R.M. DuChene's Blog, page 10
December 20, 2013
Mommy Loves You
Troy Creech looked around the living room when he walked in the house. Head barely poking through the door, he listened for sounds. Not just any sounds, but the banging and slamming of heavy items that would alert him, in advance, that his mother was in one of her moods. After he was assured that the coast was clear, he walked the rest of the way into the house, threw his book bag down, then headed for the kitchen. His mom had been in one of her moods that morning, so he had left the house early, forgetting to pack a lunch.
Just before he reached the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the living room, his mother walked through it; her face lit up when she saw that he was home.
“Troy!” She said, pulling him into a tight hug.
He tried not to tense up. If she sensed how scared he was, it would only set her off. She kissed his cheek and then let him go.
“Are you hungry?” She asked.
“Umm…I guess so”
His mom’s smile grew wider. She took his hand and pulled him into the kitchen; talking rapidly as they went.
“What would you like? I think we have some peanut butter and jelly.”
“That’s okay.”
She set to work, bustling around the kitchen. Once the sandwich was made, she put it on a paper plate and sat it in front of Troy, who was sitting at the dining room table by then. When he started eating, his mom ruffled his hair and told him that she was going to clean up. When she walked out of the dining room, Troy felt as if a house had been lifted off of him. He didn’t really care for peanut butter and jelly, which was his dad’s favorite. Troy always preferred bologna and cheese, but he’d never tell her that.
About half way through the sandwich, Troy became annoyed by the copious amounts of peanut butter that stuck to the roof of his mouth. He went back into the kitchen to ask for a glass of milk, but his mother wasn’t there.
He tried to pull the refrigerator door open with his right hand, but had to switch to his left when a sudden, dull pain crawled up his arm from his elbow to his shoulder. The bruise that his mother had given him was nearly gone, but the pain came and went. He grabbed the handle of the refrigerator door and pulled it open, that’s when he heard her scream.
Usually, Troy would run and hide when he heard his mother scream like that. To him, it wasn’t a scream at all, but the roar of some vicious beast, coming to dine on him. The thought of hiding never had the chance to tap him on the shoulder because the scream was followed by his mother storming into the kitchen; his book bag in her hand.
“What’s this shit?” She screamed at him, swinging the book bag and hitting him in the face with it; knocking him to the floor. “Do I look like your Goddamn maid?”
Troy knew better than to answer her. The last time he had tried, she nearly tore his arm from the socket. He scootched backward on his behind until his back rested against the cupboard under the sink. It wasn’t a defensive posture, which would just make it worse. It was more a display of submission. Sometimes, if he was quiet and didn’t look like he would fight back, her rage would burn out and she would be nice again. This time, it didn’t work.
His mother stood above him, eyes burning red with fury. She looked around the kitchen until her eyes became fixed on something that was out of Troy’s eye-sight. She nearly ran to the counter and began to fumble around with the cooking utensils that were kept just next to the stove. When she reappeared into Troy’s field of vision, she was brandishing a large wooden spoon.
“I’m not your maid!”
About an hour later, Troy was looking at his new bruises in the upstairs bathroom. He found a fresh one on his back, another on his upper arm, and one more on his face; he would have to make up something to tell his dad about that one. It’s not so bad, he thought. At least she didn’t grab a frying pan.
His dad came home from work just as Troy descended the stairs. He had a bucket of chicken and a couple of other bags of food. Troy grabbed the bags and carried them into the kitchen. During dinner, Troy’s dad asked him how he got the shiner on his cheek. His mom sat up straight up and looked at him; tell him and die, that look said.
“I got hit in the face with a softball.”
His mom relaxed after the lie passed from his lips. She sat back in her chair and honored Troy with a warm smile.
“You need to be more careful Champ,” his dad said, then resumed eating, satisfied.
That night, in bed, Troy listened for hours as his mother’s yells, name calling, and sobbing drifted through the otherwise quiet house. His dad never fought back. Sometimes, Troy hated him for that.
The next morning was uneventful. Troy got out of bed and brushed his teeth, and then he threw on his clothes and ran downstairs. His mother wasn’t around, so he snatched up his book-bag and hurried out the front door. School was always a safer place then home. He decided that he would ask his friend Jake if he could spend the night. It was Friday after all, and he would just call his dad at work and ask him. He needed at least one day away from his mom.
Troy’s plans were interrupted when he heard his name over the intercom, instructing him to go to the office. His first horrible thought was that his mom had come to the school to get him, but he dismissed it; she couldn’t drive.
When Troy walked into the school administration office, the principal was waiting for him. He took Troy into his office and sat him down on a large, comfortable chair.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Mr. Brown asked. His face looked sad to Troy; sad and worried.
“Ummm…I dunno what…”
“The bruises Troy; tell me about the bruises.”
“I…ummm…I just got his by a soft ball.”
Mr. Brown’s expression changed from worry to anger, then back to worried again.
“Mr. Moore told me that he saw bruises on your back when you were dressing after P.E. Did you get those from a softball too?”
Troy’s chest felt like there was a jackhammer inside of it, trying to chisel its way out. He opened his mouth to speak some made up, on the fly story, but words failed him.
“Troy,” Mr. Brown said. “I am here to help you. You have to tell me what happened son, so I can fix it.”
Still unable to talk, Troy’s tears took his voice’s side and betrayed him. A dam broke behind his eyes and twin Rivers began to run down his face.
Troy’s mom and dad arrived at the school within the hour. His mom stood on one side of him and his dad stood on the other.
“Abused?” His dad said. “That’s ridiculous! The boy’s just clumsy!”
Mr. Brown jumped up from his chair. He looked as if he was about to tell Troy’s dad off, but then he looked at Troy and calmed down a bit.
“Troy; can you wait outside for a few minutes?”
Troy didn’t have to be told twice. He walked out the office and took a seat on one of the wooden benches just outside the door.
When Troy was gone from the office, Mr. Brown told his father to have a seat.
“Your son says that he’s abused Mr. Creech. If you’re not going to take this seriously, then I’ll have to. Normally, we would call the police in these cases, but I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, “you’re not suggesting that I…”
“Hold on…Mr. Creech…hold on.” He didn’t say that you’ve been abusing him.”
Mr. Creech looked puzzled.
“Then who?” he asked. “Kids at school? If so, I’m going to come down here and…”
“He said that his mother is beating him.”
Troy’s father froze, looking at the principal in unbelief.
“What?”
Just then the office door opened slightly and then closed again. Both men looked toward the door, but dismissed the sound when they didn’t see anyone there. Then, they looked back at each other.
“Mr. Brown, my wife killed herself… just after Troy was born…the school knows that.”
“I know, Mr. Creech, but there is obviously something going on with your son.”
Daniel Creech turned back toward the office window and looked at his son, his mouth hung open.
Outside the office door, Michelle Creech leaned over and whispered in her son’s ear.
“I’ll never leave you again,” she said. “Mommy loves you.”
His bladder betrayed him…
The Unforgotten by R.M. DuChene
“Mommy…When’s it going to be my turn?” Timmy Newland whined.
The Newlands had been standing in line to see Santa for the better part of an hour and had barely reached the half-way mark. Timmy tried to be patient. He tried to be the best behaving boy in the world, hoping that Santa would decide that he was good enough to give him his most favorite thing in the whole world for Christmas…a bike.
Santa brought Timmy a bike last Christmas, but it had training wheels and Timmy’s dad accidently ran it over when Timmy left it in the drive-way. Richard Newland told his son that he wouldn’t get another one, but Timmy knew the rules. He knew that Santa was bigger than his dad in the grand scheme of things and if Santa brought him a bike, his dad wouldn’t take it away.
“I really have to go…,” Timmy said, looking up at his mom with pleading eyes.
Martha Newland looked down at her son, saw him bouncing up and down and crossing his legs. She knew that there was very little time before an accident happened. She asked her husband to hold their place in line while she took Timmy to the bathroom. The bathroom wasn’t far, only a few feet away, but Timmy was only six, and six year olds don’t just run off to the restroom by themselves, not at a crowded mall during the holidays, not ever, in Martha’s mind. She Took a giant step over the Golden rope and held it high for Timmy to pass under it, and then led him to the restroom. When Timmy finished doing his business, his mother was still in the same spot, leaning against the wall outside.
When they joined Timmy’s dad back in line, Timmy was delighted to see that the line had begun moving faster. His dad said that a few people who were in front of them lost their patience and left. That was alright with Timmy; he was that much closer to his prize. When Timmy’s turn came about a half hour later, his excitement almost carried him past the rather tall elf, who snatched his collar and pulled him back.
“Santa’ll be right back, kid,” the elf said. “Even Saint Nick has to tinkle, ya know?”
Timmy watched in torturous disappointment as Santa lifted his heavy frame out of his red and gold chair, stumbled, and then turned the boy’s expression to horror by falling down, face first, onto the small stage.
“Santa!”
The elf wasn’t fast enough. Timmy burst under the rope and ran to where Santa was laying. The small boy hugged Santa from behind, smashing his tear filled face into the Jolly old elf’s long, musky hair.
“Please don’t die, Santa,” he said as he rocked the man’s head in his arms. “Please don’t die, Santa.”
Timmy couldn’t feel the skinny elf trying to pull him away, he couldn’t hear his parents calling to him from the roped off barrier that now separated them from their son. Timmy barely heard anything at all except for his own ear-piercing scream when Santa grabbed hold his arm and bit into his wrist.
***
“Hurry, Richard!” Martha Newland screamed at her husband from the backseat of their SUV as he sped toward the freeway onramp. She cradled Timmy in her arms, her hands cupped over her young son’s wrist, putting pressure on the wound.
“It won’t do us any good,” Richard Newland said. “The traffic’s all backed up!”
When Santa attacked Timmy the Newland’s rushed to their son’s aid. Richard wrestled with Santa, who had a death grip on Timmy’s wrist, until two uniformed security officers arrived. The officers helped free Timmy and his parents rushed him from the mall, without looking back to see what was going on with Santa and the security officers.
