Edward Lorn's Blog, page 121

Scare E. Winner!

I am proud to announce that the winner of “Scare E. – A Contest of Horrors” is none other than Dead Robots’ Society co-host, Justin R. Macumber. Going into this contest, I knew the winner’s piece would have to stay with me –  that it would have to haunt my nightmares. That is the reason I decided to wait until 15 days after closing the event to announce the winner. Justin’s piece terrified me to no end, both while reading, and long after the final page turned. This is what scares E. Blood and guts and acts of violence during intimate moments, are all well and good, and I enjoy them on a regular basis, but when you can create atmosphere, then you have a winner.

Enough reading my nonsense, I’m sure you want to read the title that bested the rest of you. Without further ado…

In The Deep Dark

By Justin R Macumber

The mine was cursed. Burly hated thinking that way — he wasn’t usually a superstitious kind of person — but there seemed no other explanation for it. Every ounce of coal they managed to dig out brought everyone involved that much closer to ruin. The night shifts were getting harder and harder for him to supervise, but as his eyes drifted up to the picture of his wife and daughters he’d taped to the sunvisor of his old Ford pickup, he remembered why he did it. Curse or no, coal meant money, and he had a family to feed.

The sun was nearly down by the time Burly turned off Sewell Road and drove up the rocky path leading to the mine’s office and parking lot. As he crested the final rise that led down to the gravel covered parking area, the sight of a dozen men crowded together in a rowdy mod said his workday was starting off worse than usual. He quickly steered for the nearest open slot, slammed the transmission into PARK, and climbed out of the cab.

Angry voices and fists filled the air as Burly stomped across gravel. No one looked his way as he approached, but they knew he was there when he parted them with a broad shouldered shove he’d learned during his varsity football days. “What the hell is going on here?” he yelled once he was on the other side of the furious throng.

To his surprise he found his boss, Badger Coal CEO Ted Newman, cowering against the mine’s low-slung electric cart with his arms held up in front of him. Normally the corporate officer was a man defined by his calm demeanor and tidy appearance, yet today he was anything but. His light grey shirt was covered in coal dust and ragged black handprints, as was the blue paisley tie that hung half-torn from his neck. Bright red spots bloomed like carnations on his left cheek and jaw, the beginnings of ugly bruises. The final touch on the surreal scene was the blood that dripped from his split lower lip. If Burly hadn’t seen it for himself, he wasn’t sure he’d have believed such a sight was possible.

Standing in front of the CEO like a mother bear defending one of her cubs was Ray Dennings, the mining company’s President and temporary Day Shift Supervisor. Unlike Mr. Newman, Ray was perpetually covered in coal dust, so nothing was unusual there, but the jagged wound over his right eye was new, as was the look of desperation in his eyes, which stood out like twin moons in a twilight sky. Ray’s hands were curled into fists, and despite his fear he looked ready to go another round if that’s what he had to do. When Burly appeared, he heaved a massive sigh of relief.

“Ah, thank Christ,” Ray said, huffing air. “I never thought I’d be so glad to see your ugly face.”

“Don’t defend him, Burly!” a voice shouted from the back of the crowd. More shouts went up behind him, their angry words overlapping each other like storm clouds, and hands pushed and pulled at his back.

“Yeah! Don’t get in the way!”

“Goddam suit’s stealin’ from us!”

“I won’t stand for it!”

Sick of the noise and jostling, Burly whipped around and said, “Shut the fuck up!” The command rolled over the angry crowd like a blast of thunder, bringing everything to a standstill. Taking advantage of the brief moment of quiet, Burly turned back to Ray and Mr. Newman. “What’s going on?”

“They’ve gone insane!” Mr. Newman said, his arms still held up in front of him.

Ray lowered his fists, but his stern gaze settled on every man before him. “Y’all better be glad I don’t have the police here arresting the whole lot of ya!”

“We ain’t the criminals here!” someone said.

Ray cast around for the man who’d spoken out, but after a moment he shook his head and said, “Yeah, well I’ve got a cut here that says otherwise. I know you’re all angry! I’m angry too, but Mr. Newman can’t grow money on trees, dammit, and he can’t make coal throw itself out the mine just by wishing it. You wanna be mad? Then get mad at your co-workers who haven’t been showing up, who’ve called in sick day after day! Every man we’re down means that much less coal gets cut. Less coal means less money, simple as that.”

“I don’t blame ‘em,” an older man said as he stepped forward. From the corner of his eye Burly saw it was Hank Stafford, one of the day shifters responsible for bolting the cave ceiling after a section of coal was cut into the mountain. “This place ain’t right, Ray. You’ve been down there. You’ve felt it. This whole mountain is… it just ain’t right.”

Encouraged by his words, the intensity of the crowd picked up again. It crackled against Burly’s skin like static electricity. Hank wasn’t the first person to talk about the Bluestone Mine like it was haunted. Almost from the beginning there’d been whispers among the men, talk of strange sounds and shadows that didn’t move right. Burly hadn’t ever seen or heard anything out of the ordinary, so he’d blown it off as idle chatter from grown men who ought to know better, but idle or not he wasn’t about to let the day shift crew use it as an excuse to riot.

“Come on now, Hank,” he said, forcing his tone to be steady and neutral. “We’re all reasonable men here, so let’s be reasonable.”

Hank turned to look at him, and a shadow passed over the old miner’s eyes that sent a shiver down Burly’s spine. It only lasted a second, but the sense of… of otherness… lingered. “Don’t talk down to me, Burl,” Hank replied. “You’ve been in that darkness. Tell me you ain’t felt it down there, in the places we don’t –”

“Enough!” Ray yelled, his voice like a grenade exploding in their midst.

Burly was thankful for the distraction. He didn’t want to hear the bolter say another word, didn’t want to look at him or see the mountain’s shadow in his eyes.

“Yes, that’s quite enough,” Mr. Newman said as he pushed away from the mine cart and stood up. He straightened his tie as best he could and smoothed the rumpled material of his shirt. “Though I doubt you want to hear the ‘suit’ complain about how much money he’s lost in this place, we are all hurting, and it won’t get better until we get coal production up. If you want to quit because some animal wandered into the mine and hissed at you from the dark, fine. Come back tomorrow and I’ll cut your final check. Understand, though, that as soon as you’re out the door I’ll be hiring your brother and your best friend, and they’ll be the one with a job while you’re looking for your last penny at the bottom of a beer bottle.”

Without waiting to see how the men would react, Mr. Newman pushed his shoulders back and walked toward the office trailer. The mob parted like the Red Sea, some still angry, but most casting their gaze around like they weren’t sure where they were or what was going on.

After the CEO was out of sight, a few chuckles dropped from the day crew, but most of them grumbled and walked to their waiting vehicles. Hank, though, remained where he was, alone as he stared at the mine entrance. Burly couldn’t tell from the older man’s expression if he was glad to be out of it, or if he wanted to go back in, but after a moment Hank shifted his gaze to him, and again a darkness flittered across his eyes like a crow flying past the sun. The two men stared at one another for several eternal seconds before Hank sighed and ambled away toward his dirty brown pickup. As the parking lot emptied, Burly felt like he should be relieved, but he wasn’t.

“Well that was a clusterfuck,” Ray said. Gravel crunched like broken glass under his boots as he walked over.

