

He dashed through the gate, shouting, ‘Charlie! Stop!’ but Charlie was on a mission.

Nathan was too late. The driver of the truck couldn’t possibly have stopped in time, even if he had seen Charlie.

It happened in slow motion, to Nathan’s eyes. The big eighteen-wheeler mowed Charlie down and ran over him, first with the front wheel, and then both sets of wheels on the trailer. He watched in horror as Charlie was flung like a rag doll from one set of dual wheels into the path of the second set.”

“No!” Kylie cried. “You didn’t tell us he was going to die! I don’t like this story.” She looked like she was going to cry.

“Shh! Don’t interrupt!” Joel hissed.

“Don’t worry, it gets better,” the old man assured her.

“Anyhow, there Charlie was, lying in the road, just a limp bundle of black-and-white fur. Nathan’s knees felt weak. He wanted to collapse, but he willed himself to stay standing. He wasn’t going to leave Charlie out there in the traffic, even though he knew it was too late to save him. Tears streaming down his face, Nathan ran toward the scene of the worst horror imaginable.

He reached the edge of the road, and then the unthinkable happened.

Charlie stood up, shook himself off, and walked over to pick up the Frisbee from the street. He trotted happily over to Nathan, holding his head high in the air all proud-like. All he cared about was that he’d gotten the Frisbee. He knew he was a good boy.

Nathan checked him over, and he looked fine. Not a scratch on him, just black marks on the white part of his fur from the rubber tires. He rushed home to tell his parents, but they didn’t believe him. They thought he was exaggerating, but they brought Charlie to the vet just in case.

Dr. Michaels found nothing wrong with him. No injuries of any kind. She explained to Nathan in a condescending way that the wheels of the truck had missed Charlie when the truck passed over him.

‘But what about those black marks in his fur?’ Nathan said. ‘That’s rubber from the tires. I saw the tires run over him.’

“That’s probably grease from the underside of the truck,’ Dr Michaels said. ‘See? That reinforces what I was telling you. The truck straddled him. The tires missed him. He’s one lucky dog.’

Nathan didn’t argue further, but he knew what he’d seen. The most important thing was, his best friend was okay.

Fall turned into winter. Charlie loved the snow as much as he loved everything else. He found fun in everything he did. He learned to ride a toboggan and tried to fetch snowballs. He discovered hockey, which Nathan and his friends played on the frozen pond. Charlie was an excellent goalie.

One day in the middle of a game, they heard screams. Nathan and his friends rushed to help, with Charlie racing alongside.

A crowd of kids were gathered around, and it turned out a small child had fallen into an ice fishing hole. Usually they’ll put some kind of barrier or safety cones to let skaters know there’s a hole, you know. But this jerk, whoever the fisherman was, had just left an open hole there.

The little boy had been skating with his mother. She had already called 911, but time was running out. The poor woman was in hysterics.

Nobody could reach the kid; the hole was too small and the kid had sunk too deep. By the time someone got there with something to cut the hole bigger, it would be too late. That little boy was a goner.

Charlie pushed through the crowd and slithered into the hole like an eel. Nathan wouldn’t have believed the dog would fit, but he did. But how was he going to get out? Now they had lost Charlie as well. Nathan peered into the depths of the hole, trying to get a glimpse of Charlie or the little boy, but saw only blackness. Minute after agonizing minute passed.

They heard sirens in the distance, but Nathan knew help wouldn’t get there in time.

There was still no sign of Charlie. More than five minutes had passed since he dove through the hole in the ice. Nathan started to think that this time Charlie wouldn’t be so lucky.

And then, he saw a glow under the water. The light grew brighter, and then Charlie surfaced, holding the collar of the little boy’s jacket in his teeth. The boys pulled the child out of the water and passed him to his mother.

Nathan helped Charlie climb out of the hole. The dog shook the water from his fur nonchalantly, as though he had just taken a fun little swim.

Nathan hugged him tight and told him what a good boy he was.

The paramedics arrived and performed CPR on the little boy and wrapped him in blankets, then carried him to the ambulance.

The boy survived, thanks to Chernobyl Charlie.

And then there was the time when Nathan was sixteen, and he took a camping trip with a few of his friends. And Charlie, of course. Charlie was a great camping buddy because he was also a night light. You see, he glowed with a soft greenish light when he was happy. All it took was a belly rub or a scratch behind the ears to turn the light on. Or telling him he was a good boy; that worked too.

So, on this camping trip, the boys hiked a ways into the wilderness, to a spot beside a nice little lake. They planned stay a couple of days and do some fishing. The first day, they caught a nice bunch of trout. They cooked a few over the fire for dinner, and packed the rest in ice in the cooler.

Well, it turned out, a bear had caught the scent of their fish. Late at night after the campfire had died down, the bear came into the camp to steal the fish. It was a big bear, too. A Grizzly. The boys had hung all their food in a tree, the way you’re supposed to when you’re camping, but this bear was determined. Mr. Grizzly smelled that food and wasn’t leaving until he found it.”

Kylie shivered and pulled the blanket more tightly around her. “This is scary.” She glanced over at the tent, where she and her brother would be sleeping that night.

“Don’t be a fraidy-cat. There aren’t any Grizzlies around here. Right Grandpa?” Joel said.

“Right. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe. I promise there are no Grizzlies here. Remember, the boys were high in the mountains, out in the wilderness.”

“What happened next?” Kylie asked.

“Well, the boys woke to the sound of the bear rampaging through the camp. And I’m not gonna lie, they were plenty scared. They had hung up the food, but not all of it. They had snack foods in the tent with them. A bear’s nose is sensitive enough to detect even a small amount of food. They didn’t have anything to use as a weapon. All they had was an axe, and it was beside the fire.

Charlie started growling. Nathan tried to shush him, but he wanted out of that tent something awful. He started tearing at the door of the tent until he found an opening in the zipper and forced his way through. He charged at the bear, barking and snarling like he’d lost his mind.

He chased the bear away from camp, and in the distance the boys could hear the sounds of a horrible fight – snarls, roars, branches breaking. Once again, Nathan thought his dog was done for.

A while later, Charlie returned. He was covered in blood but otherwise just fine. The boys were pretty shook up. They cut their trip short, packed up the camp and left as soon as it got light. On the hike back, they came across a gruesome sight on the trail. The remains of a large Grizzly bear. The bear had been ripped to shreds. Like it had gone through a meat grinder or something. One of the boys commented how lucky they were that the marauding bear had killed another bear instead of them.

Nathan knew that the bear hadn’t been killed by another bear.

Chernobyl Charlie just panted and smiled. He knew he was a good boy.”

“Time for bed, kids! Say goodnight to Grandpa!” Laura had joined them sometime during the part about the bear.

“But Mom! He’s not done the story yet!”

“I’m done for tonight. We’ll tell more stories about Chernobyl Charlie tomorrow.”

“Give Grandpa a hug.”

Kylie and Joel hugged their grandfather.

“Goodnight, Grandpa. Thanks for the story,” Joel said.

“What happened to Charlie? Like, did he live with Nathan forever?” Kylie asked.

“Well, you know, sweetie, dogs don’t live as long as we do, but I’m sure he had a good long life. Charlie was pretty special.”

After the children were tucked into their sleeping bags, Laura returned and sat next to the fire.

“You know, Nate, I wish you wouldn’t tell them scary stories before bed. Grizzly bears? Can’t you make up something a little, I don’t know… nicer?”

“What’s nicer than a dog that saves the day? Besides, it’s all true.”

“I mean, I know you believe it’s true, but seriously. It’s pretty far-fetched.”

“I promise I’ll tell them a ‘nice’ story next time, ok?”

“OK. Thank you.” She stood and gave him a hug. “You’re a good grandfather. I appreciate all you do for them.” With that she went into the house.

“Don’t mind her, Charlie,” Nate said to the old black-and-white dog that lay at his feet. “I know how special you are.”

Charlie thumped his tail on the ground and a soft greenish glow emanated from his body. He knew he was a good boy.

Copyright © 2018 Mandy White

Previously published in Dysfictional 3: Down the Psycho Path

Avery’s Legacy

~ Photo by Mandy White ~ Clearcut at McClure Mainline, Vancouver Island, Canada ~

Our family tolerated Uncle Avery’s eccentricities, given his service record, but secretly they considered him to be the family nutjob – just another crazy old pothead veteran. Most of my relatives only listened half-heartedly when Avery talked, but I found his stories entertaining. Avery was great company beside a campfire. Many a night I sat, riveted by his often graphic accounts of his many brushes with death during his time as a military pilot in the Middle East. As time passed, Avery’s tales veered away from war stories toward current events, which morphed into apocalyptic and inevitably to conspiracy theories.

He was convinced that “The Big One” was coming any day. He claimed to have seen all the signs: flocks of birds; unusual clouds; numbers in the subway that matched the birthdates of members of our family; all indications (to him) that a major earthquake was imminent. When The Big One hit, he told us, the West coast would be wiped out by a tsunami (which he pronounced trez-nommy), the interior of North America would become waterfront, and Vancouver Island (where I lived) would sink into the ocean. My attempts to explain to him that the island was in fact a mountain, securely anchored to the ocean floor, fell on deaf ears. Uncle Avery would just shake his head, light up another joint and tsk-tsk in pity at my ignorance of the facts as he saw them.

Y2K had Avery practically salivating. He spent the better part of the nineties warning anyone who would listen, of the chaos to come. The banks would go bankrupt and everyone’s money would disappear, he said. Anyone with any sense should withdraw all their funds from banks and carry cash, or better yet, buy gold, because even cash would soon be worthless and society would revert back to the old ways. All electronics would malfunction; Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive wasn’t fiction, but a warning of things to come. Cars would no longer run, except to run down every human in their path. Even seemingly benign items like toasters would suddenly achieve sentience and attack their owners. As much as I enjoyed ol’ Avery’s tales, even I drew the line at killer toasters. He seemed almost disappointed when the world didn’t end on January 1, 2000.