It didn’t take long for the Newlands to realize that what was going on in the mall was happening all over. When they left the mall, people were running through the parking lot like it was the end of the world; most with zombies hot on their trail. Richard Newland thought of them as zombies anyway, even though they weren’t gross looking like they are in the movies. Perhaps, he thought, this was only the beginning; the gross stuff would come later, as their bodies began to decay. Or, maybe they’re not zombies at all, but just people that have gone crazy for some reason. He pushed the thoughts from his mind. It didn’t matter at that moment. What mattered was getting Timmy to the hospital; fast.
The hospital was even more insane than the mall. The parking lot was completely crowded. Most people just said, “Screw it” and left their cars right where they were, travelling the rest of the way on foot. The Newlands did the same. Martha led the way as Richard carried Timmy through the seemingly endless maze of abandoned cars and fallen bodies. They went around the side of the building, to the ambulance entrance and were relieved to see that the large crowd of people, who were clogging up the front entrance, didn’t find that location yet. Two men rushed outside and told them that they would have to go around to the front of the hospital like everyone else, but when they saw the look of terror on Martha’s face and the small, blood stained boy in her arms, they ran back inside and came out with a gurney and a nurse.
Timmy had lost a lot of blood, so the doctors gave him a pint of O-positive and sewed up his wrist. They explained to the Newlands that even though the hospital policy was to keep any patients who receive blood for forty-eight hours for observation, they simply didn’t have the room available. The Newlands left a couple of hours after arriving with their sewn up son, a bottle of pills, and a doctor’s business card. The business card was a joke, of course. The phones would go out that very night and never come back on.
***
When the Newlands returned home, they put Timmy to bed and began to fortify the house with everything they could find. Richard made a few trips to the shed and returned with numerous sheets of ply-wood that he’d bought for one of the many projects that he didn’t get around to starting. He piled the wood onto the living room carpet and then proceeded to board up the windows on the inside of the house. When he completed the down-stairs, he pulled a couple of sheets upstairs to board up those windows, but then he decided against it and returned downstairs; leaving the boards stacked at the top of the stairs. Who knows, he thought, I may have to seal off the upstairs from the downstairs at some point.
When Timmy woke up the next morning, his eyes were stuck shut. He tried with all of his might to open them, but the lids wouldn’t come apart. Martha heard him crying and ran to his room. After seeing her son’s eyes, she wet a wash cloth and began to remove the mucus that had seeped out and dried, gluing his eyes together; when he was able to open his eyes at last, it was his mother’s turn to cry out.
Richard ran to his wife’s aid and froze in the doorway of his son’s room. Even from a good distance, he could see that Timmy’s eyes had turned blood-red. He pulled his son from the bed and ran a bath for him. As he pulled off Timmy’s clothes, Richard was dismayed to see bluish blotches, covering sections of the boy’s front and back sides.
“He’s sick,” Martha said when she saw the bruises.
“No,” Richard said, “he’s not sick; he’s turning…turning into one of those things.”
Martha looked at her husband in horror. Her eyes asked how he could dare say such a thing, but deep inside, she knew that he was right; they’re boy was going to become a zombie.
They kept Timmy in the tub until the water turned room temperature and then pulled him out, put fresh pajamas on him, and put him back to bed. Martha popped the top off of the medicine that the hospital gave them and was about to shake a couple of pills in her hand, but then caught herself; it wouldn’t do any good. Once Timmy was snug in bed, Richard excused himself and left the room, saying that he had to double check the barriers on the windows. Martha knew that her husband was going to do no such thing. He needs to cry, she thought; he needs to cry and doesn’t want to do it in front of Timmy. In her heart, she commended her husband for that, but she also begrudged him for having the option. Martha wiped away of her own tears, picked up a book off of her son’s night stand, and began to read to him. He listened for a few minutes and then drifted off to sleep.
When Timmy woke up the next time, he was in his father’s arms. Richard held his son close as he navigated his way down the wide staircase and then laid his son on the couch, in front of the Christmas tree. Timmy looked at the tree and smiled. He wasn’t smiling at the tree, but at the brand new bicycle set just in front of it. It was just the one he wanted, the one with the brass horn. He forced himself into a sitting position while his dad wheeled the bicycle to the couch. Timmy brushed his fingers along the red, smooth, surface of the frame and smiled again.
“He brought it early,” he said. “Maybe he felt bad for biting me.”
The Newlands exchanged grim glances and then regained their cheery composure.
“You wanna go out and ride it?” Richard asked.
Timmy’s face lit up, almost as much as when he first saw the bike. He looked to his mother.
“Can I mom?”
***
Timmy’s feet barely reached the pedals when his dad set him on the bicycle. It didn’t really matter, since he wouldn’t have had the strength to ride the bike on his own. He let out whoops of joy as his dad pushed him around the cement slab that covered half of the back yard. Every couple of yards, Timmy would shoot a quick glance at his mom, who was leaning against the frame of the back door. He took his hands off of the handle-bars and held them up.
“Look mom,” he said, “no hands!”
Samantha smiled and clapped her hands. She did her best to try and look happy, but inside, she was being torn to pieces.
“That’s so good, baby,” she said, clapping her hands. “You’re doing so good!”
“Can I try and do it on my own?” He asked his dad.
Richard shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea kiddo. You’re not quite well enough yet.”
“Please….,” Timmy whined; “just for a little bit?”
Richard glanced at Martha, who was still leaning against the door-frame and raised his eyebrows; she nodded back.
“Okay,” he said, returning his attention to his son, “just for a few feet.”
Richard pushed Timmy a few more feet and then let go, allowing his son to take over. Timmy stretched his legs down and began to pedal the bike on his own, the tips of his toes barely reaching.
“I’m doing it!” Timmy yelled. “Look mom; I’m doing…”
The bicycle fell sideways before the boy could finish. He didn’t lose his balance, he lost his consciousness. Richard ran to his son, pulled the bike off of him, and cradled his head in his arms.
“Timmy…,” he said, shaking his son. “Timmy, talk to me…”
Martha couldn’t see Timmy through her husband’s back, but it looked as though Richard was talking to the boy; then, Richard began to shake Timmy harder and yelling for him to wake up. Martha’s breath caught in her throat and she ran to her crying husband and her dead son.
***
The phones went out when the power did. The Newlands disconnected the land-line many months before, since they both had cell phones, and their cells went dead a few days back. They couldn’t call anyone for help, didn’t know if anyone could help. After debating for hours as to whether they should take Timmy’s body to the hospital or bury him themselves, they decided on that latter. Timmy was their son, their responsibility.
For days, they waited for the police or the National Guard to show up, to offer some kind of assistance, but nobody ever came. Richard pulled out his portable radio every night and searched the stations for anything…but there was only white noise. If the end of the world had come, it had happened in the blink of an eye, rather than a slow, drawn out struggle.
Martha stayed inside the house as Richard dug a plot in the backyard for their son. There was no ceremony, no last words from the boy’s parents. When Richard believed that the hole was deep enough, he retrieved his Timmy’s body from the house, placed it in the plot, and then began to shovel the dirt back in, beginning at the boy’s feet and working his way up to the boy’s sheet covered head. Once the hole was fully filled, he returned the shovel to the shed, grabbed Timmy’s new bike by the handlebars, and wheeled it back into the house, placing right back in the same spot by the tree where his son fist saw it.
“At least he got to ride it,” Martha said. She’d come into the living room after Richard sat down and took a seat next to him on the couch. The tree wasn’t lit, but she thought that it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, especially with the bicycle propped in front of it.
“We at least gave him that,” Richard said and then began to unleash a torrent of sobs. He grabbed his wife and buried his head into her breast, letting out sorrowful moans of pain and anguish. Martha held her pain inside. She’d had a good cry when Richard was burying their son and now it was his turn. She had to be strong for him, at least for a while.
A sound from the front porch interrupted their misery. Richard jumped up from the couch and ran to the front door. The windows were boarded up, so he locked the chain in place at the top of the door and opened it, just enough to look out. Martha had swept the porch that morning and forgot to put the broom away. Richard saw it, lying down on the porch, a zombie-thing lying beside it. The zombie-thing had tripped over the broom and they both went down.
“What is it,” Martha asked. She stood up and walked toward her husband; “is it him…”
Richard held out his palm to his wife, signaling for her to stop.
“Get my gun.”
He didn’t have to explain to Martha what he wanted the gun for, she knew. It was one of them; one of those…things. She turned to rush up the stairs, but he husband’s voice stopped her again.
“Holy shit…”
***
The smell of living blood could be sense from a mile away. The flock turned from the main road, and began to shuffle down the long, dirt driveway. As they turned a wide corner, they saw the large, white house, and something else, a flash of movement as the front door closed. There was living in the house, they knew it, sensed it, hungered for it. There was no leader of the pack; it shared a collective mind, a set of primal instincts that guided their movements. Conscience thought was something of the past; it didn’t apply to them.
The mob exited the driveway and quickly filled in the large clearing, surrounding the house. They didn’t understand human technology anymore, didn’t remember how to use a door knob, but retained the knowledge of what a door was. They crowded around the front and back doors and began to scratch and bang their hands against them. A few gathered at the boarded up windows, smashed through the glass on the outside, but only managed to cut their hands and arms to ribbons. If another scent of life caught their attention, the mob would forget about the house and move on, hoping for easier prey, but until then, they would continue to try and breach the house.
Inside the house, Richard and Martha scrambled to keep their safe haven intact. Martha ran to the top of the stairs and pulled out the hammer and nails, ready to seal off the top of the house. Richard periodically checked the front and back doors, making sure that they weren’t being breached. He could hear them banging and scratching, but the doors held in place. Richard relaxed a little when he realized that the creatures didn’t have the strength to break down the doors. He thought of joining Martha upstairs, but decided against it; that was one time when making a wrong decision would be the difference between life and death.
In the distance, a woman’s scream could barely be heard over the sound of the zombie-things’ trying to enter the house. Richard’s first thought was of Martha, but that thought quickly fled from him. Martha was upstairs. The screams came from somewhere else; somewhere not too far, but not very close either. The banging and scratching sounds stopped.