“I’ve never seen the men act like that,” Burly said as he watched Hank’s taillights disappear over He nHe

the rise he’d driven over just minutes before. “I know money’s tight and we’re all worried about our jobs, but to have them start throwing punches? That mine must really be getting to them. Makes you wonder if…” Burly didn’t finish the sentence, a small part of him fearful that giving voice to the unnatural thoughts creeping through his mind would give them life.

“Wonder if what?” Ray asked, tilting his head and staring deep into Burly’s eyes. “If the mine’s haunted? Don’t give me that shit. I’ll admit, this operation’s seen more than its fair share of problems, but I am not about to go call in some damn psychic or… or priest. Bad luck is bad luck, plain and simple. The sooner we start dealing with it instead of looking for bogeymen to blame it on, the better off we’ll be. So please, for the love of God Almighty, keep that kind of talk to yourself. The men don’t need to hear their supervisor talking that shit.”

Ray was the rational angel sitting on one of Burly’s shoulders, while the devil of his Sunday School youth sat on the other, and between them he didn’t know which way was up anymore. “You’ve never… you know, seen anything? Or heard something? I haven’t, but –”

“The only thing I see and hear is a bunch of pissing and moaning from grown ass men,” Ray replied. His words were shot out of his mouth like buckshot meant to kill any and all superstitious notions, but for a brief moment Burly saw a strain in the company president’s eyes. It was a fleeting thing, barely there, but Burly still saw it. After a moment Ray shook his head and pointed over Burly’s shoulder. “Now, I suggest you drop this crap and get ready to deal with your own world of hurt that’s coming.”

Two sets of headlights appeared over the driveway as Burly turned his head. A third followed soon after. The night shift was on its way, crawling across shadows that grew longer by the moment.

“Tyler and Wilbur called in sick, so you’re running light tonight,” Ray said, disgust thick in his voice. “Push the guys you’ve got as hard as you can. Dig, dig, dig. Get that coal out, and tomorrow we should have some new guys here to help. They’re from Kentucky, but we won’t hold that against them.”

“Not much anyway,” Burly said, glad to have something to smile at. Taking a deep breath, he hitched up his pants and went over to the sign-in board to await his crew. He didn’t wait long.

“Okay, guys, listen up,” he said. “Wil and Tyler called in sick. I need all y’all working hard and working smart, all right? The more cuts we make, the more money we make. If you need anything, let me know. Otherwise, get moving.”

The gathering drifted apart like bits of wreckage floating on the ocean, but they all moved in the same general direction toward the sign-in board. As soon as enough were signed in, the electric cart was turned on and one of the men got behind the wheel while others took a seat and leaned back. The cart sat only a few inches off the ground, so it was a pain to get in and out of if you had bad knees or a sore back, but if it was any higher you’d lose your head as it drove into the four foot high mine entrance.

As Burly walked over to double check the sign-in board, a young man wearing a red hardhat approached. Even from the corner of his eye Burly could tell he was nervous. Red hardhats were only worn by apprentice miners, and the boy beneath it looked like he wished he was anywhere other than where he was right then.

“Evenin’, Boss,” the young man said. A piece of tape was stretched across the front of his hardhat, and BUD was written on it in fat Magic Marker strokes. “Can I have a word with you?”

“Only if those words are ‘I can’t wait to get to work, Boss’,” Burly replied, turning only slightly to give the new man on the shift a glare.

“Not exactly. I… uh… I hate to do this, but… I’m quitting.”

The urge to choke the young man filled Burly like a fire, but he clinched his jaw and held himself in check. “I’m really disappointed to hear you say that, Bud. You’ve got good instincts, and I think you’d make a hell of a miner. Can I ask why?”

“I guess so,” Bud replied. He kicked at the gravel at his feet and looked everywhere but at Burly’s face. “I thought diggin’ through mountains and workin’ with a bunch of guys would be fun and all, but… it ain’t fun. Not one bit. I…”

Bud’s hesitations and dour tone said more than his mouth did to Burly. “Don’t feed me a bunch of shit and tell me it’s a ham sandwich, son. Be a man and say it.”

The skin on Bud’s youthful face went tight and pale, and his hands dove into his pockets so deep he could have tied his shoes. “Dammit, boss, I feel like a right idjit, but… that mine scares me. It’s the dark. It ain’t normal. It… moves. I’ve seen it, out of the corner of my eyes. The other guys, they play it off, make excuses, but they seen the shadows too. People don’t go into that darkness alone if they can help it, and those that do… they don’t come back right.” The skin around Bud’s eyes was red, and a faint shimmer of tears sat on his lower eyelids.

“That’s just nonse –” Burly started to say before Bud pulled his hands from his pockets and pointed a finger at Burly’s chest.

“It’s true! Last night Wilber went off on his own to check a ceiling bolt, and later on when we took lunch Tyler left early to get an extra smoke in. When we signed out this morning, neither of ‘em said a word to us. Not one. They both had this… this glassy stare to ‘em. I knew when I pulled up tonight they wouldn’t be here. There’s something down in that mountain, boss. These guys need the paycheck, got families to support, but I don’t. If you’re smart, you’ll leave this place too. It’s goddam cursed.”

Hearing the word said aloud that he’d been thinking about just minutes before jolted Burly to his core, but when Bud lowed his head and walked away, all Burly saw was one less body to do a job that was already too hard. As Bud passed the sign-in board he took his red hardhat and hung it from the top right corner, then waved over his shoulder and went to his motorcycle. He gunned the engine and left as quickly as he could without sending gravel flying into the air like a rooster tail. For that small mercy, Burly was grateful.

“Well shit,” he said to himself. Knowing he had to do it, he went to the office trailer to let his employers know the good news. Mr. Newman was in his back office with the door locked, but Ray was at his desk, and as Burly relayed what had just happened, the President’s already drooping eyes went a notch lower. When Burly left the trailer a minute later, he felt like he was leaving the hospital room of a patient who’d been told they only had hours left to live.

“Yo, boss!” a voice shouted. “You ready to get dirty?”

Burly turned and saw Sam Wellers sitting down in one of the passenger seats of the mine cart. All the other seats were empty, which meant everyone else was in the mine and this was the cart’s last run. He waved and dashed over to his truck to get his lunch pail and bright white hardhat. After scooping it up and jogging to the cart he tested the hardhat’s forward-facing light to make sure it worked. He’d put fresh batteries in it the day before, but you couldn’t be too sure of those sorts of things when hundreds of tons of mountain were waiting to crush you amidst miles of tunnel as dark as deepest space. The headlamp shone bright and steady.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said as he took the seat opposite Sam. In the driver’s seat, Dean Cotton nodded and pressed the acceleration pedal. Overhead, the dark clouds began to break open, and heavy raindrops splattered to the ground. The men in the cart barely had a chance to get wet as they slipped into the mountain seconds later.

Inches above Burly’s head was rough-hewn cave ceiling. The way ahead was lit by the cart’s headlights, with more light thrown by the hardhats each man wore. It made for a fairly bright scene, but Burly wasn’t fooled. The dark was ravenous, capable of consuming all the light you wanted to give it, and when you didn’t have any more it would reach out and swallow you in one lunging bite.