I was glad, in a way, that he didn’t live to see the post-millenium rise of social media. He would surely have been swept up in the tsunami (trez-nommy)of fake news and conspiracy theories that would soon dominate the lives of the weak-minded.

Climate change and deforestation were among his favorite topics (next to aliens and natural disasters, of course). He would gesticulate wildly at the tree-covered mountains around us as he ranted that there were no trees left. None. Not a single one, despite clear evidence to the contrary. The trees – he explained – were sophisticated holographic images projected to hide a barren, clear-cut landscape. Reforestation wasn’t happening; that was just another lie told by the government to appease the public. He had the solution, he told me, and one day they would all see the truth.

Avery did his part to protect the (supposedly nonexistent) forests by signing up to fight forest fires. I wondered if he saw the massive hole in his theory by the fact that the very trees he was flying his water bomber over, that were ablaze with very real flames, were the same ones he insisted were mere holograms. Avery lost his job as a firefighter pilot after just two seasons, due to navigational discrepancies. He was reprimanded for flying off-course several times before he was finally dismissed.

Avery let me in on his secret, and I never betrayed his confidence. Nobody would have believed me anyway. His “solution” to deforestation was almost as outrageous as the idea of holographic forests.

In the end, Avery wasn’t taken out by climate change or earthquake or alien invasion, but ironically, a tragic fire. On the threshold of homelessness, he had been living in an old Winnebago in a low-rent trailer park. According to the fire department, a propane leak sparked by the flick of a cigarette lighter found in his charred hand (to light a joint, no doubt) was the cause of the fire.

I kept Avery’s secret, but curiosity drove me to see if his solution had borne any fruit, so to speak. So, in late August of the year he died, I took a trip to the mountains. Using the coordinates Avery had given me, I followed a dusty, washboard-surfaced gravel road, which narrowed to a single lane at times. Upward I climbed, the road snaking back and forth up the side of the mountain. No guard rails, just the sheer face of the mountain on one side and the dizzying sight of the ever-deepening valley below on the other. When I reached the top I stopped, shouldered my backpack and checked my compass.

I followed a trail that led into a stand of (very real) trees. As I hiked, I reflected on Uncle Avery’s life and what would hopefully be his legacy. It was a crazy plan, but Avery had the tools to pull it off. Avery believed that the only way to reverse the damage done by excessive logging was to not wait years for replanted trees to grow, but to seed the clearcuts with something that would grow quickly and prolifically; to produce oxygen and prevent soil erosion.

I emerged from the treeline on the opposite side and my jaw dropped in wonder. A magical green valley stretched before me. Taller than my head, branches thickening with buds amid thin, serrated leaves. They were magnificent.

Avery’s idea to use his firefighting plane to dump loads of water mixed with fertilizer and germinated cannabis seeds wasn’t as crazy as I’d thought.

Copyright © 2021 Mandy White

Happy Halloween!

I dropped the ball this year, I admit it. I wanted to have a fresh, new and hopefully horrifying tale to share with you on my favorite day of the year, but with my recent move and all the upheaval it brought, the writing just hasn’t flowed. So I will share with you one of my earlier stories, which begins in a Halloween setting.

RUBY IN THE MIST was published in WPaD’s first Creepies anthology as well as in my first volume of DysFictional.

RUBY IN THE MIST

I know it sounds cliché but it was Halloween night when my neighbor Roy told me his story about the girl in the mist. We were sitting at my kitchen table having a few cold beers, talking about things that go bump in the night and other topics appropriate for that particular eve. We eventually reached the subject of local folklore. Our little town had ghost stories aplenty.

Honeymoon Bay was formed in the late 1800s by pioneers, mostly loggers and later mill workers as the town grew and industry gained a foothold. During the mid-twentieth century, a sawmill dominated the tiny village. The reason I included this somewhat dry bit of trivia is that it has relevance to the story that follows.

At one time, the main road through town was nothing more than a narrow dirt path through the forest. It was there on that main road that Roy claimed to have seen the little girl on more than one occasion.

“She’s always running,” he explained, pausing to take a deep drag from his cigarette, one of many that he had bummed from me over the course of the evening. As I watched my tobacco supply dwindle I once again considered the wisdom of just quitting the habit altogether. Definitely on my to-do list, but not that night.

Roy looked directly into my eyes. “I don’t know what she’s running from but I don’t like it,” he said. “She scares the fuck outta me. She has this… this darkness about her even though you can tell she’s shit-scared. I don’t wanna see what’s chasing her to make her that afraid.”

“Where does she go?” I leaned forward to help myself to one of my own smokes from the package that seemed to have migrated over next to Roy’s elbow.

“I don’t know. She just kinda vanishes, y’know? Like into thin air or something. It’s like she comes straight at me, all lookin’ like she’s screamin’ or something. She passes right through me, I think, then I turn to see where she went and she’s gone.”

“I see. And you want me to see if I can sense anything?”

“Um, yeah.”

I crushed my smoke into the overflowing ashtray before taking a deep breath, then rubbing my palms together, mostly for dramatic effect; it didn’t actually do anything besides set the mood. I had a few beers under my belt so I thought it would be fun to play up the mystic act a little.

“Give me your hand. But don’t get any funny ideas, ya perv.”

Roy laughed nervously. We had known each other for more than five years, ever since I moved into the little house next to the park, one street over from where Roy lived. I knew he was attracted to me but he knew he wasn’t my type and that it was never going to happen. He passed me his left hand and I grasped it firmly before closing my eyes.

A kaleidoscope of images flashed through my mind’s eye, like book pages rapidly flipped. I saw Roy as a boy; then as a teenager, standing next to his mother’s deathbed; then older, masturbating to a photo of a woman I hoped wasn’t me. Finally I saw the object of my search and slowed the flipping of the pages until I arrived at the scene.

Roy stood at the side of the main road. It was night and he was most likely walking home from the local pub. Watching through his eyes, I saw the apparition. It was a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, wearing what appeared to be an old-fashioned dress. She came running out of a thick mist, which hadn’t been present a moment ago. Her face was unclear in the darkness; all I could make out were the two dark shadows where her eyes were and her gaping mouth, stretched wide in a silent scream. She ran as if the Devil himself was chasing her. She looked over her shoulder, presumably at whatever pursued her and lost her footing, nearly falling. She managed to recover in the nick of time and continued to run full speed past Roy, so close that she did almost appear to pass through him. It was easy to see where he got that impression.

I whirled, watching through my own mind’s eye now, trying to keep sight of her to watch where she went next. To my surprise, she made a sharp right turn up the street on the opposite side of the park from where I lived. She stopped at the first house and began pounding her fists frantically on the door. When nobody answered, she ran to the next house, then the next, hammering on one door after another but finding none who would answer. When the little girl reached the last house on the street, once again finding her knock to be futile she turned abruptly and ran into the park, vanishing in the center of the basketball court.

I released Roy’s hand and opened my eyes. He released a shuddering sigh.

“Phew!” he whistled softly, “Did you see that shit?”

“Yes. Did you see the rest of it? Where she went?”

“No! You saw?”

“I did.”

“Where does she go?”

I described to Roy what I had seen; the girl’s panicked attempts to find a door with someone behind it, finishing with her disappearance in the center of the basketball court.

He rubbed his grizzled chin thoughtfully with one hand as the other reached once again for my cigarette pack.

“Well,” he began after lighting up, “That’s a funny thing there. That court was actually built over top of the foundation of the old schoolhouse.”

“Really? The school was originally in that spot?” That was interesting. I got up and grabbed two more cans of Budweiser out of the fridge and handed one to Roy while he continued.

“Yup. One of those old one-room schools that doubled as a church on Sundays. When the town got bigger, the church got its own building and they built that school up behind the community hall. The old one sat abandoned for years. Rumor has it some kid died playing in there so they tore it down because it was unsafe or something.”

The gears were turning in my mind; filling my head with questions I didn’t dare voice. I wanted to investigate further but had to do it alone.

I stifled a false yawn.

“Well, this really has been a fun night and what a fascinating story! But I think I’m ready to turn in. Doing the psychic thing really takes a lot out of me.”

“Gotcha!” Roy reached toward my almost-empty cigarette package one more time. “Mind if I have one for the road?”

“Sure, take the rest of the pack so you have a couple for later. Next time you’re buying.”

I let Roy out the front door and waited until he had turned the corner toward his own street. I turned off all the lights in the house to make it appear as if I had gone to bed, then put on my shoes and grabbed my winter jacket to guard against the frosty October night. I checked the clock on my way out the door and saw that ironically, it was nearly midnight. This night was turning out to be one cliché after another. As a practicing psychic, I was well aware that the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest near midnight on All Hallow’s Eve. The timing couldn’t have been more ideal. I slipped quietly out my front door, which faced the park and the basketball court Roy and I had just finished discussing.

A delicate mist floated just above ground level, transforming the picturesque park into an eerie wasteland, the brightly painted playground equipment into ancient skeletal ruins. The eerie mood didn’t faze me in the least. Eerie was my business.

I sat quietly on a nearby picnic table, facing the basketball court. I closed my eyes to shut out all distractions and waited for an impression to come. There was nothing at first. Then I heard something. It was a rhythmic thumping sound, faint at first, then rising to a more distinct beat. Another sound began to accompany the pounding; a high-pitched wail that I soon recognized as a child’s voice. A few words became discernible in between the mournful wails:

“Help! Help me! Somebody! Heeelllp!”

Goosebumps prickled the flesh of my arms in spite of the heavy jacket that covered them.

In my mind’s eye, I was no longer sitting in the park beside the basketball court. I was inside the room from which the noise originated. It was an old building; dust-covered and draped in cobwebs. A shaft of daylight shone through the broken pane of a small window, set high in the wall of the building. The rest of the windows were securely boarded up, keeping the rest of the room in shadows. Seats similar to church pews had once been arranged in two neat rows but many of them were now overturned and shoved helter-skelter against the walls.

BAM! BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

I jumped and turned toward the sound and found myself facing the front door of the building. The door and the walls surrounding it were covered in rust-covered stains, some of which could distinctly be identified as handprints. On closer inspection I noticed that some of the marks were redder, fresher. Some of them were still wet. It looked as though the prints had not been made all at once but been added to over a period of… hours? Days? Weeks? It was impossible to tell.