On the porch, the mob heard the sound of a woman screaming and froze in place. They knew which direction the scream came from and turned to face that way. As a single unit, they began to walk off of the porch, lured by the promise of an easy meal.
***
There was a bright flash of light, and then a plunge into darkness again. The flash came again and displayed a vivid picture; a downward view of a pair of shiny, new handlebars. The third flash was a memory of Richard Newland’s face smiling down, saying something that Timmy couldn’t hear. There was another brief plunge into darkness and then another memory; a brand new bike, sitting in front of a decorated tree. Timmy wanted that bike; he hungered for it. The image snapped away and he was left in darkness again, but that time, the darkness was different, it was a physical blackness, full of pressure and moisture. Timmy felt like he was being smothered; completely surrounded on all sides by cold, wet darkness. He had to escape.
He began to wiggle around, slowly at first and then with more conviction. After fighting for a moment, he managed to free one of his hands from the sheet that was wrapped around him. He pushed his hand up through the blackness and felt the soil give way around it. When his hand punched through the top layer of dirt, Timmy knew that he had found freedom; he freed his other hand and pushed it up to meet the light with the other one.
The mob was shuffling across the clearing toward a pathway that cut through a cluster of trees. The first few members stepped onto the path, but were told to turn back. There was no voice calling out to them, no grunts or banging; just a thought. They turned and headed back into the clearing, following the rest of the mob who had begun to surround a small patch of dirt in the backyard of the house.
When both of Timmy’s hands were free from the earth, he used them to pull his body out of the grave. It was a slow process; each thrust of his arms earning him a mere inch or two. When he finally freed his torso, the process was much quicker. He leaned back and pushed his legs free, sliding along the dirt floor of the backyard on his rear.
He didn’t seem to notice the cluster of zombies that surrounded him after he freed himself from his earthen prison. The only thought that Timmy had was of a bicycle, beautiful and shiny, sitting beneath a tree. He knew where the tree was, he hungered for his bicycle… he began to walk toward the house.
The cluster of zombies followed Timmy up to the back porch. He wasn’t their new leader; zombies didn’t have leaders; they just knew that there was something inside the house that the boy wanted very badly, so they wanted it badly. Adding the boys limited memories to their collective consciousness, they began to receive images of his father, his mother, and the bicycle that he desired more than anything in the world. The zombies kept their distance as Timmy re-doubled their efforts – banging and scratching on the back door. An imaged flashed through Timmy’s mind – not of his parents or a bike that time, but of a rock, a very special rock. One of the larger zombies broke from the cluster and stepped up onto the porch. Next to the back door, there was a large, polished rock. The zombie flipped the rock over, uncovering a brass key. He leaned over and picked up the key and handed it to the newest member of their group. Timmy took the key, issued a low grunt to the other zombie and unlocked the door.
***
Richard didn’t have time to run when the door opened. He’d been about to start a fire in the fireplace one second and was surrounded by zombies the next. Martha heard his scream and ran half way down the stairs. It didn’t take long for her to figure out that Richard was gone. Having no time to mourn, self-preservation kicked in and she fled back upstairs. When she reached the top of the stairs, she grabbed the extra plywood and fumbled to get it into position so that she could nail it to the wall; she never got to drive in the first nail. The zombies reached the top of the stairs and pushed against the plywood, knocking Martha backwards. She slammed against the hallway wall and fought to keep the large piece of plywood between her and the zombies. The zombies couldn’t break through the wood, but they didn’t have to. Martha screamed in pain as a set of teeth dug into her hand. She dropped the wood and was immediately tackled by the hoard. They bit into her, tearing away at her flesh. Hands dug into her torso, beginning to rip her apart, releasing her entrails. Martha managed to dig her husband’s pistol out from her jacket pocket, put the barrel to her temple, and pulled the trigger.
The sound of the gunshot shook the very foundation of the house. The zombies kept pouring in; promised a meal in both, the downstairs and upstairs areas. Timmy didn’t partake in the feast of his parents; he had designs of another prize. When he opened the back door, the rest of the mob knocked him to the side and rushed through the house. He struggled to get through, but his small size made it impossible for him to push the others out of his way. Once the zombies were busy with their meal, Timmy found that it was much easier to navigate his way into the living room. He squeezed his way between a couple of zombies who were lumbering in the kitchen doorway and saw his bike, still leaning on its kick-stand in front of the tree. It called to him; he went to it.
***
James and Audrey Borba had been living in their SUV since the apocalypse began. They would travel from city to city, looking for food and gas, but the majority of the towns was deserted and void of resources. The Borba’s’ didn’t lack for food or comfort, but they were always on the lookout for more. The last small town they had gone through, they’d hit the jackpot. The residents were evacuated before the citizens had a chance to clear the grocery shelves, empty the gas stations, or loot the whole town, picking clean anything of value. They were able to stock up on groceries, fill up their gas tank, and even fill a few gas cans for a refill down the line.
The last living people they’d run into told them about a place on the coast where all of the living were migrating. The word was that they had power, food and enough supplies to last a couple generations. James was allured by the prospect of survival, while Audrey was excited because she heard that the President of the former United States was there. In any case, the decision to travel to the coast was unanimous.
As the Honda Pilot cruised along the back roads that led to the interstate, it began to slow down.
“That’s the biggest herd I’ve seen so far,” James said.
He slowed the SUV to a stop and looked out at the horizon through the windshield. The view of the road in the distance was blocked by an enormous group of zombies.
“Are you going to drive through them?” Audrey asked. She grabbed a hold of James’s arm. He could feel her shaking.
“Naw,” he said, “They’re mostly in the middle of the road. I’ll hit the shoulder and try to go around them.”
He hit the gas and closed the distance to the mob. Before the SUV reached the zombies, James pulled to the side and drove around the group. There were a couple of stragglers on the shoulder and they bounced off the front of the SUV, leaving little damage. In seconds, the SUV bounced back onto the road, just on the other side of the zombies and sped off, down the road.
“You see that?” Audrey asked. She was looking through the rearview mirror. “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen!”
James slowed down the SUV and looked into the rearview mirror. In the center of the road, following behind the massive group of zombies, was what looked like a small boy, riding a bicycle.
THE END
August 8, 2013
Kill the Flats
One second I was standing in my foxhole, looking down range through a mounted scope and the next, I was thrown to the ground. As I fell sideways, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a small ball of light whizzing past my head, leaving a bright yellow-orange trail behind it. I hit the dirt and immediately jerked back up to my feet, making sure to keep my head below the edge of the foxhole. Smith was bent over on the other side of the hole, looking at me like I just shot his cat.
“What the hell, mayne!” He said. “You almost got yourself dusted; you idiot!”
I opened my mouth to respond in my usual sarcastic manner, but when I saw that that time, he wasn’t joking…I held my words back.
“Sorry,” I said, bending my head down in shame. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
His expression lightened a little and he slammed his palm against the side of my shoulder, almost hard enough to knock me down again.
“No shit, you weren’t paying attention,” he said, smiling. “Just get your head out of your ass before you get us both killed; okay?”
I nodded; that was all he expected. We pulled up our weapons and looked over the side of the foxhole; the enemy troops were done playing with the small fire and were in the process of beginning their nightly barrage of electrical impulse mortar rounds. It was like clockwork, every night, the same thing.
It’d been two years since the invasion. Smith and I were in it since the beginning, fighting off the Flats; that are what we called them, the Flats; trying to get them to consolidate into pockets so that we could destroy them. The Flats were too smart for our tactics though. They roamed around in small bands, not putting all their eggs in one basket; so to speak. We would wipe out one wave of their foot Soldiers and another would just come right up behind them and take their place on the front line. If there wasn’t so many of them, the war would’ve ended much sooner than it did in my opinion.
Most of the battles happened at night. During the daylight hours, we’d take the time to get some much needed rest, and the Flats would disappear into their hand-made dwellings, probably planning their next attacks. It was very seldom that one of our own would get picked off during the day, but it did occur. A few times, a Flat would come into one of the caves that we slept in ever since they destroyed our structures, and kill one of us. We’d wake up and take out the suicidal bastard, but by then, the damage was done, we’d be too frightened to go back to sleep and thus, become weaker during the night time battle.
***
As the weeks, months and years grinded forward, both sides fell into a kind of deadlocked face-off. At first, the battlefield had been more all-encompassing. We’d drop into enemy territory and clear them out as fast as we could. Since the destruction of the vast majority of technology on both sides, the battlefield has become more linear; limited resources were saved for the development of improved weapons systems.
Large, earth destroying weapons still existed, but neither side would dare use them; that would defeat the purpose of the war altogether. It wasn’t about wiping out the enemy completely, it was about the control of resources; specifically, food. Food supplies dwindled as the war raged on, but we were still able to grab a quick meal off of fallen foes, if they had any left that was. Sometimes, they would be so destroyed, so completely unrecognizable, that finding the food was impossible.
“You see that?” Smith asked. I was beginning to become drowned in my thoughts again and his voice pulled me out. I looked down range through my scope, just in time to see a squad of Flats disappear into a foxhole. I assumed that they were relieving the Flats that’d been in there before them, so I waited patiently for the former squad to come out, so I could pick them off.
“What the hell?” I said after a few minutes. “How many Flats does it take to fill a foxhole?”
“Maybe they’re dead…” Smith said.
I thought about what he said and it made sense.
“Shit…” I said. “We could’ve taken it this whole time?”
“Hey you two…”
I spun around. Two Soldiers were lying on their bellies, looking down at us.
“We’ve come to relieve you,” one of them said.
I looked at my watch and then back at them, confused.
“We still have a few hours,” I said.
“The commander wants you two to report to the cave,” the other one said. “He sent us to replace you.” I looked at Smith with a perplexed expression and he shrugged.
“Guess we better go,” he said.
The two replacements crawled into the foxhole, took our weapons, and aimed them down range. Smith and I crawled out the same way and low crawled until we came around a tall crop of boulders that shielded the cave entrance from the battlefield; it took awhile.