After a few minutes of rolling over broken earth and bits of rock, Dean turned the cart to the right, kept things steady for a moment, and then made a left. A rumbling sound began vibrating the air, and soon it was joined by a tumbling wave of dust and coal soot. When the cart’s headlight turned right a second time, it lit up the hard working night shift crew of miners.

“Digger’s really givin’ her hell!” Sam yelled once the cart was stopped next to the roofbolting rig. His partner, Billy Simms, was already prepping the machine and locking yard long drill bits into place. “We’re gonna be racing to keep up!”

Dean nodded at him, his face as humorless as usual. “You and me both.” He then backed the cart up, turned left, and pulled forward until he and Burly were stopped next to the scooper, which was Dean’s duty to operate.

After getting out of the cart, Burly headed toward a group of men kneeling together talking while Doug “Digger” Renfro sat with his control panel and operated the continuous miner from a safe distance. The mechanical beast chugged along, scrapping out coal with its rolling drum of tungsten carbide teeth. Despite Bud’s hasty departure and Tyler and Wil calling in sick, work was off to a good start.

An hour into the shift coal rolled its way out the mine, and Digger was into his second cut. Ready to do his job and make the way forward safe for everyone, Sam drove the roofbolter from controls at the back while Billy guided from the front. Two young guys, their former red hardhats so recently off their heads it made their new white ones look pink, lugged the continuous miner’s electrical cable by hand, making sure it didn’t get crimped against a wall or drug under the machine’s treads. They looked to be doing a good job, but suddenly the miner’s lights went dark and it ground to a stop. As Burly looked around to see what had gone wrong, he noted that the conveyer belt wasn’t rolling and the distant hum of ventilator fans was gone.

Something had cut their power.

From his belt Burly grabbed his walkie-talkie, and his grimy thumb depressed the TALK button. “Chester? We’ve lost power! What’s going on out there?”

The walkie-talkie’s speaker spat out a blast of noise that made Burly’s teeth ache. Through the squealing static he though he heard the outside man say, “This rain… crazy! Like… -nd times! … check- … right back!” Mercifully the noise cut out as Chester closed his end of the radio channel, but Burly was aggravated at how spotty the communication had been.

“Dean,” he said to the scoop operator sitting idle a few yards down the mine. “Head out there and see what’s going on.”

Turning the scoop on, Dean nodded and backed down the tunnel, his headlights chasing after him. Once he was turned, the darkness of the mine seemed to creep in a bit.

As the men stood around waiting to hear news, Burly glanced over at his lunch pail and wondered if it wasn’t too early for a bite. He wasn’t all that hungry, but if the generator was having a problem, then their schedule was about to get screwed, and who knew when they’d be able to stop and eat. He told them to start their lunch break early, and low cheers tumbled weakly through the mine.

Several minutes later words blasted from Burly’s walkie-talkie like cannon fire “Boss? You there?”

“Of course I’m here, Chester. What’s going on?”

Rain and wind hit the microphone like a hurricane. “Hell if I know! The genny looks fin, so I’m gonna need to open her up and take a deeper look! Can you send somebody to help?”

Burly looked at his handheld like it was an alien artifact dug out of the ground at his feet. “What? I already sent Dean up there. Ain’t he with you?”

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Dean. He ain’t there yet?”

“No.”

“He should be. Go check the entrance. We’re getting some water down here, so maybe the scooper’s wheels got stuck in some wet grit.”

“Okay, boss. Be right back.”

Standing around waiting was not one of Burly’s strong suits, but at that moment it was for the best. The men sat together, eating and chatting in low voices. Some made jokes, but the laughter that followed was forced. Burly opened his mouth to offer a few reassuring words for his crew, but his walkie-talkie squawked, interrupting him.

“Boss!” Chester said. “There ain’t no sign of Dean! I looked as far into the mine as I could from the outside, but I don’t see him or the scooper! He must’ve got turned around somewhere!”

Burly didn’t believe that for a second. Between the scooper and the mine cart, Dean knew his way through the mountain like a mole knew its own den. But, if he wasn’t lost, then where was he?

“All right,” Burly said. “Get back to the genny. I’ll send a couple more guys out to help. Hopefully they’ll find Dean along the way, and then y’all can get this problem sorted out.”

A squall of noise blasted from the handset, but then Chester said, “Sounds like a plan, boss!”

Burly clipped the walkie-talkie back on his belt and turned to the two young cable carriers. “Either of you know how to operate a mine cart?” he asked.

Both boyish faces nodded.

“Like drivin’ a go-cart, sir,” one of them said, a blonde with a too-easy smile. His name was Dale. The lanky brunette next to him was Ricky. They’d been hired as a pair right out of high school.

Wishing his confidence level was higher, Burly said, “Well, head on out then to help Chester. When you see Dean, pick him up too. Think you two can manage that?”

Dale and Ricky nodded their heads like frogs bobbing on a pond.

“Then get going. You help Chester get that genny running in the next thirty minutes, and I’ll buy you both a pizza when we get out of here.”

Needing no more encouragement than that, the two kids bumped fists and walked to the mine cart. The electric engine sounded like a cat getting kicked off the back porch as they spun the wheels and took off.

“Okay, y’all,” Burly said to the rest of his men. “Hopefully we’ll get this fixed up shortly.”

The night shift crew nodded over their meals. Out of habit, Burly did a quick head count. When he came up one short, he blinked. Scanning through the gritty faces wasn’t easy, so it took a moment to see who wasn’t there.

“Billy, where’s Sam?” he asked the second bolter who was chomping into a strikingly white sandwich. His fingers were covered by a plastic bag to keep the coal dust off the bread.

After gulping down a big swallow of sliced ham, Billy said, “I think he went to go take a piss.”

There wasn’t anything unusual about that, but a small chip of ice dropped into Burly’s stomach.

“Wasn’t that like six minutes ago?” Digger asked over the lip of his thermos.

Billy looked at the miner operator, and then at Burly, his eyes round. “I guess. I didn’t think about it. Sorry, boss.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Burly replied, his voice hard. “Be fucking smart.” He then tilted his head up and shouted, “Sam? Where you at? You better not be taking a shit!” His words echoed through the lengthy system of coal cuts, the sound reflecting at odd times and strange pitches. No other noise came back but the dwindling whine of the mine cart. When several seconds went by without an answer, Burly pointed a thick finger at Billy and said, “All right, numbnuts, he’s your buddy, so you better go find him.”

“What?” Billy asked, his eyes going wide and round. “But… I…” Words tumbled over themselves in the back of Billy’s mouth, all of them afraid to get too close and accidentally come out. “You can’t –”

“I sure as shit can.” The chill in Burly’s stomach was all but gone in the heat of his building anger.

“I’ll be alone though,” Billy said.

Getting more irate by the second, Burly’s nostrils flared. “Yeah, and right now so is Sam. Now get off your lazy ass and –”

The earth suddenly rumbled beneath Burly’s feet, and a roar filled the mine with horrendous noise. Rocks ground together, metal squealed, and beneath that was the faint high-pitched warble of human voices screaming in agony. Coal dust billowed toward the miners like a hellish fog from the direction the cart had gone.

“Come on!” Burly said as he took off at a stooped run.

The men ran, their heavy breathing loud in the tunnel. Half a dozen beams of light bounced crazily off the tunnel walls, jittering so much they were nearly useless. A minute later red and white reflective tape flashed ahead of them.