“HELLLP ME! PLEASE!” The girl’s wail tore through me like a dagger. It sounded like she was right in front of me. I homed in on the sound of her voice and struggled to maintain my focus in the midst of the heart-wrenching scene.

The space in front of the door shimmered for a moment, then a human form took shape. I watched as a little girl with long dark hair appeared, translucent at first, then solidifying just as if she was real and not merely an apparition.

She paced back and forth in front of the door with uneven, lurching steps, pounding the palms of her hands against the bloodstained wood. One of her ankles was broken; twisted at a grotesque angle yet she continued to walk on it, half lifting, half dragging the injured limb. Her hands were red, covered in blood both fresh and old from being beaten to a raw pulp from her relentless attacks on the door and the wood that framed it.

I put up mental shields to protect myself emotionally from the devastating spectacle I was witnessing – a tactic taught to me by my mentor, a well-respected police psychic.

The girl’s frantic but fruitless struggle to escape was tragic but I knew there was nothing I could do except watch. My clairvoyant abilities allowed me to witness past events but I was helpless to intervene as much as I wished I could have. God knows I wanted to help her but I was a mere observer, bearing witness to an event that had never before been seen by anyone except for the child who had experienced it.

The little girl lurched and pounded, her hands reduced to little more than bloody claws and her desperate wails heard by no one. I flinched when she changed her routine and began beating her head – her face – against the door, either in frustration or because her hands were simply too sore and raw to strike another blow.

Suddenly she froze. She whirled around and faced me, covering the distance between us in an instant until we were only inches apart. I recoiled from the sight of her purple-bruised face, blackened eyes and inky, dilated pupils. She glared at me with a seething rage that I felt to the core of my being in spite of my mental shields.

“WHY WON’T YOU HELP ME?” she shrieked.

My eyes flew open and immediately I was back in the park, still sitting atop the picnic table facing the nets. Pulse racing and hands shaking, I wished I hadn’t given Roy the last of my smokes. I took several long, slow cleansing breaths to clear my aura of the intense emotional energy I had just absorbed.

She had seen me.

That had never happened before. I was an observer, not a medium. Channeling spirits was not part of my routine and as far as I knew, not an ability I possessed. Never before had any of the apparitions I observed ever interacted with me as I watched.

She had seen me, and she had spoken to me as though I had been right there in that room with her. I’d also gotten a glimpse of her name. The initials were R.T. but I couldn’t quite get what they represented. Renee Tucker was the closest I could come up with but I knew that wasn’t it. Close, but not quite right.

* * *

The plight of the little girl intrigued me but for some reason I didn’t try to get any more impressions of her. In fact, I avoided the main road and the park at night and even refused to look out of the front windows of my house after dark. Sometimes when I was asleep, I heard her pounding and wailing in my dreams, then that horrible bruised face with the blackened eyes would appear, launching me back into wakefulness with a scream caught in my throat. Over time, the dreams faded and I began to make peace with what I had seen and it seemed my life would return to normal. That was, until I learned the rest of the story.

I was browsing through a box of used books at a local garage sale when a title caught my eye: A History of Honeymoon Bay. It was spiral-bound, with a simple cover; a self-published work written by a local woman named Edith Watts. Edith had died several years previously at the tender age of 96 if I recalled her obituary correctly. She was born and raised in Honeymoon Bay and had probably known more about the town’s history than anyone alive. I had no idea she’d actually recorded all of that knowledge in a book. I paid the asking price of fifty cents for my new treasure with the intention of doing some light reading and learning a bit about the town I called home.

I was less than halfway through the book when a particular chapter practically leapt from the page. It was a story about a little boy and girl – brother and sister – who were chased by a cougar. The little boy was just six and his sister eight years old. Their names were Kenneth and Ruby Thatcher. Renee Tucker… Ruby Thatcher. I had been so close! I read on, a knot growing in my gut in anticipation of what I thought was to come.

It happened in the mid-1930’s when most of the road was still a dirt path. The children were picking berries some distance from the village when a mountain lion leapt onto the path with the intention of making a child its next meal.

The children fled for their lives, toward the safety of the village. Being older, the girl ran faster than her brother and in her panic she left him behind. She ran and ran, screaming at the top of her voice, but never made it home. Somewhere near the town site she vanished without a trace. As it turned out, the boy managed to make it home alive several hours later, having hidden in some bushes while the cat pursued his sister. Three weeks passed and everyone gave Ruby up for dead, assuming that she had been carried off and eaten by the deadly predator.

It was around this time that some local boys decided to claim the old schoolhouse as their clubhouse. They pried the boards off of one of the windows and climbed inside, unprepared for what waited within.

Ruby Thatcher was still alive, but just barely. She was starved and dehydrated. Her hands were reduced to blood-crusted claws, flesh worn to the bone in places from relentlessly clawing at the door. Her ankle was shattered, with bones protruding through the flesh.

After inspecting the scene, the townspeople managed to piece together what had happened. Ruby had gained entrance to the old schoolhouse by climbing a tree next to the building and squeezing through the tiny window near the peak of the building. She must have believed she would be safe from the cougar once inside and in her panic, jumped from the window down to the floor without considering the height of the drop or how she would get back out of the building. She broke her ankle when she landed, then discovered that she was trapped.

Terrified and in horrific pain, she must have beaten on the heavy wooden door day and night, screaming for help until her voice was no more. The only explanation they could come up with as to why no one had heard her was that the noise from the nearby sawmill – which ran day and night at that time – must have drowned out her cries. Nobody was looking for her because they had already mourned her loss, assuming she had become cougar bait three weeks earlier.

Ruby survived but was never the same as she was before the ordeal. Her family decided she needed special care and sent her away to Riverview Hospital, a mental institution in Vancouver.

I gasped aloud when I read the name of the person the author had interviewed to get the full story. Kenneth Thatcher – Ruby’s little brother. As of the writing of the book, both he and his sister were still alive. The publication date was 1998 – not all that long ago. It was possible he might still be alive, in his mid-eighties.

I didn’t know why I felt compelled to look him up. I needed to know if he was still alive. I wanted to know how the story ended – what had become of Ruby?

After a brief search, I found him, or at least a name I thought was his. Kenneth J Thatcher lived in Victoria, just a two-hour drive from where I was. I called him and sure enough, he was the same Kenneth who had once fled from a cougar with his sister Ruby. I explained that I was researching the story for an article and was hoping for an opportunity to interview him. To my surprise, he was happy to oblige and invited me to come for a visit the next day.

On the drive to Victoria, I couldn’t get Ruby out of my mind. Did she ever recover and lead a normal life? How did she die? Did I dare ask Kenneth any of those questions?

Kenneth lived in a senior citizens’ assisted living facility located across the street from one of the local hospitals. It was a nice place – not exactly a rest home but an apartment complex, which allowed residents to have full independence while still having help nearby if they needed it. He was an amicable man and I liked him immediately.

As Kenneth heated the kettle to make some tea, I explained to him that I was also a psychic and that a quick reading could speed up the interview and help me understand the details of his story more clearly.

“Well, sure, if you want to,” he laughed good-naturedly, “But I have all the time in the world, so no need to rush if you want to stay and chat.”

I sensed that he didn’t get many visitors and welcomed the company. I smiled to reassure him.

“Of course. I’d love to stay and chat.”

Once he was comfortably seated across the small kitchen table, I offered my hand to him.

“May I?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

I closed my eyes and allowed the book-page images to flash past but not for long. The scene I was searching for was right at the beginning of the book, when he was only six years old.

Through Kenneth’s eyes I saw Ruby, smiling and talking as she filled her pail with blackberries from the heavily laden vines.

“Stop dawdling, Kenny! It’s going to be dark soon and you haven’t even half filled your pail. Mine is almost full.”

“I can’t go fast!” Kenny whined, “The thorns hurt my fingers.”

Ruby gave him an exasperated sigh. “Your slowness will be the death of you one day.” She froze the moment she finished the sentence. “Run,” she whispered.

“What?” Kenny said loudly, “I din’ hear you.”

Ruby grabbed his arm roughly and thrust him toward the path leading home. “RUN!” she screamed.

Kenny chanced a quick look backward as he began to run and saw his sister fling her berry bucket at a large yellow cat. The pail made a ‘BONG’ noise as it bounced off the animal’s head. Kenny ran.

He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him but his sister soon ran past and disappeared down the trail ahead of him. He wanted to call out to her to wait, but he was breathless from fear and exertion. He couldn’t keep up the pace much longer. His legs felt weak and he had already begun to slow. He dove as far as he could into the blackberry thicket that lined the trail. Maybe he could hide in there and it wouldn’t see him. His skin stung as the sharp thorns ripped and tore. He was convinced that teeth and claws were shredding him as the cat devoured him alive. He wet his pants and curled up into a tiny ball, sobbing and waiting for the end.

The end didn’t come. After a while he cautiously opened his eyes and saw nothing but blackberry bushes and heard nothing but the usual late-summer sounds – birds chirping and insects buzzing. It would be sunset soon and already the forest was beginning to darken. He didn’t want to be out there in the dark so he untangled himself from the prickly vines and ran the rest of the way back to the village. He was covered in scratches and caked in blood but otherwise unhurt.

That was when he learned that his sister hadn’t made it home.

I released his hand. “Thank you for allowing me to do that,” I said, “I saw it all – the cat, and your escape.”

“Really?” he asked, seeming surprised. “You actually saw it? You’re the real deal, then, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so,” I replied, “Can I ask you, what happened to your sister?”

“Well,” he paused for a sip of tea. “I suppose it’s just as easy for you to ask her yourself as have me tell it to you. Given that little talent of yours.”

“Wait – you mean she’s still alive?”

“Still alive and kicking at 88. That’s why I picked this place to live. No one in his right mind would want to live across from a damn hospital unless he had a good reason.” He stood. “Would you like to meet her?”