When we walked into the cave, the commander was waiting for us. We stood at attention and rendered a salute; he didn’t return it. He walked toward the back of the cave and we followed. When he reached the back wall, he motioned for us to come closer so he could keep his voice low.
“We’ve received intelligence that the Flat’s primary leadership is making a site visit across the way. This is reliable information and we need to act on it fast. I’ve selected the two of you to infiltrate the Flat encampment and take them out. You will be alone, but we will try and keep them busy from our side. “
He handed us a small tablet computer, displaying a picture of one of the Flats.
“This is the primary leader,” he said. “Our hopes are that if we can get him, the rest will be easier to manage. If you can’t get any of the others, get him. Do you have any questions?”
We both shook our heads.
“Good…now go see the arms sergeant and get some weapons. Make sure that you switch out your chest armor for the lighter stuff. Good luck gentlemen; move out.”
He snapped to attention and rendered a salute to us. I played with the idea of not returning it…a grave sign of disrespect, but decided that a salute wouldn’t kill me.
***
After a quick trip to see the arms sergeant, we took off, heading first back around the side of the cave and then slid on our bellies until we reached the far side of the enemy encampment. From our position, we could see the fierce battle raging on both sides. After we left, the commander stayed true to his word. Light rounds and electrical burst lit up the ground all around the two bases. Nobody would be looking at us.
The Flat’s base was no more than a small town that they’d taken over. They built up a high wall around the perimeter and dug fox holes around the outside. Smith and I continued to low crawl until we were centered on the side of the base. Our eyes had become adjusted to the darkness and through the gloom; we could see two fox-holes defending the side of the base…just two. I was shocked by how complacent the Flats had become and made a mental note to report the information to the commander when I returned…if I returned.
We made an on-the-spot decision to part ways and belly up to each of the two foxholes alone. I low crawled across the field of tall grass and approached the side of the foxhole. When I peeped down inside, I was happy to see only one Flat, and he was fast asleep. I slid my knife out of my boot, fell on top of him, pressed my hand over his mouth, and cut his throat. After he stopped twitching, I removed his uniform and quickly changed into it. When I met Smith at the wall, we both looked like Flats.
The Flats had taken measures to prevent the scaling of their wall, but the coils upon coils of razor wire only made it easier. I got a few fresh cuts in my hands and wrists as I was climbing it, but almost as soon as my boots hit the ground inside the compound, the bleeding stopped. I stayed close to the wall and scanned my surroundings. We came over into a small lot that was divided by intersecting roads. The abandoned homes and buildings that lined the sides of the roads were dark, but in the distance, a shiny beacon called to us. A tall building, clearly visible from our position, lit up the night sky.
***
We didn’t attack the building in a suicidal rush, screaming religious prayers as we took round after round, before plummeting to our deaths. Instead, we simply walked past the guards that were posted outside and pushed our way through the double doors that once served as the main entrance to the city courthouse. We were dirty, we had blood on our uniforms, and we must’ve smelled like death, but nobody looked at us with suspicion. On the contrary, the looks we received bordered somewhere between sympathy and downright admiration.
We took the stairs to the second level of the building and split up, walking along the hallways, looking for signs of where the Flat leadership could be. I met Smith back at the staircase a few minutes later and we continued to the top floor, skipping the third altogether. There was lot more activity on the fourth floor and as soon as we stepped into the hall, I knew that we were in the right place. There were Flats moving along the hallways at a rapid pace, some holding tablets with the screens lit up, all looking like they were late for an important meeting. Smith and I waited until most of the activity moved away from where we were and then split up again. I walked slowly down the hallway, listening intently as I passed every closed door. I reached the end of the first hall and then turned down another that was longer, with a pair of double wooden doors at the end. That must be the place, I thought.
I walked down the hall at a slow pace, but not too slow. I didn’t want to look like I was all out attacking the place, but I didn’t want to look like I was creeping the hallways either. I continued to focus on the doors as I walked toward them and when I was about half way down the hall, they opened, spilling out about ten fast walking Flats. I almost lost it right then, but managed to keep my cool. I ducked into a close by washroom, entered one of the stalls, and waited for the herd of Flats to pass.
I heard and smelled them draw closer; their meaningless, garbled speech filled my ears and their unmistakable scent attacked my senses. Just when I thought that the coast must be clear, the wash room door opened. I nudged the stall door, just far enough to look out. One of the Flats was standing in front of a urinal, whistling. He finished his nasty business, put his junk away, and turned to find me standing in front of him. I thought that he’d be scared out of his mind, but he only gave me a warm smile, exposing his ugly, flat teeth at me. He reached out his hand.
“Thank you for your service, young man,” he said.
I took his hand and pressed it into my own. The Flats get insulted if you refuse to do that. It worked out in my favor anyway because just as his eyes lit up with understanding at the touch of my cold, dead flesh, I pulled him to me, exposed my many rows of beautifully pointed teeth and sank them all into his throat.
***
The wash room door burst open just as I was draining the last drop of the Flat’s blood. I shot to my feet, hissing and exposing my blood soaked fangs. Smith closed the door behind him and pressed his back against it.
“Looks like you got em,” he said. He was looking down at the president’s face. “You wanna turn him or leave him in a stall?”
“Let’s just leave him,” I said. “We don’t have time to turn him…help me out.”
Together, we dragged him into the stall that I’d been hiding in and closed the door. Then, we licked up what little blood managed to fall onto the floor, leaving the washroom nice and clean. At the sink, I washed my face, making sure that every drop of blood was removed before we left.
When we walked out of the building a few minutes later, nobody tried to stop us. These fools, I thought…so complacent and ignorant. The base alarm went off as we were climbing back over the wall. We scaled faster, cutting our hands to ribbons and managed to get over without being seen. On the other side, we jumped into the foxhole that I’d vacated earlier and waited. We didn’t have to wait too long; the sky lit up again with a storm of light rounds, explosions, and electric bursts that made the barrage earlier seem like practice. That was our cue; we climbed out of the foxhole and ran.
Though a storm of fire from both sides, Smith and I sprinted across the wide piece of earth that separated the two bases. I managed to keep up with him, but his stride was longer than mine and I found myself a few paces behind him by the time we reached the center of the field. Being my battle buddy since day one, he wasn’t about to leave me behind. He turned and grabbed me, thrusting me forward.
“Let’s go partner!” He shouted. “You’re not going to croak on my watch!”
He was facing me, running backward, and smiling. Slightly insulted and feeling that my physical abilities were being made fun of, I stepped it out a bit.
“There you go, Soldier!” He shouted and turned back around.
An explosion ripped across the field to our right, leaving an ultraviolet glow in the pockmarked earth, and then more mortars began to fall around us. We started to zigzag, trying to throw off the enemy’s aim. Smith began to run faster. He zoomed past me, apparently forgetting his earlier promise and pulled out about five paces in front of me before exploding in a cloud of glowing dust.
“No!” I screamed, but didn’t stop running. I made it to the fox holes and blew right past them, heading for the cave entrance, but before I reached it, another explosion hit just behind me and slammed my body into one of the large boulders. The lights went out.
***
I woke up a week later in a hospital bed. My company moved me to the town infirmary after they’d taken the enemy base. According to the commander, I’d been able to relay the weaknesses of the town’s defenses, at least enough so that he could act on it.
The battle was short lived. Within two days after my long sleep began, the battalion, along with reinforcements, attacked the compound. They made quick work of the Flats and took over the base, vacating the cave for good. The surviving Flats were stored for food and entertainment purposes and I was branded a hero. I didn’t feel like a hero though. I knew that it was by pure dumb luck that the president just happened to wander into the wash room while I was in there. I knew, deep down inside, that I was meant to be dead, along side of James.
The war was wrapped up within a few months. The commander was right. Without their primary leader, the Flats lost the will to fight. I’m told that the rest of the battles went fairly easy for our side after Smith and I paved the way. I didn’t fight in any of them. By the time I healed completely, I was transferred, stationed at one of the darkest bases on the planet. It was my reward for being a hero; you see?
Sometimes, I wonder what we’ll do when the food runs out. If the powers that be are smart about it, they will create Flat farms, multiplying them so that they could always be readily available when we need them; but, I think that it’ll go the other way. It wasn’t long ago that we were Flats ourselves and some things carry over. After all, isn’t war itself a Flat trait? I fear that we’re doomed in the long run, but I take solace that when the end does come, it will be the end of us all. Hopefully, I’ll grow tired and go sunbathing long before that.