“Hurry!” Burly urged, pumping his arms and legs. He barely had enough breath in him to shout. By the time he made it to the cart he was ready to pass out. Considering what he saw, that might have been preferable.

Buried beneath a massive slab of shale was the crumpled remains of the mine cart, its orange paint and metal frame barely recognizable under the dust and loose bits of rock. It had fared much better than the two men in it, however. One body was lying half out like he’d tried throwing himself out of the way, his face beaten to an unrecognizable bloody pulp, while all that could be seen of the other was a purple-shaded hand peeking out from the left side of the cart. Burly rushed to the rock and started lifting.

I think that’s Dale, he said to himself as his helmet light swept across exposed dirty blonde hair. He couldn’t remember which kid had sat on which side of the cart, but Dale’s hardhat — while doing nothing to save his face from being mangled — had protected his skull enough to make identifying him possible.

“Hurry!” Digger shouted as he leapt in next to Burly. “I think this un’s still alive!”

Burly’s arms and legs strained to move the block of shale mashed into the cart, but his eyes never left Dale’s ruined face. Deep cuts ran down his forehead and cheeks, and blood dribbled off his chin in thick drops. His left eye was destroyed, leaving the socket behind it a vacant dark red hole, but his other eye seemed okay as it moved in small, jittery motions. A deep gouge tore through the soft tissue of his nose, flaying open his left nostril like a butterfly shrimp. Below it, his lips were battered strips of flesh that couldn’t hide his shattered teeth and bloody gums. A sound bubbled up from his throat.

Every available fiber of muscle was put against the shale slab, every hand and shoulder, and the mine was filled with grunts. But, try as the men did, there was nothing they could do to shift the stone off the cart. It weighed an easy thousand pounds, and it was so broad and flat it was impossible for the men to get leverage and lift it or shift it off the cart’s frame. They were going to need help to save Dale’s life.

Stepping away from the devastation, Burly unclipped his walkie-talkie and hammered the transmit button down. “Chester? You still out there?”

Static boiled the air for a moment, but then was replaced with the sound of rain and wind. “Yeah, boss! What’s going on in there?”

Burly hardly knew where to being. “There’s been an accident! The ceiling… some shale came loose! It looks like Ricky’s dead, and Dale’s in bad shape. Real bad. I need you to call emergency services. Tell them to bring some lifting and cutting equipment. Then I need you to call Ray and Mr. Newman and tell ‘em to get their asses out here. Got that?”

“I… I got it,” Chester replied. The outside man sounded shell-shocked. “I’ll be down there with you as soon as I’m done.”

Burly shook his head at the walkie-talkie. “No, don’t. We need someone out there in case something else happens. Besides, one more person ain’t gonna make a difference lifting this thing.”

“But –”

“No buts,” Burly said quickly, adding a harsh edge to his voice. “Just make the calls and stay put. You hear me, Chester?”

The walkie-talkie was silent for several long heartbeats, but eventually the outside storm broke through the tiny speaker again. “Yeah, I hear you. I’m making the calls right now. I’ll be back with you as quick as I can.”

Burly nodded to himself and returned the walkie-talkie to his belt. In front of him, the miners strained against the rock. They knew it could have easily been them under that shale, dead or dying, and if it had they’d want their friends and coworkers to do all they could to save them. So they did, grunting and crying and cursing all the while.

A sound in the darkness behind Burly made him turn. Afraid he was about to see more cave ceiling fall, his hardhat light swept the black like a hand feeling around in midnight waters for something to hold onto. All he saw down either direction was endless stretches of black. As he took one final look behind him, his light hit on a pair of brown work boots. The uneven wall hid who wore them, and panicked that someone else was hurt he scrambled to turn and run toward the boots. When he rounded the stony obstruction he saw Sam standing in the dark. His face was calm, his eyes still and unblinking.

“Sam!” Burly said, a wave of relief washing over him so powerfully he nearly fell over. “Oh, thank God! Come on, we need your help!”

Sam didn’t move, didn’t say a word. All he did was stare.

“Did you hear me?” Burley asked. “We’ve got people hurt over here, so snap out of it and let’s go.”

But Sam didn’t snap out of it, or move, or speak. His eyes were immovable as they bored into Burly. The night shift supervisor had thought the bolter wasn’t hurt, that he looked fine, but the more Burly stared, the more he thought that wasn’t so. Sam wasn’t bleeding or bruised, but his skin — where it could be seen past clothing and coal dust — was porcelain white, while his lips and the skin beneath his eyes was dark, like cave shadows had settled on his face and didn’t want to leave. And his eyes, which Burly could have sworn were blue, seemed as black as the cave around them. He looked sick, cold. Gooseflesh broke out on Burly’s arms and back.

“Sam, talk to me,” he said, taking a small step forward.

Sam moved backward. His feet never left the ground, and his legs stayed stiff, but he somehow still moved. Burly’s eyes watered as they tried to make sense of what they saw. Then Sam’s lips parted, the graying bits of flesh forming words in a pantomime of speaking, yet no words or air left his throat. Burly felt like he was watching a television with the sound turned off. But then words hit his ears with the closeness of someone whispering to him from just behind his neck.

“I’ve seen it,” Sam said, his voice soft, close, and out of time with his face. “I’ve seen the heart of the mountain, Burl, and it’s so beautiful.”

Pain lanced through the center of Burly’s head, making him wince. He suddenly felt loose, untethered. Nothing made sense. He saw movement without motion, heard words that had no voice. Behind him was death, and ahead of him was something other, perhaps worse, or perhaps better. His thoughts became hard to control, keep order of. Desperate to feel something real, he curled up his right hand and punched the stone wall near him. The pain was intense, but clarifying.

“Sam, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, meaning every word, “but we’re getting out of here. When the sun comes up we’ll get this mess sorted.”

Instead of doing as he was told, Sam smiled, his dark lips bowing in a way that made Burly nauseous. “No more,” Sam said, his words and mouth once again out of sync, his distant voice as close as a lover whispering goodbyes over a grave. As the words were said, Sam glided backward into the darkness as smoothly as fog drifting from an October lake to blanket the shore in wet silence. “No more sun for you, Burl. We’re beyond all light now, and we’ll fall into it forever.”

A new jolt of pain hit Burly’s head, striking through his forehead like a spike. He clenched his teeth and howled, but the sound was lost as the mine trembled under the falling of more stone.

The miners screamed, the mountain screamed, and Burly couldn’t tell one from the other as dark rock tumbled from the ceiling and pounded the cave floor. Movement was everywhere, legs and arms and rock, dust washing over everything like nuclear ash. Burly ducked his head and ran without knowing where he was going. His hardhat light swung through the choking air like a fist, lighting up everything yet revealing nothing. He was blind, confused, chasing shadows into insanity.

“Stop running,” Sam’s voice whispered at the nape of his neck.

Burly spun around and swung his hands out to push Sam away, but no one was there, and he tripped over his own stumbling feet. His elbows crashed into the ground.

“Digger!” he yelled. “You out there? Digger! Billy! Anyone!” The only replies were distant screams. He reached for his belt and grabbed the walkie-talkie. His hands were shaking so much he could barely keep it in his hand. “Chester, talk to me!”