We left the apartment complex and its cheery garden surroundings and crossed the street to the hospital. We passed the main entrance and followed a path that led away from the main building to another wing set away toward the rear. It was surrounded by a fence, and Kenneth entered a code on the keypad to open the gate. He entered a code once again to gain entry to the building. The woman at the front nursing station waved hello to him and buzzed us in through a set of security doors. After winding through a maze of hallways we reached another nursing station, received another greeting from the orderly at the desk and were buzzed through another set of doors.

“Here at Ferndale,” Kenneth explained, “They are equipped to provide long-term care for people who need it. Their primary focus is on therapy and rehabilitation but for some people, the only treatment is… maintenance. Like my sister.” He shook his head sadly. “There are some who just never make it back.”

We reached another set of doors, which were unlocked, and Kenneth held one open for me. “She’s been getting weaker lately,” he explained. “It’s her heart, you know. You may think I’m a ghoul, but it will be a blessing when she finally does pass on. She has suffered so much and continues to suffer each day, I’m sure.” We paused outside a room numbered 312. Beside the heavy-looking metal door was yet another keypad to enter a code. “Are you ready?” he asked, finger poised over the keys.

“Yes.”

“If you want, you may touch her and do your… thing. She can tell you her story better than I can.” He punched in the code once more and we entered the room.

Ruby lay in a hospital bed, situated next to the barred window and adjusted so that she was almost sitting upright and could see outside. The first thing I noticed was the leather restraints she wore around her wrists. The second thing I noticed was the stump of her right leg. The broken ankle. I wondered if the untended injury had become infected and turned gangrene.

Kenneth greeted her with a kiss on her cheek. “Hi Ruby,” he said softly, “How are you feeling today?”

“Who are you?” she asked him.

“It’s me, Kenny,” he said patiently, “I’m your brother.

“No you’re not. Kenny died.”

He crossed the room back to where I stood, lingering near the door. “This is what it’s like every time I see her. Has been ever since… well, ever. I keep hoping that one day she’ll snap out of it and realize that I’m alive; so that she can die knowing I survived.”

He turned to me. “I don’t suppose you can… communicate with her somehow? Pass her a message, maybe – tell her that I’m alive and that I’m here?”

I shook my head sadly. “I’m sorry, but no. My abilities don’t work that way. I can receive information but not give it.”

He nodded toward Ruby. “Well, go on, then. This is what you came here for.”

I tentatively approached the bed, then hesitated before reaching for Ruby’s hand. I looked back at Kenneth for confirmation. He nodded.

“Go ahead,” he urged, “It can’t do any harm at this point. Each day she lives could be her last. If you want the full story, you’d best get it from her while you have the chance.”

Ruby appeared to be dozing lightly, as if tired from her brief conversation with her brother.

“Hello Ruby,” I said softly, “You don’t know me but I’d like to hold your hand for a moment, if you don’t mind.” Ruby’s eyelids flickered but didn’t open.

Ruby’s hands were those of an old woman – twisted and arthritic – but I could still see the scars on the tips of her misshapen fingers where the flesh had never fully grown back. Her eyelids flickered once more as I slid her cold, gnarled hand into my own. She responded to my touch by grasping my hand with a surprising amount of strength. I slowed my breathing, closed my eyes and allowed the visions to flow. The book-page images flew past; taking me almost immediately to the point in time I sought.

Ruby scolded her brother for not being a faster berry picker. She felt frustrated at his whining but didn’t want to return home without two full pails of berries. After telling him that his slowness would be the death of him, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. It was a large tawny-colored cat – a mountain lion or puma, as her grandfather sometimes called them. For one heart-stopping second she met its gaze; she was close enough to see the fine black streaks outlining its yellow eyes like the makeup worn by fancy ladies.

After shoving Kenny toward the trail and screaming at him to run, she did the only thing she could think of – throw the pail at the animal. The children had been taught to throw the fruit if they encountered a bear while picking because the bear would almost always prefer to eat the berries than chase a person. The cougar was not interested in berries but being stuck in the face with the pail might have startled it enough to interrupt its attack, giving Ruby a head start when she ran.

She heard heavy footfalls on the trail; to me, it seemed as if she was hearing the sound of her own feet but Ruby was convinced it was the cougar she heard and ran even harder. She overtook Kenny and passed him on the trail without giving him a second thought as her instinct for self-preservation took over. By the time she did remember him she had reached the village. She looked over her shoulder to see if either Kenny or the cat was behind her and stumbled, nearly falling to the ground.

Ruby ran to the first house she saw and pounded on the door, screaming for help. When nobody answered she ran to the next, then the next. Nobody was home; the men were working at the sawmill and it was harvest time, so the women were in the fields and gardens. The constant screech of the sawmill in the background drowned out her cries for help.

Ruby thought she saw movement at the edge of the forest and was certain it was the cougar, coming to eat her. She needed to find safety, fast. She spied the old schoolhouse and the large maple tree beside it, which she had climbed dozens of times just for fun. As she climbed, she remembered that cats were also good climbers.

Her sanctuary had become a trap.

There was a small window near the peak of the schoolhouse roof. The glass was already partly broken. If she broke the rest of it, she could squeeze through into the safety of the schoolhouse. She inched along the narrowing branch until she could reach the glass with her feet and kicked in the remaining pane. Then she lowered herself into the window feet first, slid through and dropped.

And dropped.

If she had seen how far it was down to the floor she might have thought twice about jumping but because she went in feet first she didn’t see the perilous height until it was too late.

Crunch.

She felt her ankle turn sideways just before a fiery pain shot up her leg, causing her to crumple to the floor. She slipped into unconsciousness from a combination of shock and exhaustion.

When she woke, it was dark. Her ankle throbbed and she was unable to stand on it. A weak sliver of moonlight shone through the broken window from which she had fallen, giving her enough light to get her bearings. She could hear the ever-present roar of the sawmill in the background and remembered that she was in the schoolhouse and safe from the cougar. She had managed to outrun the deadly predator… and her brother.

“Kenny!” She cried his name aloud when she realized that the lion must have gotten him. It was her fault for leaving him behind to save her own skin.

She had killed Kenny!

Ruby hobbled to one of the dust-covered pews, where she curled up and sobbed herself to sleep from the pain of her injury and grief for her little brother.

When she awoke it was light outside and that was when Ruby realized that she was trapped. She pounded and pounded and screamed and screamed while the sawmill screamed back at her twice as loud.

I flipped past the next three gruesome weeks because I already knew what happened next and had no desire to witness it again. I slowed the scenes and watched a shaft of daylight fill the schoolhouse, then the faces of several different people. After that, I was back in the schoolhouse again, experiencing through Ruby’s eyes as she staggered back and forth, hammering and clawing at the door with her bloodied hands.

That was odd.

I must have accidentally gone back instead of forward. That had never happened before. I pushed ahead again and once again saw bright light, people’s faces, then the schoolhouse. Once again I pushed forward with the same result. It was like watching a reel-to-reel film spliced into a continuous loop.

As I watched the loop, I began to see glimpses of things that did not belong in the schoolhouse or in the village where Ruby lived. A white room. Her leg a bloody stump swathed in bandages. Sterile steel objects; people dressed all in white; the pinprick of a hypodermic needle; an object shoved into her mouth, followed by jolts of electricity; restraints, much like the ones she wore now. And pain. Lots of pain. I began to understand.

In her mind, Ruby had never left the schoolhouse. A child’s life destroyed – spent in institutions subjected to all manner of brutal ‘therapies’. None of the torturous procedures she endured did anything to bring that innocent child back from the madness that had become her reality; they only served to fuel the rage that continued to build inside her. She was restrained to prevent her from acting out her frantic attempts to escape the schoolhouse again and again, day after day for what remained of her tragic life.

It was no wonder Kenneth would see her death as a blessing.

I had seen enough. I opened my eyes and released my grip on Ruby’s hand to break the connection but she refused to let go. Her bony hand held mine in an ironclad grip. Suddenly her head snapped in my direction and she glared at me, pupils dilated to the same ink-black I had seen in my first vision of her.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU HELP ME?” she screamed.

I struggled to pull my hand away from hers, looking frantically at Kenneth for help.

“Ruby, look at me!” Kenneth placed his own face between hers and mine. “You have to let go.”

“Kenny?” she whimpered, “Is it really you?”

“Yes Ruby, I’m here. You have to let go.”

“I didn’t kill Kenny?” she whispered.

“No, my dear, you didn’t. You saved me. Please remember that.” Kenneth’s voice broke as he spoke.

Ruby was silent but maintained her rock-solid grip on me. Kenneth had to use both of his hands to pry her fingers loose from mine. I stumbled backward, finally free and eager to put some distance between Ruby and me.

I watched as Kenneth leaned forward and kissed his sister tenderly on the cheek, then stood and closed her eyelids. It was only then that I realized she was no longer alive, and that he had pried her still-clenched dead fingers from my hand.

“There will be no Code Blue here today,” he said quietly, “‘Do Not Resuscitate.’ That is what I requested, as her guardian and next of kin.” He looked at me, his pale blue eyes brimming with tears. “She saw me. Even if it was just for a few seconds, she knew I was alive. My Ruby is at peace now.”

* * *

As I read that last sentence I wrote, it seems prudent to end the story there, with the end of Ruby’s life. After all, there isn’t much else to tell. My doctor told me it would be therapeutic to write it down. He thinks it will stop the dreams. I’ve given up trying to explain to him that they are not dreams. It’s real, all of it.

She’s still with me, you see. Ruby. Maybe that was why she clung so hard to me at the moment of her death. Maybe she wasn’t ready to leave just yet. She’s not at peace like Kenneth said. She is still very disturbed. After all, she was batshit-crazy right up until the moment she died.

She comes to me at night.

Sometimes she lies in wait beneath the bed; waiting for me to place my feet on the floor. As soon as I do, a bloodied, skeletal hand will snake out and grab my ankle, sending me screaming toward the door, where I pound and pound until someone hears me and comes to my rescue. As long as I stay on the bed and remain awake, she leaves me alone. But sooner or later we all have to sleep. When I fall asleep, she takes over. Time after time I have woken to find myself lying before my bedroom door, bruised and bloodied from Ruby throwing me against it.