August 7, 2013
Death Throes
"Got a light?" The girl by the door asked me as I walked passed her on my way out. I turned around, lighter in hand, and lit her cigarette; then I snapped the lighter closed and slid it back into my coat pocket. She looked young and fresh to me, like she still had a lot of lumps to get before she could be considered a life veteran. She looked up at me like she wanted to ask me out on a date or something; I didn't give her the chance. I hit the door and blew out of the building before she could even wink. I went home from Mr. Hawkins's office and lumped myself into bed. I'd been on my feet since dusk and my legs felt like boiled noodles. Just before I could go into hibernation, my phone rang. I would've ignored it, but the only people who called me were clients or the station...either way, I couldn't afford not to answer. It was the station...of course it was. The dispatcher said that there was a female corpse lying in a dumpster on 22nd Street and since I lived in that area, I pulled the short straw. I told her to let the idiots at the scene know not to touch anything until I got there and hung up. The head-beaters had the girl's body lying out on the pavement when I pulled up. I thought about yelling at them for moving her, but decided that it wasn’t worth the hot air. When I strolled up to the dead girl, my eyes turned into silver dollars. It was the same girl that I'd given a light to. The girl's red hair was held back in the same band that she'd been wearing earlier. I did a fast scan to see if any kind of kinky stuff stuck out, but it wasn't happening. The girl wasn't raped...she was murdered, plain and simple.The coroner arrived before I was done with my preliminary examination and squeezed past me. As I stood off to the side, trying to collect myself, he wrapped thick, white gauze around the wide, wooden stake that protruded from the girl's chest. I thought about reminding the goof troopers not to remove the stake unless they wanted a pile of ashes to examine, but figured that even they couldn't be that stupid. The coroner finished wrapping things up and effortlessly lifted the girl into the back of his van. As the van sped away, I thought to myself; what a shame...so young...she couldn't be more than two-hundred years old.My first stop after the leaving the crime scene was the superintendent's office. If the Dame behind the counter had thrown me a curveball, she’d have to answer for it. When I walked into the office, she wasn't there. A different girl was perched behind the desk, answering the phones. "Where's the other Dame?" I asked.She looked at me like I had a bat in my cave and raised her eyebrows. "What woman would that be?" Great, I thought - an equal rights nut.I leaned over the desk and flashed my badge. It must've had a pretty big impact on the short-fanger because her next words were that she'd been gone earlier and locked up the office before she left. I asked if any other women worked in the office and she said no. The night just kept getting weirder and weirder. I looked at my watch. The sun would be rearing its ugly head soon. The rest of the investigation would have to wait until the next night.The door to my apartment was slightly ajar when I walked in. I thought that I must've left it open when I rushed out earlier, so I didn't look around the apartment for intruders…I guess I can be pretty stupid sometimes too. I cracked the fridge, pulled out some type-O, and retired to my room, contemplating on pulling the phone cord from the wall. There she was, the Dame, sitting on my bed and aiming a crossbow at my chest. I stole a quick glance at the bolt to make sure that it was made of wood instead of the usual graphite, but it was wood alright...my goose was cooked.“Who are you?” I asked, trying to look like I wasn’t about to crap my pants.“I’m the girl who’s going to kill you,” she said.Everything came together at once. I’d been keeping dibs on her husband for over a week and reporting everything to this dame over the phone. She knew that I was going to be there that night and set it up to where she’d be there too. She must’ve killed her husband and called in sick for him. Dead girl probably got an email from the late Mr. Hawkins, telling her to come to the office. How could I have been so stupid? It was so simple…and so wrong.She let loose with the bolt and it hit me between my shoulder and sweet spot. It wasn’t fatal, but it knocked me flat. I went down on my back and wiggled backwards as she simultaneously approached me and loaded another wooden bolt. Her hourglass shadow fell over me as she aimed the crossbow at the center of my chest. “Any last words before you go to sleep?” It was the end for me; I knew it with every fiber of my being…whatever that means. I closed my eyes and waited for the strike of the bolt, and then a sudden pain seared through my hand and marched up the length of my arm. I drew my hand toward me; sure that I’d find a wooden bolt sticking out of it, but there wasn’t…my hand was black and crispy. Just above my head, the morning sun outlined the window.“Yes,” I said. “Can I ask you something; something I gotta know?”“What is it?” she asked, the crossbow still dialed in on me. “Do you wear sunscreen?”“Excuse me?”I made my move, jumping up for the blinds like my ass was made of rubber. I managed to get a hold of the bottom and pulled it back down to the floor with me, but that was all I had when I landed… the bottom of it. The Dame smiled at me like I was a baby trying to get out of a playpen. She swaggered up to the spot where my head was laying on the hard floor, keeping the crossbow trained on my heart.“You’re a funny guy,” she said and then kicked me, the pointed, spear-like tip of her boot catching me squarely on the temple. The world disappeared in a flash of bright light.Just as a knock to the head sent me into the realm of pastels and benign sunshine, it was a bump to the head that yanked me out of it. The impact of the trunk roof smashing against the side of my face rung my bell again, but it had the opposite effect, jolting me awake. The car trunk was cool and damp; which wasn’t entirely different from where I normally slept. The car hit another bump and I jolted upward again, but that time, I managed to tuck my head down, taking the hit on my left shoulder instead of my face. If it wasn’t for the burning, silver shackles on my wrists and ankles, I would’ve made more of an attempt to escape. If memory served right, it was nice and sunny outside anyway. Going from a bird in a cage to a crispy critter in a trunk didn’t seem like a fair trade to me.I felt the car come to a stop, heard the opening and closing of the driver side door, and then the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into the trunk lock. There was a loud click and swishing sound as the lock disengaged and the trunk swung open. I instinctively tuned my head toward the rear of the trunk, expecting that the morning sun would light up my face like a sulfur match stick. The Dame grabbed me and dragged me out; my back hit the ground hard enough to crack the weathered cement. Unless I count the Dame herself, there was no ray of sunshine to be seen in the underground garage. I looked around, taking note that the place was completely deserted. The Dame stood above my head. I tried to refrain from looking up her skirt, but it was nearly impossible to resist.“Have you ever seen a death throe; Mr. Bridges?” “What?”“Have you ever seen a human in the throes of death; heard the rattle of their last breath?”“What are you squawking about lady?”“Have you ever seen a human being die? That’s what I’m asking.”I didn’t like the way the conversation was going. Human beings had been long extinct; except for the few that we kept around for harvesting… so what was with all of the stupid questions? As if the universe had heard the question in my head and felt obliged to give me an answer, three more people stepped out from the dim, shadowy edges of the parking garage; two dames and a bull. “We having a party?” I asked.“Funny,” the bull said. He was a big guy, and I mean big! From my point of view, he looked to be easily six-two, six-three, with a huge build to match. All four of them gathered around me, like kids watching a bird die. The bull pulled a long syringe out of his pocket and held it up to his face. He pressed the plunger a little, shooting a small amount of the glowing, florescent, yellow fluid out, before kneeling down and sticking the dangerous end of the needle into the side of my neck. The warm sensation from the injection began at the entry site and spread down the length of my body, creeping, taking its sweet ass time. It wasn’t too bad, not at first, at least not until the spasms came. My body locked up like a bazillion volts of electricity hit me. The first spasm took me by surprise and I ended up biting my lip. Blood ran down the side of my face from where my fang pierced the soft tissue around my mouth. “Hurts; don’t it?” The dame asked as my legs kicked out during the third spasm. She leaned over me and I saw something that shocked me more than the periodic spasms from the injection did; she had a fine line of sweat beading across the top of her forehead. “You’re a human…” I managed to grunt between two more spasms; “How?”She wiped her forehead dry with her palm.“We have ways to disguise ourselves,” she said, wiping her sweat-dampened palm against the fabric of her dress. “Special sprays that make us smell like you…special antiperspirants that we rub all over our bodies to keep from sweating. Still…the stuff does wear off after awhile.”The ending of the spasms came after one, final, major one that nearly bent me in half. When the contractions ended, I fell flat on my back, exhausted. I huffed and puffed, trying to get my breath back under control. Finally, I managed to ask, “The girl…why?”“Just another blood-sucking bastard,” the Dame said, sneering down at me, “just like you.”“So,” the bull said, “now you know what a death throe feels like. We don’t think it’s fair that you monsters get to miss all the fun. When you die, you either explode, or disintegrate into ashes. It’s quick…painless. That just doesn’t seem right to us. The late Mr. Hawkins and his wife have both been lucky enough to experience the sensations of true death…multiple times. Tell me; how’d you like it?”I couldn’t tell if he was being funny or stupid. Was he really expecting an answer? The shackle burning its way through my left hand was nearly half-way through the bone, I made the decision to help it along. I bent my wrist under me and slammed my back against it as hard as I could… knowing that I‘d only get one shot. I was lucky; my hand snapped off.Lightning fast, I swung the empty shackle, connecting it with the bull’s wide face. He went down like a sack of shit, his head bouncing off of the garage floor. The dame made a break for the car. The driver side door was still open and I could plainly see what she was going for, the crossbow that sat on the passenger seat. I snatched her by the back of her long hair before she could take more than two steps and yanked her to me. As I drained her life from her, I felt what they were talking about…her death throes were exquisite. The other two dames ran toward the ramp that led to the upper, sunlit deck of the garage. I fished the keys to the shackles out of the dame’s bra and freed my feet, and then I went after the waddling duo. They managed to make it about three-quarters of the way to the ramp, which was pretty good for dames dressed in sun-dresses and high-heels; It was fast for them... respectable…futile. I found my hand and reattached it to my arm before loading the corpses into the car; by then, the bloodlust had worn off. I’d made a terrible mistake and I knew it. Humans were considered an endangered species, allowed to be kept for food resupply, but never terminated. With a little help from scientists, the amount of blood that four people could generate over the course of their lifetimes was staggering. I knew that I had to cover my tracks, so I waited until the sun went down, and set a little car fire. I watched them burn for a few minutes, the flames licking around their faces and melting their skin like wax paper; then I left. I had to make myself scarce before the firemen came.It took me awhile to get home that night. I was slightly disoriented from the traces of whatever the assholes pumped into me and had no idea where I was when I left the garage. Thankfully, it was only a few miles from a taxi stand. I checked my messages as soon as I walked into my apartment and was thankful that I didn’t catch the call for the fire. I picked up the phone, called the station, and let them know that I wouldn’t be coming in that evening. “Bad blood,” I said… they understood. In the shower, I washed myself three times and still couldn’t get the human smell off of me. I didn’t know if it was all in my head or not, but it seemed to be radiating off me, sticking to me, like a bad perfume…or garlic. I got it off the best I could and threw on some pajamas before crawling into bed. The metal shutters were closed tight, the air conditioner was set to fifty, and the phone was off the hook. I made the decision that when I woke, I would return to the garage and look for clues; maybe interject myself into the case after all. If those humans were loose in the world; how many others were out there? I was determined to find out. As hibernation took over, my body issued small, occasional spasms, reliving the death throes that I’d experienced. I had to find the humans that were out there; find them… and kill them. I never wanted to experience “true death” again.
August 3, 2013
The Murderess by Alissa Brown
I couldn’t sleep again last night. I thought that the passage of time would ease my guilt, but the tossing and turning – the never ending visions of my victim’s final throes, haunted my slumber. I fear that I will have to live with what I’ve done for the rest of my life. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to handle it.