Static droned out of the walkie-talkie, but it quickly became an electronic whine that built and built until it was a constant screech. Burly thought his ears would burst from the sound of it, but then the tiny speaker popped. He grunted at the useless object before throwing it against a wall and stumbling as fast as he could from the sound of falling rocks.

As he ran past a cave junction, Burly’s light swung past a pile of loose shale and lit on a face that shone like the moon, a face that shouldn’t have been there.

“Tyler?” he asked. “I thought you –”

“It’s wonderful in the dark,” the ghastly white face said. Arms rose up and hands reached for him.

“Join us,” a voice said behind him.

Burly turned so fast that his neck popped and a jolt of pain raged up his neck like he’d grabbed a live wire. In the opposite cave was Wilber, his face just as white, his eyes just as black.

“Let the shadows have you,” Wilber said.

Hands like ice settled on Burly’s shoulders. He craned his neck and saw Tyler standing behind him, his mouth opening. For a split second Burly expected needle-sharp teeth to glitter in the light, but they didn’t. He didn’t see anything. Tyler’s mouth was blackness, a void, a bottomless emptiness, and it hungered for him. He felt himself falling upward into the black. Using all his strength he twisted his shoulders and threw an elbow into Tyler’s chest. The younger man flew backward, the darkness of the cave swallowing him whole. When he turned back to Wilbur, the miner was nearly on him, his dark mouth open and his bone-white fingers grasping.

Dipping forward, Burly hit the man with a lowered shoulder, knocking him to the ground, then kept going. Rocks and dust fell all around him, the cave a constant roar of noise. He dodged the rocks that he could, bounced off the ones he couldn’t, and hoped that his feet were leading him somewhere safe. As he crossed a passage he thought his light passed over the shadowy face of Hank, the day shift bolter, but the vision was so fleeting he couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t go back to look again.

As he turned down one cut section of mountain and then another, the sound of roaring changed. It was hard to tell at first, as it seemed like one long grinding noise, but after a few seconds he heard a mechanical sound beneath it. That was when he noticed that the rocks had stopped falling.

The miner, he thought. The continuous miner’s on! We have power!

Latching onto that thought like a man reaching for a branch as he careened down a raging river, Burly stopped to gauge where he was. With practiced ears he turned left and right, noted a slight change in the noise to his right, and ran that direction. He felt shadows pulling at him as he ran, inky fingers grasping for his clothes, his arms, his legs. His light crossed from rocky wall to floor to ceiling, but the center of his vision was dark, a hole that had no end. All he could do was run.

Eventually lights appeared in the far distance. They were dim, like the first stars at dusk, but to Burly they were the most beautiful things in the world. As he got closer he saw they were the safety lights on the back of the continuous miner. At the front of it was the rolling drum of metal teeth as it churned deeper into the mountain. In confusion Burly looked around to see how or why the metal beast was operating, and as his hardhat light swept to the right what he saw hit him like a punch to the gut and dropped him to his knees.

Bodies littered the ground like empty fast food containers. Some were crushed by rocks, their heads reduced to leaking pulp or their chests caved in so hard and fast that internal organs had erupted from their mouths. Others looked normal save for the vacant spaces where their eyes should have been. Nearby was Billy, his body laid out like he was waiting to be put in a coffin, his skin milky white and his eyes burnt pits. The rest where dead by the hands of those around them. Long drill bits poked up from the chests of some, and others had had their brains bashed out with heavy wrenches or hammers.

The worst of it was Digger. The miner operator sat on the floor, his legs crossed and his hands on the continuous miner’s control panel that sat in his lap. The dead were arrayed around him like the spokes of a wheel. He faced away from Burly, and Burly was glad for that. He didn’t want to see the miner, didn’t need to.  The Bluestone Mine was filled with the stench of the dead, and shadows crept over it all, even him.

As cold fingers caressed the back of Burly’s neck, the continuous miner emitted a horrific sound. In it he heard dogs barking, rotted trees crashing in deep woods, glaciers cracking in half, meteors screaming to the ground. It was a noise like the end of the world. The digging drum rolled and rolled until the mountain in front of it gave way, revealing a cavern so black it defied sight. As the stone wall crumbled, the continuous miner shut down. In the sudden silence Burly heard a new sound enter the cave. It was a wet sound, and as his light turned on the cavern opening, tendrils of darkness inched out of it. In a sudden rush of panic he tried to get to his feet and run, but cold hands pressed him down. Above him was Tyler and Hank and Wilbur, their dark eyes and mouths echoes of the cavern beyond. He tried to push them off, but their strength was that of the mountain, and their fingers dug in harder, sending ice into his veins.

One by one the dead rose up around him, their blood and brains and organs clothing them in colors he didn’t want to see. Behind them, the darkness reached out, hunting, so hungry, and his light disappeared into it as though it had never existed. With it he felt his sanity slip away little by little until all he could do was cry and wail into the blackness. When his hardhat light finally went out and the darkness overtook him, he was glad. He didn’t want to see the shadows as they swallowed him up. It was enough to feel their cold, moist tentacles pulse and slide across his body. He was alone, flailing in the deep dark, falling into a midnight that had no end, one shadow amongst thousands buried in the heart of the mountain.

The End

About The Author:

Justin is the author of HAYWIRE and the forthcoming A MINOR MAGIC. When not hard at work on his next story he is one of the co-hosts of the popular Dead Robots’ Society podcast. He and his lovely wife live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex along with a motley pack of dogs and cats. Justin is also a co-host on The Hollywood Outsider, a weekly podcast about movies and television.

Buy HAYWIRE on Amazon.com

Closing Time

My time on writing.com has come to a close.

I hold no anger towards WDC, or the creator of the website. This is my opinion, and nothing more. Writing.com is a great place to meet new people and make friends. In that regard, the website succeeds. The site can also serve to inflate, or deflate, your ego rather quickly. In my case, my ego swelled up to roughly the size of the moon. This isn’t such a bad thing, as it boosted my confidence, but that was not what I signed up for. I joined WDC to learn. And therein lies writing.com’s biggest problems.

This has been coming for some time. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, happened today around 3pm. I received a review of one of my old pieces that I wrote almost a year ago. Mind you, the story had several problems (hell, I even forgot I had the thing public, and was embarrassed to see someone had found it) but the reviewer found none of them. What they did mention, made me chuckle, but also served as a prime example of the types of “edits” you get while working on WDC.

Here are a few suggestions I received from this person who shall remain nameless:

When you have a dialogue tag at the end of a question, there is absolutely no need for a question mark. “Are you kidding me,” he asked. The dialogue tag “he asked” serves as the question mark.

I just had to sigh. But that’s not all.

“Their” is a conjunction of “they are”. “They’re” would be used if you meant “they were.”

I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

This person went on to tell me they had a “master’s in english” – yes, “master’s” with the apostrophe – and planned on going for a “doctorage in human letters.”

Now, all of this could be a pile of bullshit, but I’ve received reviews like this before. The thing that bothers me, is the hierarchy of writing.com. I won’t go into a great amount of detail, but they have a system that purposes certain authors are more valuable to the site than others. This is shone by the color, or lack thereof, of your portfolio case. This nameless soul of which I speak, had a shiny blue case which identified her as a “moderator” for the site. They had a community recognition score of over 200, whereas mine is a lowly 49.