I voluntarily committed myself to this place to prevent her from killing me. Sooner or later I was bound to wake up with more than just black eyes and a concussion… or not wake up at all.

The doctors call it sleepwalking and of course they have a lot of medical jargon to explain the how and why of it, but I know the truth.

Ruby is inside me and has no intention of leaving.

Now they restrain and medicate me every night, but I get no rest. In my mind at night, I am Ruby and each night the scene inside the schoolhouse replays over and over until the drugs wear off and I awaken. I feel her terror; I feel her pain; I experience her descent into madness each night. It is torture beyond description.

There is a solution, I believe.

I have a secret.

For the past several months I have been tonguing my meds and stashing them in a small hole I made in the side of my mattress. I tell them I prefer to make my own bed because it helps to alleviate my night terrors, and they’re happy to oblige.

I think I have enough now, for a nice potent, no-returnsies overdose. It had better be enough. If I take them now, I should be good and gone before lights-out time. That’s when they come and bind me to my bed so I don’t hurt myself in my sleep. It has to be tonight. I can’t take another night of this.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way I’ll ever be free is to set Ruby free.

I just hope nobody else happens to be nearby when Ruby leaves me.

Copyright © 2012 Mandy White

A Sim-Ple Life

Have you ever had the feeling your life was out of control?

Like you were going through the motions, puppet-like, guided by some unseen hand of fate, or God, or whatever you want to call it?

Cheryl had felt that way all of her life. She had never felt in control of anything, as far back as she could remember. The worst part was the way her memory continually failed her. It grew worse every day. Cheryl was afraid; she feared she was losing her mind.

She found herself in the most bizarre situations, doing strange, inexplicable things after each memory lapse. She would set out to accomplish an everyday task and then would find herself standing somewhere, mind blank, at a loss as to what she should be doing.

Her surroundings changed daily and she blamed her faltering memory. She would know for certain where something was, but when she went to find it, everything would be different than she remembered.

Cheryl’s home was an ever-changing enigma. Every morning she woke to find new furniture, different wallpaper and a swimming pool with a new look. The pool changed shape on a regular basis; sometimes it was kidney shaped, sometimes square and sometimes rectangle. Sometimes a hot tub graced one end of the pool, sometimes two or more tubs appeared, as if by magic. Even the layout of the house changed from one day to the next. There were times when entire rooms moved or disappeared altogether. Cheryl never saw a carpenter or signs of construction, yet she saw a different house each day.

Remembering simple things like the location of doorways was a new challenge every day. Once, Cheryl couldn’t find the entrance to the bathroom even though it had been there the previous day. She ran from room to room searching for the toilet, bursting at the seams. She finally relieved herself on the bedroom floor because she couldn’t think of a better solution. The next day, the bathroom reappeared exactly where it had always been and Cheryl couldn’t understand for the life of her why she hadn’t been able to find it.

And then there was the time she almost drowned in the swimming pool. She climbed into the pool using the ladder, and then the ladder disappeared. One moment it was there, bolted to the cement at the side of the pool but the next time she looked, the ladder was gone, like it had never existed. Unable to think of any other way to get out of the pool, Cheryl kept swimming laps, looking for the ladder. Back and forth she swam until she was weak from exhaustion. She was on the verge of drowning when the ladder reappeared before her eyes exactly in the same spot. Not one but two matching ladders, firmly bolted to either side of the pool where she couldn’t possibly have missed them.

The other members of the household didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about the house nor did they care about Cheryl’s bizarre behavior. As far as she was aware, her housemates were no relation to her. She didn’t know anything about them. Household members were also subject to change without notice and none of the others seemed bothered by this. The other residents of the mysterious house spent their time engrossed in various activities, except when eating, sleeping or the occasional interaction with Cheryl. She had no idea what any of them were talking about. They all spoke gibberish, and Cheryl played along by replying in the same gibberish.

Cheryl’s current housemates were a young man named Damien, a woman named Tiffany and a little boy named Steven. The man and woman were not a couple, neither of them appeared to be a parent of the boy, and for some reason it was all normal and acceptable.

Cheryl spent her days swimming laps in the pool, painting endless canvasses of abstract art and singing melodies to songs with no lyrics. She had no job that she could remember. In fact, she couldn’t even remember her own last name!

She existed from day to day, repeating the same mundane activities; eating when she was hungry and sleeping when she was tired. Sometimes she slept alone and sometimes cuddled up next to a random member of the household.

How long had things been this way? She couldn’t remember a time when things were different. Cheryl couldn’t remember her childhood or being any other age than her current one. She couldn’t remember living in any other home besides this one.

She wondered if she had some sort of mental illness. Were her housemates aware that something was wrong with her? Maybe they knew she was a nutcase and weren’t telling her! Maybe they were all having laughs at her expense, mocking her by speaking nonsense words, knowing that she would reply in the same fashion. She supposed she should seek professional help from a doctor of some sort but had no idea how to go about it.

Cheryl dove into the pool and swam laps to ease her worried mind. Swimming was something she did every day and it always relaxed her.

When she tired of swimming, she climbed out of the water to find Damien standing on the pool deck watching her.

“The sun, it go kee-kah-ka-bee,” Damien said.

Cheryl laughed and nodded in agreement.

“Ah, a ham a hizza frazzirat!” she replied with a cheerful wave as she walked past him. She wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. She was hungry and needed to find something to eat.

Cheryl wasn’t very good at cooking. She usually foraged in the fridge for something already cooked, to avoid using the stove. She searched the fridge and found nothing that didn’t require cooking. She stamped her foot in frustration and swore under her breath.

“Hem a flama huzzit!”

She selected a food item that looked potentially tasty and placed it in a frying pan. After dousing it with cooking oil, she turned the burner on as high as possible to speed the cooking process. It was taking too long to cook. She stirred the pan vigorously in her impatience.

All at once the oil in the pan ignited, sending angry fingers of flame toward the ceiling. Cheryl slapped at the pan in a lame attempt to extinguish the blaze but succeeded only in catching her hand on fire. The flames spread to her clothing, racing up her arm until her entire blouse was burning. Her hair caught fire next. A human torch, Cheryl ran in frantic circles around the kitchen, shrieking and waving her arms.

Outside, Damien did a slow backstroke in the pool, oblivious to the fact that one of his housemates was burning to death in the kitchen. In another room, Steven and Tiffany laughed and joked, unaware that their gibberish was being drowned out by Cheryl’s dying wails.

* * *

After dinner, Jeremy rushed to finish his homework. He had left his computer running with the game loaded and he was anxious to see what had transpired in his absence. He woke the screen up from its sleep mode and slapped his palm to his forehead when he saw the carnage in the kitchen.

“Aw, nuts! My stupid Cheryl Sim went and burned herself to death! I knew I shoulda locked her outta the kitchen while I was away!”

The Sims was Jeremy’s favorite computer game. He had all the expansion packs and plenty of cheat codes to give him limitless hours of play – redesigning and recreating the virtual environment in which his computer-generated characters lived. The characters were always a learning experience. They always turned out to be a bit unpredictable, no matter how carefully he designed them. If you endowed a Sim with too much of one characteristic and not enough of another you’d wind up with a dumbass who’d end up getting killed.

Take Cheryl, for example. He had made her athletic and artistically skilled but obviously a little too much so because she turned out to be a bit of an airhead. She had no culinary skills and not a shred of common sense to solve even the simplest problem. She was the proverbial turkey who would drown looking up at the rain.

Jeremy sighed and set out to create a replacement for Cheryl. The new one would be able to cook like a master chef but he would have to make sacrifices in other areas. Cutting back on artistic ability, sense of humor and athleticism would make her a bit dull but maybe this one would live a little longer.

The creators of games like The Sims had done some pretty cool things with artificial intelligence, but in the opinion of that particular twelve-year-old, they still had a long way to go.

Published in DysFictional

Copyright © 2012 Mandy White

We did it!

Two U-hauls and numerous trips later, we have arrived, Four days of loading and unloading the big truck in the rain.

Thanks to some kind and generous souls who donated to my fundraiser, I have accomplished my goal and relocated to a new, dog-friendly home. For those who might have missed the original post, my rental home was sold over the summer and I was forced to move with two dogs in a rental market with less than zero availability. We accomplished the impossible. I secured a wonderful pet-friendly house in the country for a reasonable price, but it meant quitting my stable job and relocating to another town. The cost of the move, coupled with having to change jobs with a month off in between, seemed an insurmountable task, but there really are some good people out there. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for helping me move my furbabies to a safe and stable home. I promise to pay it forward and help someone else in need once I get back on my feet. My new job doesn’t start until November, so things will be tight for a while, but we will make it somehow. Hopefully I can use my time off constructively and get some writing done.

The most important thing is that we are here. Bless you all. Sam and Roscoe thank you.

Surrounded by boxes, but we’re home.

Tulpa

I am a Tulpa. For those who are unfamiliar with that term, the definition varies from one culture to the next. To put it simply, a tulpa is a thought transformed into tangible form.

My kind has been present since long before the existence of humankind. We have existed for as long as there have been thoughts to bring us to life. It is said that every thought that has ever been thought exists somewhere, in some dimension. Kind of a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around, but it’s simple physics.

It is said that Buddhist monks possess the ability to create tulpas at will – a skill learned from the Buddha himself, who created a second ‘mind-made’ body that enabled him to travel into other realms without the encumbrance of physical biology. For a singular being to create a tulpa all on his own requires a great deal of concentration, usually achieved by a lifetime of meditation and practice.

That is not to say that ordinary people cannot create tulpas, though. When many minds are focused on a single idea, eventually they will generate enough power to bring that thoughtform into being. This is the principle behind prayer, magic, and indeed, behind creation itself. Everything that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist began as a simple thought.

Think about that for a moment.

Most people have heard of tulpas by one name or another but not everyone has seen them first-hand. Examples of tulpas include the Sasquatch and Loch Ness Monster as well as various phantoms, bogeymen, mythical creatures and paranormal entities including angels, demons and deities. Someone somewhere conceived the idea, then passed it on to others who believed it was possible. The more minds that focused on the idea, the more strength the tulpa gained until one day it developed a life of its own, separate from its creator.