Day 3:
It’s hard enough to try and cope with the guilt that has taken over my entire existence without having to revisit the scene of the crime two, three times a day. Murder is a terrible thing, but murder in one’s own shower, is impossible to escape. Sometimes, I’m tempted to ask the people next door if I can use their shower, but they’d almost certainly know that something is wrong. It hardly matters anyway, I will never wash away the stains – those blood stains that have branded me like a tattoo, telling the whole world what I am – a murderer.
Day 4:
I woke up again at around three thirty in the morning. My forehead was soaked in sweat, so I turned on the fan and stood in front of it for a while. The passage of time has not been good to me. Instead of the images of my terrible deed fading away, they’ve become more pronounced. Now, I’m seeing the sad eyes of my victim’s family, watching as I take their loved one’s life. Did my victim have a spouse – children? There is no way of knowing. My only hope is that they have managed to move on better than I have.
Day 5:
I’m not a murderer. I know I’m not. The proof that I needed was given to me this morning. Like divine intervention, the universe gave me the option to be either killer or savior and I choose not to kill. I am not the monster that I feared, but someone who, during a brief moment of surprise, made a fatal mistake. It doesn’t take away from the terrible thing that I did, but it gives me great hope for the future of my eternal soul. From this day forward, I shall check the shower for spiders before I get in it.
July 30, 2013
Oh My! Crazy, Creepy Dolls!!!!
I ran across one of these crazy, creepy dolls on my Facebook feed and fell instantly in love. The artwork is so detailed, I would've sworn that they were movie props until I actually followed the link to the web site. I'm a fan of all things creepy, but I've never been into dolls. Dolls are for little kids, right??? Well, my friends - feast your eyes on some of these beauties!
Appropriately, the company that makes these bad ass, cute little nightmares is Named, Devil Dolls. Devil Dolls began their doll making business in Norway back in 2009 and have been cranking them out ever since. You think the ones that they have for sale are awesome? For the more imaginative of folks, they also do custom doll jobs that will make your skin crawl. Just send them a picture or drawing of what you would like turned into a doll and they will deliver. Pre-made dolls usually ship within 24 hours of payment.
If you're on Facebook, drop by their page at - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Devil-Dolls/332755183426652 and post your questions there. The staff there are scary, but nice and will be happy to answer whatever questions you can scare up. If you don't have a Facebook page or are more of an, eliminate the middle man type of person, drop by their main web page at http://devil-dolls.myshopify.com/ and see what goodies they have in store for you. Tell them that Ray Duchene send you. Who knows, maybe they'll give me a discount on the upside down cross, creepy one above :)
July 26, 2013
Excerpt of Appendix Z
The same could be said for the horror genre as well. When I saw the original night of the living dead, I couldn't sleep through the night for months after. Since then, an avalanche of zombie movies has taken over the box offices on an almost apocalyptic scale. Whether it's the Romeroian classic type of living dead or the running, scratching, jumping, biting cadavers of the newer generation, they've pretty much stuck with the same formula. Zombie bites person, person becomes zombie, new-zombie person kills or bites another person, continue... Some zombie stories have shied away from the old formula, and unknowingly created another formula that's just as bland and repetitious. Chemical or biological agent creates zombies, people become afflicted and create more zombies by biting others, or normal people become exposed to the agent or virus themselves, and turn.
Some of these stories are a bit more realistic than others. For example, the aliens attacking in independence day seemed to me to be more believable than the symbiotic life forms that hung onto the back of peoples' necks in The Puppet Masters, but they all had one flaw in common, they were nothing compared to the actual thing, and I know this from recent experience. The real thing was far more covert, even more covert than the conspiratorial pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Bringing up these familiar patterns of successful alien invasion and zombie apocalypse scenarios is by no means a complaint. I'd seen all of the movies, read all the books, and felt that I was more than ready to recognize any and all signs of pending doom if the impossible should ever occur. I was so wrong. Get your copy at:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DV60B6I
July 21, 2013
The Abduction
As I lay in bed, looking up at the night sky through a glass pane above my bed, images and sounds flash through my head. I stared at the stars, which looked like bright diamonds, pinned to a black curtain and I could hear her voice in my mind.
"Daddy," she screams. "Daddy, help me."
I tried to focus on the stars, began counting them, tried to decide if they were actually stars, or planets. They begin to blur and swirl, easing in and out of focus. My stomach lurched and I rolled over and pressed my face into the large pillow that I shared my empty bed with.
The volume of her voice in my head increased and I plowed my face deeper into the soft pillow until I could barely breathe. I'm not sure if my mind rebelled against me at that moment or if it was my fault for depriving my brain of needed oxygen, but somehow, I passed out. The dream that I'd fought so valiantly to keep away came rushing in on me, catching me off guard.
All at once, it was a few days before again. My wife, Stacy was lying in bed beside me; a book perched against her bent knees. I'd just shut off my laptop and set my alarm. Midnight was only minutes away and I had to get up early for work the next day.
"You going to sleep," I asked her, but I already knew the answer. She was really into that book and probably wouldn't put it down until she passed out, or the sun came up; maybe not even then. I gave her a peck on the cheek and rolled over, hugged my pillow and began to drift off. A little after two in the morning, I woke up to the sound of Olivia calling for me.
"Daddy…! Daddy, help me!"
Usually, when I first wake up, it takes awhile for me to get my bearings. Sometimes, I’m almost to work before my head clears completely, but that night, I came awake fully alert, shot out of bed, ran down the hall, and threw open her door. What I saw in her room, terrified me.
Olivia was floating above her bed, screaming. I couldn't make out her features because the room was filled with a bright light that seemed to pour from the walls. A cracking sound, like an electric discharge flashed through the room and somehow, the bright light became brighter. I could see Olivia's face then, pleading for me to help her, reaching her small hand out toward me. A second round of crackling light shot through the room again. That's when I saw them, standing around her bed.
I don't know how many there were, I didn't bother to count. I ran at the small form that was closest to me and tackled it.
When I was a kid, I did some pretty dumb stuff. One of the dumbest things I did was strip my stereo wires and attach a different plug to them and then try to plug it in. The electric shock that I got sent me flying across my bedroom and left holes in my fingers and palm that took months to fully heal. The shock that hit me when my body fell against the small creature was worse.
My world went black. When I came to, I was lying on my back in my daughter’s empty bedroom. She was gone...my baby girl was gone.
The normal things that usually occur after a child goes missing happened after that. The police were called first thing. I talked to the investigator while Stacy sat, wrapped in a blanket and crying uncontrollably. I felt like I should've told the cops about the lights and the strange little men, but had no doubt that they wouldn't have believed me. The investigator took copious notes and then flipped his pad closed.
"Is there any reason that Olivia may have wanted to run away?" he asked me.
My mouth gaped open.
"She's four years old," I said. "She doesn't even know what that means."
He asked me a few more questions that didn't make sense and then left, vowing that he'd do everything in his power to find our daughter. I didn't expect much; I knew that wherever she was, it wasn't anywhere that the police could search.
When the police and neighbors are all circling around like buzzards, it gives the parents of a lost child hope. They spouted off about their various plans of action and told us not to worry, and after awhile, we began to believe them. Then, they all left and my wife and I were left with our new found hell, the emptiness that resided where our daughter used to be.
Stacy and I both called in to work that day. Both of our bosses completely understood and told us to take all the time that we needed. We spent the day sitting on the couch, holding each other and crying; our cell phones close by. It was a long, torturous, agonizing wait for nothing. As we lay in our beds that night, knowing that neither of us would ever be able to fall asleep. I broke down and told her about the abduction.
Stacy listened attentively as I talked, wiping tears from her eyes and nodding. When I told her about the bright lights and the little men, she frowned slightly, and then began crying again.
"It was a dream," she said after I told her how bad I felt that I couldn't save our daughter.
I turned my face from her; all of a sudden I couldn't look her in the eyes. She grabbed my chin and made me look at her.
"Baby," she said, "it was just a dream."
It was my turn to break down. The tears poured out of me and I thought they would never stop. Stacy pulled me closer to her and somehow, that made it worse. I failed and I knew it. It took her a few days to understand that; when she did, she left.
Three days after Olivia was abducted, I woke up and found a note sitting on Stacy's pillow. She wrote that she couldn't look at me and not think about Olivia. She needed some time to grieve and stuff like that. What it really said was that our daughter was gone, it was my fault, and she didn't want to look at me or be around me; that's how I read it anyway. I crumpled up the note and threw it on the floor. Then, I grabbed my phone off of the night stand and tried to call her. I wasn't surprised when her voicemail answered. I threw the phone on the floor next to the note, and then had to get it when I realized that I needed to call in to work again.
I dialed the office and told them that I'd be taking the two weeks of vacation that I had saved up. They knew that my daughter was missing and didn't try to protest; that done, I crawled back onto my bed and drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up just after noon, the sun was shining on my face because I forgot to close the sky-light. I reached up and touched my face, felt the fresh sunburned skin, and pulled my hand back. I decided to ditch the shave for the day and just get dressed. I grabbed my phone and dialed the detective to ask if there was any progress.
"We have some pretty good leads," he said. "I'll call you if I learn anything new."
I hung up with him and went into the kitchen to make some coffee, then dialed Stacy's number again and hung up on her voicemail. Alone in the house for the first time in years, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was going crazy thinking about Olivia and losing Stacy didn't make things better. I decided that some work would probably occupy my mind, for awhile at least; so I went down into the basement to organize it like I'd told Stacy I'd do weeks before. I figured that if she did come back, she would at least see that I did that...I at least did that.
The basement looked like a landfill. Boxes, full of Christmas ornaments and lights were stacked in the center of the floor, along with various other boxes of crap. I stacked them all on one side of the room, planning to organize them later. I worked hard for about fifteen minutes, until one of the smaller boxes fell over, spilling a sack of pictures onto the floor. I tried not to look at them, quickly shoving them back into the box, but my eye caught on Olivia's baby picture and I lost it. I sat down in the center of the floor, staring at that picture, and wailed.