I do not believe this person meant to play a game on me. I believe that they were, seriously, only trying to help.

My reviewer did have the courtesy to rate it five out of five stars, but that is also part of the problem with the website. There are a handful of honest, intelligent reviewers out there roaming the halls of WDC, but they are few and far between. More often than not, you will find people reviewing you just so that you will review them back. Then you have the people that seem hellbent on crushing your hopes and dreams by belittling your hard work any way they can.

To me, writing.com has become nothing more than a social networking site for writing enthusiasts. If that’s what you’re looking for, then it’s the perfect place for you. But like wikipedia, be forewarned. Every review you get, is not gospel. Not every review is worthless either. But if you didn’t know what was wrong with your piece to begin with, and signed up just for the help of others, you’re not going to know when someone gives you bad information.

To those of you I met during my time on WDC, we’ll keep in touch some other way. It’s been real, and it’s been fun. But I’m done.

E.

Sissy

Sissy likes pie. Can’t live without it.

Sissy sits in her highchair, cooing, licking red from the tips of her pudgy little fingers. She’s only a year old, and doesn’t know many words. If she did, she might ask for more pie. Maybe for every single meal. But Sissy doesn’t like the crust. The crust is bad. Chewy.

Sissy devours the filling, and smiles, crimson tracing her mouth like ruby lipstick. Her pink tongue flicks out and laps at the leftovers. She’s quite happy.

Mother thinks Sissy has eaten her fill, but Sissy has another idea. When Mother reaches in to clean her fat cheeks, Sissy bites Mother, just so, right on the tip of her finger, and it bleeds something horrible. Mother is at the sink, running cold water over her wound. The two holes seep pink as the blood dilutes. Mother doesn’t look back at Sissy. She knows Sissy enjoyed the taste of her.

Father left a long time ago—the men on the other side of the cameras let him leave. He couldn’t stand the sight of Sissy. Said she was too “wrong” looking. She was born with those teeth, and babies aren’t supposed to be born with teeth.

Sissy is trying to get out of her highchair, but the duct tape holds. Her screams are not pleasant, but the look in her eyes is. Like someone yelling on a rollercoaster. Thrilled, but terrified. Sissy caterwauls, then hisses, and Mother has no choice but to look back.

Because Sissy sounds close.

The tape did hold, but the highchair is on its side, and Sissy’s chubby arms are pulling her across the kitchen floor. Her nails are catching tile, and she’s making progress.

Mother forgets about the holes in her finger, and red dribbles to the floor. She takes a step back, not knowing what else to do. She trembles.

Sissy’s made it to the drops of blood on the tile. Her head is cocked sideways, and she looks like a cow chewing its cud. Her tongue snaps from her mouth and laps at the blood. Mother sees the recognition in Sissy’s eyes. Mother knows that Sissy has realized that the same stuff that’s in her pie, is also inside Mother.

Sissy’s claws find the duct tape weak. She’s become so very smart since she started eating pie. Mother knew this was bound to happen. There are far too many memories hidden away under the crust.

Sissy’s freed herself of her bonds, and Mother’s running away. Even though she knows it’s pointless, Mother still tries to flee. She knows the doors are locked. She understands that the people watching the cameras in the ceiling are not going to help. Because Sissy is one of a kind. And Sissy likes pie.

Mother’s banging on the door, pleading to be let out, when the metal slat slides open, and another pie flops out of it onto the floor. This pie is still throbbing.

“Help!” Mother screams. She wails because she can hear Sissy coming. Sissy with her talons clicking tile, her cooing hurting Mother’s ears.

Mother backs into a corner, and cowers, waiting. She’s watching Sissy eat the new pie. Mother is crying and crying and crying and cannot stop until Sissy stops eating the pie. The look in Sissy’s eyes tells Mother that her finger tasted better. Fresher.

The pie is left alone. Forgotten.

Mother wraps her arms around her shins and begs for it to be over. Sissy is coming, and Sissy looks hungry.

Sissy doesn’t like pie anymore. She can live without it.

Mother, on the other hand, Sissy finds delicious.

The End

Ruminating On: Men Writing Women

Ruminating On: Men Writing Women

When I write about women, I treat them as I would any other character. I do not approach them as some strange alien species, highly intellectual deities, or useless fluff. I treat them like human beings and let their actions dictate how my readers will see them. In my new novel, Dastardly Bastard, I stumbled upon a diamond in the rough with Justine McCarthy. She evolved constantly throughout the piece, until finally, she became just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. I’ve tried to force a character to do certain things, but in the end, my characters do what they want. I did not create Justine with the intention of providing a strong female lead. I wrote her into the novel because she had a story to tell.

For the most part, the only role models I had while growing up were female. My father was around, but didn’t actually partake in my rearing. My sisters—who are twelve and fourteen years older than I am—had my back when it came to bullies. One of my sisters in particular was overly protective of me. I would come home from school with stories of mean kids who had tormented me to no end, and my father would respond, “Grow a pair and defend yourself.” My sister, on the other hand, showed me how to deal with my problems. I didn’t need to “grow a pair”; I needed to stand up for myself. Strength has nothing to do with whether or not your reproductive organs are on the inside, or out. It has to do with standing up and refusing to lie down.

Weakness is present in both genders. When compared to other species, our entire race is pretty helpless. We can’t survive in extreme climates without donning clothing—usually made of some animal—or using a source of heat, like fire. We must use tools to hunt for food because we are not equipped with claws. Our teeth are a joke when next to those of a shark or a lion.  So how do we survive? With the use of our brains, silly. Herein lies my confusion about why women are perceived to be weaker than men. Most guys will tell you, hands down, women are smarter.

Maybe I just don’t understand the concept of trying to create strong women in fiction. If you focus on making a female character strong, aren’t you lending credence to the myth that women aren’t normally strong? Just by talking about how strong your heroine is, aren’t you perpetuating the stereotype that woman are, by definition, weaker?

On one hand, I understand the need to empower women, but on the other, I feel if I go into a manuscript with that in mind, I’m cheating, as if I know that by writing about a strong woman, I will win over female readers. I would much rather just create a character you can love—or hate—and have you base your opinion on how they react to whatever situation they’ve been thrust into by my plot.

In the end, I have no idea how to create a “strong female character.” By trying to explain how I would approach it, I would be stating that I have some knowledge on the subject. I’m in the dark, as I am with women in general. I will not claim to know anything about the opposite sex because I’m smart enough to know I am completely uninformed on the subject. Women are a mystery to me.

What are your thoughts, ladies? How do you feel when a man writes about a woman? Do you automatically ask yourself, “What does he know about how a woman would react?” Or, do you just enjoy the story?

The comments section is open. I want to know what you think.

E.

 

 

 

 

 

Ruminating On: North Carolina and Gay Marriage

Ruminating On: North Carolina and Gay Marriage

Oh, goddamnit, you fuckers are in for it now.

In a country where a Kardashian was married for all of 17 minutes, we refuse a group their civil liberties because of the supposed sanctity of marriage? If you’re reading this, there is a 50/50 chance your ass has been divorced—well, not your ass, but you know what I’m trying to say. Fuck off and let these people be happy. Would you refuse a black person the right to sit next to you on the bus? (Alabamians need not answer that question) Would you seriously tell a modern woman that she must stay at home to cook and clean and bear your children, but she can’t goddamn vote?