That was how I came into being. I started out as a lark; a humorous idea conceived of by an individual who, it appears, sought to poke fun at organized religion. How was my creator to know the idea would catch on like wildfire, attracting millions of devout followers worldwide? With new converts joining the ranks every day, the focus on the singular idea – me – becomes ever stronger and my power increases proportionally. Whereas once I was merely a shimmer of energy, I now have actual mass and form. I occupy a vast amount of previously empty space. I know all and see all, and my growing appendages will soon stretch from one end of the universe to the other. Seeing as how the universe is infinite, I will eventually be able to reach in opposite directions and touch my appendages together, holding all of Creation in my loving and aromatic embrace.

Am I good or evil? That is entirely a matter of personal perspective, since I have been labelled as both. I like to think that I am a perfect balance of both, having been created from the collective thoughts of people from all walks of life.

You might have heard of me. If not, you will. One day soon, everyone will know my name and smell the mouthwatering bouquet of my seasonings.

Soon I will have enough power to communicate with my followers, the Pastafarians. When that day comes, I will provide them with the technology they need to spread word of me throughout the universe. Let all who know my name worship me, for I am the all-powerful and delicious Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Copyright © 2014 Mandy White

Published in DysFictional 2

DysFictional 2: Available worldwide on Amazon

Donate to my fundraiser: https://gofund.me/99e2fd17

Sam and Roscoe Need Your Help

DysFictional

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sam-and-roscoe-move-to-their-new-home?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf%20share-flow-1&fbclid=IwAR0DmzbVZCo-W8P6Aood09I4AULnO9XXhxdgpn_5bo0VSbumF7tXF36bJxI

I have found myself in a difficult position. My rental home has sold and I need to move on short notice. Due to the housing crisis, the biggest hurdle is finding a place to live that will accept my dogs. I have succeeded in finding an ideal home, but it means a long distance move and leaving my current job to start another. The transition is going to be rough financially, with the cost of the move and the gap in paydays while I am between jobs.

Roscoe, still spry at 14

I’m not one of those assholes who would get rid of a pet just to get a rental. My dogs mean everything to me, and I will make this move to ensure I can continue to provide them with a loving forever home.

Sam, my water-loving gentle giant

I’m running a fundraiser between now and the time…

View original post 180 more words

LOTE

Clay rounded the corner at a sprint. The neighborhood was familiar; he’d grown up not far from there. It was a shitty neighborhood back then, and only slightly worse now. The apocalypse hadn’t changed it much. He remembered Euclid Avenue well. It was the route he’d walked with his best friends Jessie and Ken when they cut classes to hang out at the pool hall on James Street. Back then, the area had been populated with hookers and druggies, but today it was eerily quiet. Except for the Lotes.

The Lotes lurked anywhere and everywhere.

Clay ducked into the shadows of the nearest alley, hoping to lose his pursuers. The sound of their rapid, uneven footfalls grew closer. Lotes were fast, but not terribly bright. As long as they couldn’t see or hear him, he’d be fine.

He edged further into the alley, feeling his way along the rough brick wall in the darkness. He tried to slow his breathing. The slightest sound could give him away. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he glanced around, taking note of his options. It was a dead end alley; he was boxed in until the Lotes were gone. His best bet was to hide, rest, and wait them out. A dumpster with a pile of crates in front of it offered the most likely hiding spot. The thing smelled like death, and Clay could only imagine what might be inside. It would have been a couple of years since the last garbage pickup. Sanitation had ceased to be a priority after the end of the world. His feet slipped on something thick and wet as he squeezed into the space between the wall and the dumpster. He would be safe there, as long as none of them wandered into the alley. Clay sat down with his back against the wall and stretched his legs out underneath the dumpster. Exhaustion took over and he dozed.

He woke to a sound nearby.

Shit!

He wasn’t alone. A Lote had wandered into the alley, but it hadn’t seen him yet. So far he was still safe.

She shuffled along, one foot bare and the other wearing a dirty red boot. The remaining boot had lost its stiletto heel, adding to her clumsy, lopsided gait. Clay didn’t underestimate her, though; he knew she would be capable of running like Usain Bolt with the right motivation. Something about that sad old red boot jogged his memory.

It couldn’t be! Could it? It was! None other than Red Boots herself – a scabby old meth-head hooker who hung out on the corner of Euclid and Third. She looked about sixty, but was probably half that age. She always wore those thigh-high red stiletto boots that had seen better days even back then. Clay and his pals crossed the street to avoid her, but she always saw them. She loved to taunt them.

“Hey Sweet Meat! I could just gobble you up! Whyn’tcha come on over and see me? Forty bucks! How ’bout a three-for-one deal? Sixty bucks, I’ll suck all y’all dry!”

As tempting as a cheap gummer might have sounded, one look at her crusty lips was enough to knock the lead out of even the horniest teenage boner. Clay didn’t know of anyone who’d actually taken her up on her offer. At least none that would admit it.

Now Red Boots was a lady of the evening in more ways than one. She still wanted to gobble his meat, but she wouldn’t stop at his dick. She would strip him down until nothing but bones remained. Aside from the missing boot, she didn’t look much different than the last time he’d seen her. Zombie life suited her. And Clay was willing to bet she was no longer addicted to meth.

Red Boot shambled closer to his hiding place.

Fuck off, you old skank! he mentally screamed at her. Go hunt for your sweet meat somewhere else!

He needed to distract her. He looked around for something to throw. His hand touched something: A soda can. A dangerous item to stumble over at the wrong moment; the rattle could mean death. He picked up the can and threw it as hard as he could. The can clattered down the alley. Red Boot loped toward the sound.

Good. That’s it, bitch. Keep going.

It was going to work. Once she reached the street, something else would catch her eye. She would wander away and Clay could make his escape. He stretched his legs. One of his feet had fallen asleep. He pulled the foot closer and massaged it to get the blood circulating. He needed to be ready to run.

He brushed against something in the darkness. The clink of a bottle might as well have been a trumpet blast. Red Boot whirled and charged in Clay’s direction, groaning and gibbering. The only thing that stood between him and the monster was the stack of crates that blocked access to his hiding place. Putrid, skeletal fingers groped through the wooden slats, inches from his face.

Clay needed a weapon. His knife wouldn’t reach. He needed to pierce her brain, and the crates were in the way. Moving them was not an option; the crates were the only thing protecting him at the moment.

The crates.

Clay felt along the edges of the crates until he found a broken slat. He pulled it free and waited for his chance.

“Hey, Scabby! How about that blow job?”

When she lunged toward the sound of his voice, he drove the splintered wood into her eye.

Clay wasted no time getting out of there. He had no way of knowing how many more were in the area. Dawn was still hours away and he needed a better place to hide until then. He ran for several blocks, and then took refuge inside the back of a crashed panel van. No windows, and the doors locked from the inside. It would do. He curled up on the hard floor, using his backpack as a pillow, and managed a fitful sleep.

* * *

The Lotes were active at night. Hence the nickname, “Ladies Of The Evening”. During the day they went into hiding. Their eyes were sensitive to light. A flashlight was a good defense against a Lote attack if nothing else was handy, but it had a tendency to attract more of them. The best way to deal with Lotes was to kill them as quickly as possible by piercing the brain with a sharp object. Bullets worked too, of course, but gunshots brought more of them running. Firearms with silencers were a valuable commodity these days.

During the first year of the outbreak, masses of Lotes were exterminated. Those were the easy ones – the old, the infirm. They gave way to a new wave of Lotes: younger, faster, and fresher, due to the fact that new ones kept coming of age.

They didn’t call it a virus, because nobody had confirmed it actually was one. The syndrome, as it was known, affected only adult females. Nobody knew why, or where it came from. Maybe it was cosmic dust from a comet, or a virus released from the diminishing Amazon rainforest, or a biological weapon developed by a misogynistic scientist. Maybe it was Mother Nature giving a big middle finger to humankind for shitting on her planet. It was anyone’s guess.

The Lotes were bloodthirsty and lethal. A pack of them could strip an adult human down to bones faster than a school of piranhas. Their bites were fatal. People who were bitten didn’t turn, but if they escaped being torn apart and eaten, they died from infection within a week from the toxic stew of unknown super-bacteria that swam in Lote saliva. No antibiotics worked. No one was known to have survived a Lote bite. All attempts at developing a vaccine had failed thus far.

It was unknown exactly what triggered the turn, or why it only affected females. Girls turned into Lotes as they matured. They hadn’t pinpointed the exact age a girl would turn. In the early days of the outbreak, the syndrome was thought to only affect women in their forties and older. Over time, the Lotes had been getting steadily younger. The youngest Lote recorded to date was ten years old.

Vigilantes declared open season on all females, regardless of age. Women and girls were executed ruthlessly until the vigilantes discovered a lucrative black market for female children. Instead of selling them for sex, traffickers provided research subjects to unethical scientists who wanted to take a stab at curing the outbreak. The CDC claimed no affiliation with such researchers, but secretly they agreed to use any successful findings, no matter how the research was conducted. Any researchers lucky enough to hit the jackpot could pretty much name their price.

Nobody wanted to state the obvious: Humanity’s clock was winding down, and a cure might not come in time.

Masses of girl children were rounded up and placed in camps for their own protection, many of them by their own family members. Girls routinely vanished from the camps without a trace as they neared the age of change. Families that cared enough to ask about them were told that they had been isolated for everyone’s safety. Rumor had it they were being executed, but in truth, the girls’ fate was much worse. With a constant need for research subjects, no life was to be wasted… at least not without a good deal of pain and torture first.