I can't do this right now, I thought to myself after it seemed that all of my tears had left me. I slid the picture back into the box and stacked it on top of the others, then pulled the small string that hung down in the middle of the room, turning off the light. As I began to ascend the steep staircase, I heard a rustling sound coming from behind the place where I stacked the boxes. I froze for a second, listening to see if the noise came again; it did. I stepped back onto the basement floor and pulled the light back on. Then I went to my work bench and grabbed my claw hammer off of the two nails that hung it in its usual place and approached the stack of boxes.
Holding the hammer at the ready, I put my foot around the back of the stack of boxes and slid them out of the way. I lurched backward in horror as a small figure shot out from behind the boxes and ran toward the work bench. I didn't think; didn't have time to think. I threw the hammer as hard as I could and hit the running figure in the back of the head. It went down hard, smacking its face on the cold basement floor.
It didn't move as I approached its small, sprawled out body. The creature wasn't wearing any type of clothing that I could see, unless its skin was actually some kind of alien suit. It looked clammy and wet, its skin the deep gray of cigarette ashes. I pulled a large zip-tie off of the top of the work bench and grabbed the thing's arms. I was surprised that even though they looked like they were wet and slimy, they were actually pretty dry. I zipped the zip tie a little and then put the creature's tiny, very human looking hands together, slipped the zip tie over them, and then zipped them tight. I rolled the thing over onto its back and gasped at the sight of its face.
When I was a kid, I saw a movie about a man who turned into a fly. The grossest part of the fly-man to me was its eyes. They were un-lidded, black and smooth. The creature’s eyes were like that, but smaller; yet they still seemed to cover a good portion of the top part of its face. Where its mouth should've been, was nothing but that smooth, cigarette ash colored skin. I thought that if it could speak; it must use some orifice that I couldn't see.
I left it lying on the basement floor and went into the house to get a couple of chairs from the dining room table. When I returned, I lifted its small frame onto one of the chairs, grabbed some rope from the side of my work bench and tied it up. I placed the other chair in front of it. I knew it was still unconscious, not because the un-lidded eyes didn't open or blink, but because what passed for its chin was resting on what passed for its chest. I sat down in the chair opposite the thing and stared at it, waiting.
I waited for a good half hour and then became worried. Had I killed it? I leaned forward and felt along its neck for a pulse. Just around its throat, I felt it, a small beating sensation that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I looked at my watch and began to measure its pulse, counting its beats while looking at the second hand. I had been a medic for a couple of years in the Army and taking a pulse was one of the few things that stuck with me after I got out. When I finished, I looked back at the creature and was so shocked to see its black eyes staring back at me that I fell backward in my chair.
"Let me go," it said.
Said? That wasn't it exactly. It was more like a thought in my head than a sound.
I got up off the floor, pulled the chair back upright and sat down again; a little further away than before.
"Did you say something?" I asked.
It cocked its head at me; first to one side and then the other.
"Let me go."
I didn't see anything move when it spoke. I wondered if it could read my mind as well. I concentrated as hard as I could on the thing and thought; can you hear me? It didn't think at me again, but nodded its head slightly. My mind was blown, but at least I knew that it could communicate. I leaned forward in my chair, clasped my hands together, and said "Where's my daughter?"
The creature didn't answer me. It appeared to be looking around the basement, taking inventory of all the crap down there. I asked again; "Where's my daughter?" Still, it ignored me.
The thought that I'd gone completely off the rails had occurred to me, but at that point, I didn't care. I was sitting in my basement, talking to an alien that I'd tied to a chair and I was okay with that. I had to figure out a way to make it tell me what I needed to know though, or I would have gone nuts for nothing. I stood up and walked around to the back of the creature's chair, grabbed it by the sides and turned it around to face the work bench. Then, I walked over to the work bench and began taking down all of the most frightening looking tools I could find, laying them down, side by side on the bench top. I chose a pretty good selection of box-cutters, needle-nose pliers, screwdrivers, and a couple of small saws, and then I retrieved the hammer from the floor and added it to the collection.
I'd heard the expression about feeling like a kid in a candy store before, but I never fully felt that feeling until I gazed down at my selection of tools and tried to decide which one to use first. My hand grazed over the top of the dangerous looking items, halting once over the screwdriver, once over the hammer, and then coming to rest on the handles of the needle-nose pliers. I picked them up and turned to face the alien. I could feel the smile spreading across my face as I approached the chair, ducked behind it, grabbed the creature's hand and pressed the small cutting blades of the pliers around the base of its index finger.
"Where's my daughter," I asked.
Silence… the creature remained still and quiet.
"Have it your way," I said, and cut off its finger.
I expected to hear the creature screaming in my mind, but that didn't happen. It didn't writhe in pain or beg for mercy either. What the creature did do was promptly grow back another finger. I looked down on the floor and saw that the first finger that I'd cut off was still lying by my feet. In the place where I cut the finger from, was a brand new one. I put the pliers around the base of the newly grown finger and cut it off. The finger seemed to fall in slow motion to the floor as I watched it drop and then land with a bounce next to its counterpart on the floor. That time, I did hear something from the creature in my head, but it wasn't words, it was laughter.
I looked around the thing's body for something else to cut off, perhaps something that won't grow back, but I couldn't see anything useful. Other than toes that would've probably proven to be as useful to me as its fingers, the thing had no other protruding appendages. Where we have ears, it had a couple of holes on each side of its head. Where we have a nose, it had a small raised area in the center of its face with a couple of holes at the bottom. I pulled its legs apart and was disappointed at what I found there too; nothing; smooth skin all the way to the back. I didn't look at its backside but I knew that there was probably just a small orifice there as well; nothing of practical use, unless I wanted to be an alien rapist, which I didn't.
I gave up; dropping the pliers next to the thing's two disembodied fingers and turned its chair around again. It looked at me with that quizzical head cocking thing it does.
"You can't hurt me," it said. "Just let me go."
"I'll let you go after you bring my daughter back, you son of a bitch."
"You will never see her again..."
I had enough of the creepy bastard. I got up from my chair and walked over to light-string and grabbed hold of it. Before turning off the light, I thought of one last question.
"Will they come for you?"
The thing's cackling laugh rung through my head; I could actually see its head rocking forward and back as it cracked itself up. It looked eerily human just then.
"Yes," it said between fits of giggles. "They've been watching you this whole time through my eyes...hearing you through my mind. They'll come for me soon."
"That's what I thought," I said, and then shut off the light.
When I reached the top of the basement stairs, I cast a final look down into the darkness where I knew the alien thing was, then closed and locked the door.
The basement door was located right off of the kitchen, which was convenient because that’s where all of the alcoholic beverages were. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out a cold beer, popped the tab, and drank down the entire can in one, long gulp. I crushed the can in my hand, threw it in the nearby trash bin and then pulled out another fresh Soldier. I took the second beer to my room and cracked it open while I laid back on my bed, wondering what I could do to make the aliens bring my daughter back to me. I took a long swallow of the beer, set the half-empty can on my nightstand, and rested my head back on my pillow. The sky-light was still open and I could see millions of stars, spread out above me.
At some point, I fell asleep, probably from suffocating myself with the pillow to get away from the sound of Olivia’s screams in my head. When I came to, a couple hours later, Olivia’s screams were still there… echoing. It's messing with me, I thought; trying to drive me crazy. I sat up in bed and nearly jumped out of my skin when something across the room moved with me. My heart steadied when I realized that it was just Stacy's vanity. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My face looked dark from the growth of hair that was threatening to burst out into a full bushel if I didn't shave soon. Then, I looked at the mirror itself...I’d found my answer.
The Alien acted as if it didn’t see me when I hauled the large mirror down into the basement and turned on the light. It would’ve been impossible to tell if the creepy thing was even awake if its head wasn’t propped up straight on its frail looking shoulders. I placed the mirror against the chair, facing the creature and then stepped behind the alien, making sure that we were both visible in the mirror’s reflection. I had to make a few adjustments, but I finally got us both centered just right. It was important to me to make sure that the fans out in the rest of the galaxy got the best picture quality I could give them. I secretly hoped that the image was in hi-def for what I was planning.
I went to my work bench, picked up the small hand saw and put it in my left cargo pocket, and then I picked up the box cutter and carried it back to the alien. While it watched me in the mirror, I clicked the small lever on the side of the box cutter, increasing the blade size so that it could be easily recognizable in the reflection of the mirror. Stepping behind the creature again, I put the blade up to the alien’s cheek and looked at our reflections.
“Bring back my daughter,” I said.
The blade cut deep into the alien’s cheek. Unlike when I cut off its fingers, the alien jerked in his chair as I slid the blade downward, opening a deep groove into its face. It began to convulse and shake. I had to let go of its neck to avoid receiving a cosmic head-butt. When I stepped back, I was glad that I’d let go. A large blast of electric current shot out of the thing’s head and hit the overhanging light, blowing it out. I fumbled in the dark until I found what I was looking for. In less than a minute, the basement lit up again, but from a battery powered lantern instead of the overhead light, which was completely destroyed. There was a burn mark on the ceiling where the light used to hang down. I put the lantern on the floor next to the alien’s chair and went back to my work bench. After fumbling around for a few seconds, I found my rubber gloves and put them on.
There was a small electric burst, when I cut a deep groove into the alien’s other cheek too, but it was nowhere as powerful as the first.
“Losing your juice; huh?”
I put my hand on the thing’s shoulders and looked at our reflections in the mirror again. The alien’s dark gray face was splattered with a blue-greenish sappy fluid that I could only assume was his blood, but he was still recognizable.
“Bring back my daughter.”
There were no sounds in my head, no more squirming from the gross little creature. I let out a quick sigh, dropped the box cutter to the floor and then pulled the saw from my cargo pocket, held it up in front of the mirror, and gave the home audience my brightest smile.
“I wonder what your brains look like…”
I placed the edge of the saw blade against the upper part of the creature’s forehead, gave a short pull, and opened a large gash in the front of its head; then I heard it scream for the first time.
Its scream seemed to last forever in my mind. I covered my ears, but couldn’t escape it. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I slapped the alien as hard as I could across the face. The screaming stopped. If I was a scientific kind of person instead of a cable installer, I may have hypothesized that the creature’s nerves were all bundled up in and around its big, fat, gray head. Of course, I didn’t need to be scientists to test that theory.