You’re all collective pieces of shit and don’t deserve the freedoms you flaunt.

Oh, did I fucking offend you? Well then, please don’t knock any of your teeth out when I tell you to suck my motherfucking dick.

Where the fuck do you get off denying anyone the right to something you enjoy and take for granted? How the fuck do you sleep at night? Yeah, North Carolina, I’m talking to you. I know at least three smart people from that state, so what the hell is wrong with the rest of you?

“Marriage is between a man and a woman.” Fine. You win. But now, I say you shouldn’t be able to get divorced. Yep, that shit just got snatched out from underneath you. You have to actually deal with the retarded mushroom you married. And love them, and enjoy their company, and procreate, and have those alien looking Muppets you call children. What? You’re kids don’t look like that? Well, that’s how I see them. Just like you think homosexuality leads to pedophilia and bestiality and who-the-fuck-knows what else your pea brain can think of, I believe that you’re an inbred hick with cyclopean spawn running the fucking halls of your rickety Deliverance-inspired love-shack. I can play uniformed and ignorant, too, dumbfuck. I can stoop down to your level and beat off with the rest of you monkeys. Because all we’re doing now, is shit slinging. That’s primate behavior. You have no argument, because you’re wrong. I’m just hoping you can fucking read, or this will have been a huge waste of my time.

You fall back on The Book of Leviticus when it doesn’t matter anymore. You want to play the religious card? I can, too. Jesus died, wiping out Ye Old Testament and its teachings. Why the fuck are you still harping on this? That book also says you shouldn’t whack your mole. You’re trying to tell me you haven’t spilt any seed upon a stone lately? How bout a sock… or a tissue? If you have, you should be put to death. That’s right. Your head plus chopping block equals better world. Oh, and while you’re at it, lets sacrifice a fucking goat.

This is a nonsensical issue, just for the simple fact that it doesn’t involve you. If you don’t approve of gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person. Simple as that. If you’re opposed to gay sex, don’t fuck a gay person. You seem to have some asinine, preconceived notion that you should have control over who sucks whose dick and who eats whose pussy. If it’s not happening in your goddamn bedroom, get over yourself. No one stops you from ramming your Viagra-fueled meat hammer into your wife on a nightly basis while she’s on the pill—which is, by the way, not good in the eyes of The Lord, either. Sex is for procreation, or so The Good Book says. If we’re going to follow one rule, we have to follow all of them.

No wonder Jesus hasn’t come back yet. You assholes keep showing him his shadow.

Fuck you and everyone who looks like you.

E.

“Dastardly Bastard” is HERE!

Now available from Red Adept Publishing, my new novel, Dastardly Bastard.

Get your copy today!

Kindle

Nook

Smashwords

Print version coming soon!

Thank you for your continued support!

E.

The Monitor

The Monitor

By Edward Lorn

monitor: [mon-i-ter] - something that serves to remind or give warning.

My son, Juan, was three hours in this world when I met Gaius. Monica slept soundly after the birth, so I snuck downstairs to have a smoke.

The homeless man stopped me in my tracks. Gaius had long silver hair that he’d pulled back in a ponytail. His raggedy clothing must’ve been applied in layers, because he looked to weigh a great deal, but his neck was rail thin. His smell reminded me of my unlucky sojourn into the long term care section of the hospital the day prior. I’d stepped off the elevator and onto the wrong floor. As hospitals corridors are apt to, that hall looked very similar to labor and delivery. I smelled rot and feces. Piss and age.

But this man, he smelled stronger. There was an urgency in his filth, as if it couldn’t wait to be found out. The aroma caused me to twitch.

“Can you spare something?” His outstretched hand bore a glove, sans middle finger. The loose fabric hung at a disjointed angle, swinging below his cupped hand. I had enough time to wonder how he’d lost it, before the funk brought me back.

I didn’t say a word. I pulled out my wallet and handed the man a five. His face contorted, looking troubled.

“Thanks, Mister, but the vendin’sheens don’t take a fiver.” The sadness in his eyes told tales of having this problem before. People had taken back their fives and moved on. Maybe because they didn’t carry smaller bills.

I felt the need to respond with, “You’re in luck. But you’re gonna be a buck short.” I handed him the four singles I carried, and his smile couldn’t have gotten brighter. Seriously, it couldn’t have. His teeth shone yellow in the streetlights, and I couldn’t help but think, I can’t believe it’s not butter!

            “Thanks, again! Name ah Gaius, boss. You’re a good man. You should know my name.”

“Welcome, Gaius. My name’s Raul. You have a good night.” I felt a little bad telling a homeless man to have a proper evening, but old Gaius didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he’d seemed shocked that I’d offered my own name in return.

“Like I said, Raul, you’s a good man. See ya soon!” And off he went in the direction of the hospital doors.

My cigarette tasted funny, like dirt on my tongue. I butted it before I was half through and went back inside. As soon as I walked into the lobby, I knew something was amiss. Raised voices came from the hall directly to my left. A brief glimpse at the sign hanging above the hall told me: Restrooms and Vending.

Gaius was on his back, shirt ripped open, electrodes stuck to his chest and side. A heavy nurse did compressions while another worked with an AMBU bag. My four singles hung from a loose hand. He’d died hungry.

The doctor’s voice broke my concentration. “Call it. Ten fourteen.”

Colder words, I’d never heard.

***

We took Juan home two days later. A chubby baby, I’d had. He looked like his mother, thank God, but the poor little guy had ended up with my chubby cheeks. They hung off him like half empty sandbags.

Rain slowed our journey home. A storm had come in at some point, and showed no signs of letting up. Monica sat in the back with Juan, singing lullabys I’d never heard before.

“The site of you pleases me, and gives me smiles that I need. Monitor watch over him, so that he may sleep, and wake again.”

When we arrived home, the power was out. My home seemed foreboding. Malevolent darkness hid where shadows should not trespass. Especially my son’s new crib.

Monica and I shared a beer in the darkness, talking over our new son, and what he may become one day. I fell asleep to the sound of our battery operated baby monitor.

Crrrrrrrrkk…shhhhhhhhh…

 

***

I woke up feeling cold, thunder droning outside our windows.

The baby monitor cracked, and I heard a voice whisper, “Such a beautiful boy.”

Even though my wife’s voice sounded hollow, and masculine, I agreed. “Yes, yes he is.”

“What?” Monica rolled over next to me, and my heart redlined.

The monitor spoke again, “Pretty boy.”

I threw the covers off to the floor, almost tripping in them as I got up. I snatched the flashlight off my nightstand and let it’s light lead the way.

Monica asked as I left the room, “Raul, what’s wrong?”

“Someone’s in the house!”

I ran down the hall, and burst into my son’s room. I searched the room with the torch’s cone of light.

A man stood beside Juan’s crib, his naked skin glinting in glow of the flashlight. Silver hair hung over his downcast face. Though his chest did not rise, or fall, with breath, and his mouth never moved, he sung the same words my wife had hours earlier.

“The site of you pleases me, and gives me smiles that I need. Monitor watch over him, so that he may sleep, and wake again.”

“Who are you?” I demanded.

The figure looked up at me, and said, “You don’t `member me, Raul?”

My mouth went dry. I found the man’s hand with the flashlight. His middle finger ended in a scared nub. “Gaius?”