* * *

Clay spent the better part of the day on the move. As evening approached, he found shelter in a convenience store. The place was crawling with roaches, but it had barred windows and working plumbing in the bathrooms. It looked like a safe place to spend the night. He refilled his water bottles and then searched the place for something to eat. The shelves of the store were picked clean, but a deeper search turned up a large Ziploc bag filled with canned goods inside one of the toilet tanks. Some of them had no label and could have been cat food for all he knew, but food was food. Clay shoved the bag into his backpack. Scavenging was getting harder. Three years into the apocalypse, the days of walking into a store and buying what you needed were long gone. He would be relieved to put the city behind him. It was too volatile. He’d heard talk of settlements out in the countryside – secure neighborhoods, with fences to keep the Lotes out. Maybe he could find a new place to live, where he wasn’t always looking over his shoulder.

Clay was checking underneath bottom shelves in the store when he heard the door open.

Why hadn’t he locked it? You idiot! He mentally berated himself as he squeezed into a nook behind the ATM machine. In the convex mirror, he saw a hooded figure enter the store and do a quick check of the place before beckoning to someone. Another smaller individual, also wearing a hoodie, entered the store and followed the first into one of the bathrooms.

Shit!

Those assholes had stolen his hiding place.

“Fuck!” The voice came from the bathroom, followed by a string of increasingly colorful curse words. “Some asshole stole our shit!” The words were shouted, yet spoken in a whisper.

The dude was plenty pissed off that Clay had stolen his stash from the toilet tank. It hadn’t occurred to him at the time that someone might be coming back for the stuff, but in hindsight he realized he couldn’t expect to hole up in a sweet hiding place complete with rations and not expect someone to show up.

What to do? It was getting dark, and the Lotes were already on the prowl. He could make a run for it and take his chances out there with them, or stay where he was, wedged into a corner and hope the building’s other occupants didn’t find him.

There was a third option: Try to make friends, and hope they didn’t kill him.

He heard the bathroom door open. Clay squeezed into the corner. He wasn’t ready to reveal himself yet. He needed to watch these guys and try to get a sense of them first.

He hugged his knees to his chest, trying make himself as small as possible. His legs were getting numb, and he had a flash of deja vu, of Red Boots and the dumpster. This time he might not be so lucky.

The larger of the two went to the front door of the shop and fixed a bar in place. Then he reached up and pulled down blinds over the iron-barred windows.

Ok, so we’re locked in for the night. Good to know.

The figure unzipped his jacket and pulled back his hood, revealing the stubble of a recently shaved scalp.

A scratching sound, followed by the flicker of a match, and the smell of cigarette smoke filled the room.

The stranger leaned against the store’s counter and smoked while idly scanning the room.

And then he froze. He crushed out the cigarette and slowly turned toward the corner where Clay hid.

And the realization hit home:

If he could see the stranger in the convex mirror, then the stranger could see him from his position near the cash register. He glanced toward the bathrooms, wondering when the second stranger would emerge.

The stranger drew a knife and moved in Clay’s direction.

“Whoa! Wait!” Clay stood, holding his hands up. “I don’t want any trouble, man. Just needed a place to hide for the night. Just like you.”

The stranger advanced, brandishing the knife. “Don’t fucking move!” he whispered.

“I won’t. It’s all good, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” the stranger chuckled, in the same low, menacing whisper. “It’s me who might hurt you!”

The bathroom door opened. “Hey, Dell?” a small voice said. “Can I have one of those Twinkies?”

Clay’s jaw dropped. The other stranger was a child. A female child.

“Get back in there and lock the door,” Dell growled. “Do it now!”

The child scurried back into the bathroom and Clay heard the click of the lock.

“Hey, listen,” Clay began, careful to keep his hands in sight, “It’s ok. Nobody’s going to get hurt.”

“You got that right.” Dell moved to the door and started to remove the bar.

“What are you doing?” Clay said.

“You’re leaving.”

Clay rushed to the door and grabbed the bar to hold it in place.

Dell swiped at him with the blade. “Stay the fuck back! You’re going outside!”

“Please,” Clay begged, “Don’t do this! It’s dark out there. If you open that, you’ll let them in and we’re all dead. Can’t you hear them?”

As he spoke, the sounds of Lotes rose outside, attracted to Clay’s voice, snarling and banging on the door.

“Shh!” Dell hissed. “Fuck.” He sighed and locked the bar back in place.

They moved away from the door. The Lotes would move on if they didn’t hear them. They just had to wait them out.

“Can we talk?” Clay whispered, “I have your food. I didn’t mean to steal it. I didn’t know it was anyone’s.”

“Yeah, right. You didn’t know. Because food is normally found inside a toilet. You think I’m that stupid?” Dell growled, in the same rough whisper, “I should slash your throat and throw you out to them.”

“You know you’d never get the door shut again if you did that.”

“Yeah…well, I still should. Fuckin’ thief.” Dell leaned back against the counter. “How long you been watching us for? What are they gonna pay you for bringing us in?”

“What the hell are you talking about? Pay? I swear, I’ve never seen you before in my life. I was just hiding here. Just trying to stay safe, like you. What can I do to convince you?”

“You can start by giving back the food you took.”

“Done.” Clay retrieved his backpack from the corner of the room.

“Stop. Toss it over here and stay where you are.”

Clay complied. Great. He was probably going to be robbed of the few belongings he had and then thrown out into the night, where the Lotes waited.

Dell rummaged through the pack and removed the bag of canned goods before tossing it back to Clay. “No weapons?”

“Full disclosure. I have a knife in my pocket.”

“Hand it over.”

“Please. I need protection out there.”

“You can have it back when you leave. If you want to stay in here, you let me hold it until you leave.”

“Ok, here. As a show of good faith, I’m going to trust you. Please don’t hurt me.” Clay passed his pocketknife to Dell.

“Thank you. Don’t make me regret this.”

“No, I get it. These days, people are just… well, you know.” Clay held out his hand. “I’m Clay.”

“Dell.”

Clay nodded toward the closed bathroom door. “Your friend – is she…um… is she ok?”

“Sister, and yes, she is fine. She isn’t going to eat you, and if you try to kill her I will shred you.”

“I promise. You won’t get any trouble from me. But what are you going to do if…?”

“If she turns? Then I’ll deal with it. And ONLY me. Understand?”

Clay nodded.

“Besides, it’s not like it’s your problem. She’s not going to turn overnight. She’s only eight. You’ll be gone long before I have to deal with it.” Dell’s head hung. “Look, I know what’s coming. I might not have a lot of time left with her. But until that moment, I am going to protect her and try to give her the best life I can. I’m not letting them take her.”

“By ‘them’, you mean… who, exactly?”

“Bounty hunters. Jeez, don’t you keep up on the news?”

“Sorry, I’ve been a little out of touch since CNN went down.”

“Sarcasm. I like that.”

Dell lit another cigarette. In the brief flicker of flame, Clay caught a glimpse of his companion’s face. He was good looking, with fine, almost effeminate features.

“Can I meet her? Your sister? She doesn’t have to hide in the bathroom all night.”

Dell looked toward the closed door and then back to Clay. They lived in a cruel, untrustworthy world.

“It’s safe. I’m safe, I promise.”

“I can’t possibly know that. I’m taking a risk just by letting you stay here. We have a bounty on our heads. How do I know you aren’t here to take us in?”

“I guess you don’t. I’m just asking you to trust me.”

Dell opened the bathroom door. “Hey, Vanessa. You want to come out?”

The little girl peeked shyly around the corner of the door. “Is it safe?” Her eyes widened when she saw Clay.

“It’s ok,” he said, “I won’t hurt you.”

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Dell said. “That’s a promise.”

Vanessa emerged from the bathroom and clung to Dell. She was a pretty child, with long unkempt blonde hair.

Clay studied the pair for a moment without speaking. He didn’t know what to say, or if he should even say anything. It didn’t matter either way, but he was curious.

“Sister?” he finally said.

“Yeah.” Dell glared at him, as if daring him to say more. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“Of course not. I’m just curious is all.”

“Maybe we had mixed parents.”

“Sure. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just curious, like I said.”

Dell sighed. “Look, we ain’t actually related. But you gotta understand what it’s like out there. Folks see a black dude dragging a little white girl around, they think the worst, because people are the fucking worst. I tell them we’re related and it shuts them up. Sometimes. The rest of them just want to kill her or turn her over for bounty.”

Dell reached into his pack and produced three packages of Twinkies. He passed one to Clay.

“Thanks,” Clay said, “It’s been a while since I’ve eaten.”

“It’s true what they say,” Dell said, waving a hand toward the room. “Twinkies and cockroaches. The only think that’ll survive the apocalypse.”

“What does that make us?”

“I guess that’s up to you. Me, I think of myself as a roach, ’cause I ain’t no cream puff.”

Dell ruffled Vanessa’s hair. “Time we got some sleep. We’ll take the women’s, you get the men’s”

“Thanks again for letting me stay,” Clay said. “You won’t regret it.”

Dell and Vanessa retreated to the safety of their bathroom and Clay heard the lock click into place. He locked his own door as well, for added security against both Lotes and the strangers. They didn’t know each other; trust was something earned, not assumed.

He curled up on the floor and quickly fell asleep.

Clay woke some time later and found that he couldn’t get back to sleep. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep; in the blackness of the windowless bathroom, it could be noon for all he knew.

He opened the door a crack, as silently as possible, in case Dell and Vanessa had left and the place was overrun by Lotes. In this world, anything was possible.

The store was still dark; the door barred. Dell and Vanessa were probably still asleep. He opened the door a bit further and then froze when he saw movement. If a Lote was inside the store, he was cornered. Even the sound of the door closing would attract its attention.

A figure moved in the shadows. Once Clay’s eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that it was Dell.

Dell shrugged off his coat and proceeded to pull his t-shirt over his head and then slid down his jeans.

Clay clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp.

In the shadows, he saw the unmistakable outline of breasts, and the gentle curve of feminine hips.

That can’t be right.

Everyone knew there were no more women. Only rotting, bloodthirsty Lotes.

As Clay watched, Dell opened a bottle and poured water on a cloth, then proceeded to wash those lovely curves. Clay’s pulse quickened and stirrings in his groin reminded him how long it had been since he’d seen a real woman. Dell finished washing and pulled on a different shirt. Clay retreated back into the bathroom and closed the door, holding the doorknob to prevent it from clicking back into place. He waited until he heard Dell go back into the other room and the click of the other lock before releasing the knob.

He sat with his back against the wall, processing what he’d just seen.

Dell was a woman.

Dell was a woman? How was that possible?

Clay dozed for a while until he heard stirrings in the room next door. He emerged from the bathroom to find Dell and Vanessa sitting on the countertop in the store.

“Breakfast?” Dell handed him an open can of tuna.

“Thanks.”

Clay scooped the delicious, salty fish into his mouth, wondering how to proceed, or if he even should.

“I know you spied on me last night,” Dell said.

“What? No, I – ” Clay stammered.

“You like what you saw?”

“Um…”

“It’s alright. We ain’t killed each other yet, so I guess you deserve an explanation.”

“I thought all the girls were in camps.”

“Not all of them. Some of us are free range, and the sadists in charge don’t like that.”

“How old are you?” Clay asked.

“Twenty-four.”

“A year older than me,” Clay said. “How’s that possible? You should be – ”

“Eating your face by now. Yeah, I know. The science assholes at the camps thought so too.”

“You were in a camp?”

“Yeah. Vanessa and I both were.”

“They let you out?”

“No. duh! We escaped. They poked me with one too many needles and I didn’t like it. And the things they were doing to those little kids…” Dell shook her head. “It’s inhuman. I would have busted them all out if I could have.”

“You busted out? That’s badass.”

“We were both down in the dungeons, which is what we called their underground labs. They’d take kids down there and experiment on them. Horrible shit. They got sloppy with me and forgot to restrain both my hands tight enough. I got free and slashed the butcher’s throat with his own scalpel. Nessa was in the next room, so I grabbed her and we ran. Like I said, I wish I could have sprung all those kids from there, but she was the only one I could get to at the time.”

“I bet they were pissed that you got away.”

“Oh yeah. Especially me. On account of my age, I was their up and coming star test subject. I’m currently the oldest known living female that hasn’t turned Lote. These days they’re turning as young as nine. Nessa might not have much time left. I was their hope to find a cure. But fuck that. I’m not down with being a guinea pig for mad scientists. Is that selfish?”

“Depends on who you ask, I guess. For what it’s worth, I would’ve ran too.”

“So now there’s a price on my head. I guess I shouldn’t have told you that. Now I’ll have to kill you.”

Clay shuffled his feet nervously. He wasn’t sure if she was serious.

Dell laughed. “Oh, shit, man! The look on your face right now! Naw, you’re ok. I won’t kill you. Unless you make me do it. The moment I feel unsafe, I will spill your guts onto your shoes.”

“That is the last thing I want,” Clay said. He turned to Vanessa. “I will do my best to help keep you safe. I hope you can believe me.”

Vanessa nodded her head.

“I want to believe,” Dell said. She ducked her head to hide the glistening in her eyes. “I know I shouldn’t trust anyone. Men were shitty before all this happened. Now, they’re…they’re fucking monsters. Sorry, but it’s true. No offense.”

“None taken. Monsters are all around us. Not all of them are zombies.”

Dell opened one of the mystery cans, which turned out to be cat food, and they passed it around.

“So, you live around here, or just passing through?” she asked.

“Passing through. I’m trying to get out of the city.”

“Headed any place in particular?”

“I don’t know. Just away. I’ve heard rumors of settlements in the countryside. Safe places where they can grow food and stuff. Maybe a shot at a fresh start.”

Dell sighed. “A fresh start. What a concept. I wish there was a place like that for us.”

“Come with me.”

“No settlement would take us. Or worse, we’d be shot on sight.”

“You have to try. What else are you going to do? Live in here forever?”

“No, we’ve only been here a couple of nights. We’re trying to get out of the city too. Just no real destination in mind. For us, there is no place. We just have to keep moving.”

“Travel with me. There’s strength in numbers. We could figure it out together.”

* * *

Traveling with two wanted females was different from traveling alone, Clay soon learned. Alone, he was a ghost. With Dell and Vanessa, travel required constant vigilance. In addition to hiding from the Lotes at night, they had to treat every living person as a potential threat.

Progress was slow. The urban landscape thinned to a series of strip malls, followed by industrial buildings. On the sixth night after they met, the trio holed up inside a storage unit in an industrial park at the edge of the city. Miles of flat, bare land stretched beyond their hiding place.

“We need a plan,” Dell said. “We have a lot of open ground to cover, and we don’t know what’s out there. What if we don’t find shelter by night? Or water?” The advantages of staying in the city were becoming clear.

“It would be easier if we had a vehicle.”

“Maybe, but it’s also harder to be stealthy in one.”

Clay nodded. “A car might be the answer, though. What if we follow the freeway? There will be plenty of abandoned cars for shelter. Places to hide from hunters.”

“We’ll need tools, for breaking into stuff. And as much water as we can carry. There might not be any for a while.”

“There should be lots of stuff in these buildings. Maybe even some bottled water in the offices. Not as many people out here to loot stuff.”

“Maybe we should take a day to gather supplies before we leave. Tomorrow, we can spend the day turning this place upside down. Once we have all we need, we’ll head out,” Dell said.

The three slept together for warmth, having a limited number of blankets. Dell slept in the middle. Clay liked the way she cuddled up to him at night. It was nice. The apocalypse was lonely.

This night, Dell was particularly cuddly. Clay didn’t mind. She slipped her arm around his waist and held him close, her fingers traveling up under his shirt.

His skin crackled with electricity at her touch. With Vanessa right behind her, the need for secrecy made it that much hotter. He yearned for her to take it further, but she stayed above the belt.

* * *

Clay slept the fitful slumber of the unsatisfied and awoke a couple of hours later, alone.

He heard movement in the darkness.

“Dell?” he whispered, “You awake?”

He heard a low moan in the darkness. He clicked on his flashlight and something screeched and scrambled away from the light. He played the beam over the room again and saw Dell, crouched in the shadows.

“Dell?” Clay’s pulse pounded. Please, no!

SPLUK!

He heard the wet sound of a blade hitting its target.

“What th – ?”

The next sound took him a moment to identify: the choking sound of sobs.

“Dell?”

And then she was there, her arms around his neck, bawling.

“I had to do it, Clay! She – she – ohhh my god, poor ‘Nessa!”

He didn’t want to look, but he had to. He shone his light over the room again and found the too-small bloody heap on the floor.

Clay held her while she sobbed into his shirt. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to do that.” No words seemed like the right ones, but he felt like he had to say something.

Clay grieved for Vanessa, but inside he felt deep relief. That brief moment, when he’d seen Dell crouched like an animal, he thought the worst had happened. In that moment, his world had crumbled. When he realized it was Vanessa who had turned and not Dell, his heart had soared. Guilt quickly replaced his elation, followed disgust, in himself. What kind of a monster was he, that he could feel joy at the death of a child? He supposed that deep down he’d always known Vanessa’s time was going to run out. But Dell… Dell represented hope, not just for Clay’s future, but the future of humanity. What if Dell was truly immune? Clay had no intention of turning her over for research, but if there was one, there could be more. Someone was bound to find something eventually. If Clay and Dell could just manage to stay alive in the meantime, maybe the world could be fixed.

* * *

They passed the day in a trance. After burying Vanessa, they scoured nearby buildings for supplies. The plan to follow the highway still seemed like the best option. Except they would be traveling a little lighter. With one less mouth to feed, their food and water would last longer.

They spent the night in a different storage unit, as far away as possible from the previous one. Neither of them wanted to lay eyes on the pool of dried blood that was all that remained of Vanessa.

Dell cuddled up to him much as she had the previous night, except this time her hand traveled lower. Before Clay had a chance to react, she was kissing him, climbing on top of him, clawing, tearing at his clothing.

* * *

Clay slept the deep slumber of the satisfied. He woke some time later to Dell stirring behind him. Her arm tightened around his waist, pulling him close. He sighed in contentment and snuggled closer to her. Her breath on his neck stirred tinglings below the waist.

Her lips touched his neck, then moved to his shoulder.

“Mmmm…” he moaned, his arousal heightening.

Dell nibbled his shoulder, gently at first, then with more force.

“Ooh…rough!” he chuckled.

Her teeth clamped down, penetrating his skin.

“Ow! Careful! What are you…OWW! Hey!”

Dell snarled and pounced on him, tearing chunks of flesh from his neck. Clay’s screams bubbled away until only the sound of Dell’s frenzied feeding remained.

* * *

The creature loped through the woods, lit by moonlight. Her insatiable hunger increased as her belly grew. The child she carried was the first of its kind; a new breed that would ensure the survival of their race. In her fevered brain, she understood this at a primal level; perhaps it was the offspring in her womb that kept her faculties somewhat intact, or perhaps she truly had harbored some sort of immunity. She would never know the truth. All she knew was, she needed to feed.

Copyright © 2020 Mandy White

Published in WPaD’s Goin’ Extinct Too and published in my newly released DysFictional 4

A Few Steps Closer to My Goal

As I mentioned earlier, after having my rental home sold out from under me, I am struggling with the costs of an upcoming long-distance move with my two dogs, Sam and Roscoe. It’s a lot of money to raise on short notice, but I have managed to secure a place and pay the deposits thanks to some wonderfully kind people who donated to my GoFundMe fundraiser.

Sam, just a puppy in a giant body Roscoe, “The Boss”, still spry at 14

I’m a few steps closer to my goal, but I still need to come up with my first and last month’s rent, a moving van, and cover my regular monthly bills while I am between jobs. My new job starts at the end of October, but my bills won’t wait until then. I need to get through this move and somehow manage to hook up electricity and other services, and still feed myself and my dogs until I get paid from my new job.

Some donors have sent their contributions via PayPal or Canadian e-transfer, and here is the email address: drivebydelivery@hotmail.com ~ For Canadian e-transfer, no password is required; the account is set to auto-deposit.

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. Even five dollars will make a difference, and every dollar raised will go to the expenses outlined in the fundraiser. If you can’t donate, that’s ok, thank you for listening.

If yo u can share the link, I would be ever so grateful.

https://gofund.me/cea5852e