“Best if you get him. I don’t have any control over things. Not much time left.”

I didn’t question him. I ran forward and scooped my slumbering son.

Glass exploded as something crashed through the window above the crib. I stumbled back, crashing into the dresser on the wall behind me.

Raising the flashlight, I could see that same smile on Gaius’s face; the one he’d had when I handed him the singles.

“You’s a good man, Raul.”

The power returned, and blinding light caused me to squint.

Gaius was gone.

In his place, a tree branch stood stoic. The wood had impaled the crib mattress.

            The End

The New Face of Bay’s End

Thanks to Glendon Haddix over at Streetlight Graphics for his hard work and dedication to this project. I’m beyond pleased with this new cover. 

Bay’s End will be free for 2 days, starting on 05/03/2012 and ending on 05/04/2012. The promotion starts after midnight (PST) on the 3rd. This new version of Bay’s End comes with a sneak peek of my new book, Dastardly Bastard, out in May 2012.

Thank you, everyone, for your continued support. My ego aside, I’m nothing without you guys!

E.

Ruminating On: Revenge

Ruminating On: Revenge

Dictionary.com says.

When we are wronged, our first thoughts are of revenge. An injustice has occurred, so logic states, that something must be done about it. Our judicial system was founded on that exact principle. But at what cost do we enact revenge? Well, it comes down to what error has popped up in the programming.

Imagine your heart and mind, are networked hard drives. Emotions are downloaded, taking up RAM. Good or bad, they are a spatial concept. They are items that require  space, memory. Now, think of revenge as a corrupt file. A virus.

If the wrong doing is close to your heart, the hard drive is damaged. When friends and family hurt us, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. Most of us, anyway. Blood is thicker than water, and all that shit. But our firewall has been breached, and the file may still exist in quarantine. The other side of society, the ones that cannot forgive even the ones nearest and dearest to them, obviously don’t have the proper virus protection to combat the infected file, so, it spreads, until revenge is all that is left.

If you choose to act, to seek out revenge, you must first delete the items the virus has infected. More often then not, they were good files before thoughts of revenge took root. Love, memories—the things that made that person mean something to you—will be destroyed. You’re left with nothing but a blue screen. A fatal error has occurred.

Then we have revenge as a networking issue. You see news of a murder that has just happened, and you think, “I hope they catch that fucker and string them up from the nearest tree!” Of course you do, because murder is wrong; right? But why is murder wrong? Is it a preinstalled thought, or something you’ve downloaded over the internet of life. Let’s say, you procured your information from the bible. Ah, therein lies a problem, sire. Does the bible not also say to turn the other cheek? “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord.” This is the dichotomy of the matter. On one hand, whether the murderer killed someone close to you or not, you feel it is wrong, and that the killer should be punished. Then again, if revenge is wrong also, what makes us any better than the murderer?

Now, for a bit of honesty and little of E’s POV on the matter.

If you beat, or rape, a woman, you have no place in society. If you molest a child, you deserve to have your reproductive organs removed in the most painful manner possible—I’m pro rusty butter knife, myself. And if you cannot control your rage, passion, or kill just to fill a pit inside you, you don’t deserve to breathe my fucking air. This is my opinion, and yes, asshole, my files are corrupt. I’m no better than any of you. I am wired-in just like the rest of humanity. Anyone who thinks less of me can have fellatio with a dead frog for all I care. This blog is called Ruminating On for a reason. Just because I question things, does not mean I disagree with sound reasoning.

Ron White spoke for the Texas penal system when he said, “If you kill someone … we kill you back.” Never has capitol punishment been summed up in a more concise manner.

Life is a fragile fucking thing. It’s short. It’s hard goddam work. And all of us get it wrong at some point in our lives. But when it is stolen away, that negates the thief’s rights to enjoy the good parts. If they do not respect life, why the fuck should we respect theirs.

Those of you that are against the death penalty, I understand your views, and even respect them. But don’t think you’re holier than thou. No, no, no. Uh uh. You can ride a razor-wire dildo off into the sunset with that nonsense. In my heart and mind—saved to my fucking hard drive—death deals death. Sympathy for a killer does not compute. Fine, think me a robot, but Johnny Five is alive, motherfucker.

The hypocrisy of my thought process—yes, I just called myself a hypocrite in fancy words—is this: By taking someone’s life, because they have taken a life, we are just as flawed as them. Murder is murder. But to go back to The Bible again—there’s also a time to kill.

Context, dipshit. I’m talking about context.

As much as we want to look at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a lovely story about bringing the dead back to life, it is not possible. Taking a life is a permanent venture. You can’t put the pieces back together again. There’s not enough goddam super glue in the world. Revenge is a commitment, like reformatting your hard drive. You’re going to lose a part, if not everything, you’ve built up over time. Go with your instinct, your preinstalled, preloaded software, and hopefully, more often than not, you’ll do the right thing.

Scan complete. No bullshit detected. You may now close this window.

E.

Ruminating On: BDSM

Ruminating On: BDSM

Dictionary.com says: Actually it says BDSM isn’t a word. So, just look up Bondage and Sadomasochism. Fun times!

Author’s Note: I do not partake in BDSM. I do not have a problem with those that do, either. It’s just not my thing. Good on you if you like wooden spoons and clothespins. Just stay on your side of the fence

Oh, do I have a gasser for you guys today!

So, my blog has been blowing up recently, and I couldn’t figure out why. I finally had enough time to do a little research into my recent hit count explosion. Now, I’m not for exploiting certain internet trends to garner more views, but I have done just that. On accident, of course.

Back on April 4th, 2012, I did a Daily Rumination entitled: BDSM. Ever since then, that post has been my most viewed. Why? That’s easy: Search Engine Terms. Below you will find the key words people typed that led them to my blog. Just today, with 118 views so far:

bdsm

bdsm hard

ball tie bondage

bdsm gag blow

gun

Yeah. The last one threw me for a loop, also, until I remembered I did a Daily Rumination on Guns, as well. Those results are not staggering until I add in the fact that I can also see where in the world people are clicking from. Here are the countries from which BDSM was sought out, which in turn, ended them up on my blog:

Germany

Russian Federation

France

Brazil

Australia

Turkey

Belgium

Netherlands

New Zealand

Norway

I deleted the counts, but they are listed from most views to fewest. I wouldn’t think these viewers would be interested in reading my other ramblings on different, non-BDSM topics, but once again, they shock me. Over 76% of viewers have moved on to read other articles on my blog. Most notably 90% go to Ruminating On: Conveying Emotions.

Who knew there were so many BDSM fans out there that are thinking about conveying the proper emotion. Could one theorize that people who mix pain with pleasure are actually just trying to feel something other than what they are used to? Sure. You could think that. But I’m more of the mindset that these people who partake in BDSM may not be so frightened of the emotions banging around inside of them. They just may not know what those emotions actually are.

Or, there is the fact that it’s really hard to tell someone what you’re feeling with a fucking rubber ball in your pie hole.

Fuck it. Like everyone else on this planet, I could be wrong about everything I say. Just my two cents. Unfortunately, two pennies doesn’t get you shit nowadays. Only my opinion.

Your Safe Word for this session is:

E.

P.S. When you’re gagged, almost everything comes out sounding like E … Jealous?