I put the saw blade back where it had been, against the fresh cut that I’d made and felt the creature shudder.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Shit just got real.”
I pulled back on the saw and heard the creature’s scream inside my head again. I thrust the saw forward and then pulled it back. The little gray bastard nearly came up out of the chair.
“Bring me back my daughter!” I screamed at the mirror, and sawed a little deeper into the creature’s head.
Its screams grew so intense that it felt like my own head was going to explode. Tiny sparks flew off of it, but it was nothing more than static discharge at that point. I felt the saw blade slide along the alien’s skull and dug it in a little deeper. A warm trickle flowed down my neck. I reached up, touched it, and pulled my hand back. My fingertips were covered in blood. My ears were bleeding, but I didn’t care; I’d gone too far to turn back. I took another pull of the saw and felt my eardrums burst from the pressure as the alien’s screams filled my head… and then the room disappeared into a haze of bright light.
The light was everywhere. The light was everything. All of my senses were gone. I couldn’t see; I couldn’t hear. It pulsed brighter and brighter and then went out as fast as it had come. When the light vanished, so did my little alien friend. I looked at my own face in the mirror and couldn’t help but laugh at my own reflection. My face was covered with a combination of the alien’s blue-greenish blood and my own. I laughed until my ribs hurt, and when I couldn’t utter a single chuckle more, I sobbed.
I wept in a puddle of alien blood until I passed out from emotional exhaustion. When I regained consciousness, the basement was lit up by the sun’s light, pouring in from the side windows. I got up and went back up into the house. I made my way to my bedroom and caught a glimpse of something red and white as I walked passed Olivia’s room. I took a double-look and saw her, sitting on her bed in the same colorful pajamas she’d been wearing the night she was abducted, playing with her dolls. She saw me in the doorway and rushed to me, a big smile on her face.
We hugged for as long as we could. It was probably a lot longer than I think, but it seems that in moments of pure joy, the clock spins like an airplane propeller. I picked her up and carried her to my bedroom, grabbed my cell phone, and texted her mother. Stacy didn’t reply to the text, but came bounding through the front door less than fifteen minutes later. She was home, they both were. I held them in my arms and promised myself that I wouldn’t let either one of them go again.
The hearing loss was permanent. Every day after that, I’ve had to use closed caption on the television and rely on texting rather than the telephone, but to me, it was worth it. Deafness was a small price to pay for having my family back. I also took some joy in the knowledge that I wasn’t the only one to have permanent scars. Somewhere, out in the universe, was a small, gray man, who may have healed all of his physical scars, but would no doubt remember me for the rest of his life. I hope he does… him and his whole damn species.
Psycho Girl
The familiar sound of a message alert brought him out of his hormonal induced hypnotic state. He picked up his phone and saw that he’d received a text message from an unknown number.
“Hey Robert,” the text displayed, “whatcha doin?”
Justin frowned as he read the text. He hit the reply button, typed in, “You have the wrong number,” and then hit send. A few seconds later, his phone lit up and chirped. The sender responded with, “Sorry…” He felt like he shouldn’t respond, but decided that it would be rude not to.
“It happens.”
“What’s your name?”
“Not Robert.”
“Duh silly…I already knew that.”
“Yeah, because I told you.”
“Wrong…”
How’d you know then?”
“Because right now I’m playing with Roberts intestines…”
Justin’s heart did a sort of half-pause when he read the text, then began to pound inside his chest like it wanted to escape. He powered off the phone and threw it on the desk next to his laptop computer. An overwhelming impulse to run to his mother tore through him, he grabbed onto the edge of his desk as if a high wind threatened to blow him out of his room, down the stairs and right to her feet. He knew he couldn’t tell her…she’d just tell him it was his own fault.
After three months of begging, suffering boredom, and ass kissing that would make a personal assistant blush, he finally got his stuff back. His mom laid out the rules of the game before she gave up the goods.
“This phone is for me to contact you, Justin and the computer is for homework. You can keep your social networks as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with your studies, but if I see one boob, one bare leg, one single part of a woman’s body that isn’t covered in some kind of cloth, I’m taking this crap away for good. You’re fifteen years old for god’s sake!”
He nodded as she talked, confirming that yes, he understood what she was telling him and yes, he would follow her rules. The same night that he’d gotten his computer back, he snuck out of bed and went straight to the Psycho-girl web site. He just couldn’t help himself. He finished reading the first article and then found another one about Minorities and America. That sounds like a fun one; he thought and clicked on the link.
The reading was monotonous and torturous at the same time. How people can find this crap interesting, he thought after he finished the third unusually long paragraph. This shit sucks. He clicked back to the Psycho-Girls web-site again. The girl’s naked body filled the monitor. She was the most beautiful girl that he’d ever seen. Kim, with the piercings and tattoos all over her body, with the bare spot between her legs and the round, perfect breasts. She stared out at him from the bare mattress that she was sprawled on with a look that seemed to say, “Come ‘on boy…let’s play.” As he stared at his dream girl, he could feel a swelling between his own legs. He looked at his bedroom door, cursed his mom for not letting him have a lock and clicked back on the report tab before his pants exploded.
It took awhile, but he worked his way through the rest of the article, made some minor notations on his notepad and clicked out of the web-site. It was getting close to dinner time, so he didn’t go back to visit his psycho-girl; his mom could walk in at any moment. Just before school and just before dinner was what he thought of as high traffic times. He brought up the browser again and opened his favorites tab. The list of social networks and sights that he subscribed to was excessive… even in his opinion. He moved the curser between the links, not sure if he wanted to just update his bored status, or find out what his friends and family were having for dinner that night. Before he could decide, a small window appeared at the bottom of his screen, letting him know that he received an instant message. He clicked on the supplied link and the messenger application opened up, displaying the sender’s name as Kim. Holy shit, he thought, What if it’s her?
Justin was fully aware that a lot of women were named Kim, so he really was quite surprised when he opened the message and saw his Psycho-Girl’s profile photo in a small box at the top of the window. “Oh my God, it is her!” he shouted. His excitement faded quickly when he read the attached message.
“Hello again Robert.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me…Kim.”
This is some kind of joke, he thought. Somebody’s playing some kind of joke on me.
“My name isn’t Robert.”
“I told you… I know. Robert was my last boyfriend.”
“The one you killed?”
“Exactly…he got boring. Are you boring Justin?”
Justin pushed back from the desk and almost fell out of his chair. How did she get my name, he thought. Oh my God…how does she know my name? The sound on the computer was still turned up, so he could hear a beep every time a new message popped up. He pulled his wheeled chair back toward the desk and looked at the monitor again. More messages appeared inside the display box.
“Justin?”
“Yoo-hoo. Justin…”
“Justin, answer me now, little boy”
Justin hadn’t realized that he’d been holding his breath until he let it out.
“What do you want?”
“I want to be your girlfriend, silly. I want us to be together, like all of my boyfriends before you.”
“Did you really kill your last boyfriend?”
“Yep…and the seven before him.”
“Why?”
“I like to see what their made of….look inside them; you know?”
“Why?”
“It’s my thing…I’m a Psycho-Girl. It kinda comes with the job.”
“I don’t want to be your boyfriend”
“Too late…you’re mine all mine and I’m going to come and get you soon. I always get what’s mine.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding. Please!”
“Nope…sorry. Robert though I was joking until I opened up his belly and pulled out his intestines. Rick, on the other hand, knew that I was completely serious the whole time I cut small pieces off of him. He couldn’t move cause I tied him to a chair lol.”
“I’m sorry; I don’t want to be your boyfriend. My mom’s calling me, I got to go.”
“Don’t tell her about me or she’ll be my new girlfriend.”
“Please don’t hurt my mom!”
“That’s up to you boyfriend lol. I’ll hit you up for your address tomorrow and we’ll get together soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“See you later lover…”
Justin didn’t bother to exit out of the application. He picked the laptop up above his head and threw it to the floor with all of his strength. The screen shattered and the keyboard nearly broke in half. He jumped as high as he could and brought both of his shoe clad feet down on the machine, making sure that it would never recover.
“What the hell’s gotten into you,” he mother said. Justin turned and saw his mom standing in his bedroom doorway with her hands on her hips. He let out a sobbing cry and ran to her.
Later, at the dinner table, Justin calmed down enough to tell his mother the whole story. Some kid was harassing him on his computer so he got mad and smashed it. She yelled at him for taking such a drastic measure and grounded him from his phone for another three months. She told him that he could use the desktop in the living room to finish his report, but only for homework.
“I don’t want you getting mad at that one too!” She said.
“When I get my phone back mom; can I get another number?” He asked while scrapping the uneaten food into the garbage disposal.
“If you get it back,” she said, “we’ll talk about it then.”
He was satisfied with that answer. He hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, before heading to the living room to fire up the old desktop computer. His mom watched him go with an expression of amazement on her face. Boys, she thought as she scraped her own plate into the sink and put it into the dishwasher. She thought that maybe they’d watch a little television before bed that night, just to show Justin that she wasn’t too mad at him. He was, after all, a good kid. On the way out of the kitchen, she fished a pre-purchased cell phone from her purse, removed the battery, and threw it in the trash.
Three Pregnancies
Three pregnancies, Katrina thought… three pregnancies for this jerk and three miscarriages. He hardly knows I'm here with that damn computer glued to his lap. All he ever does is sit there and click his life away…god knows who he’s talking to!
Katrina Miller’s last miscarriage occurred over six months before, but the lasting effects of losing her third child were still taking a toll. She’d been unable to get out of bed for over a month after. She wasn’t sick, at least not physically; she just didn’t feel like going to work anymore. Eventually, her boss fired her. It seemed to her that the whole world had gone to shit. She couldn’t trust anyone, except Jim…Jim.
She moved closer to Jim for a quick peek over his shoulder. She managed to see that he’d been reading an email message, but he felt her presence and slammed the lid closed.
"What are you doing?" He shouted. "Spying on me?"
Katrina jumped back a few paces. She tried to think of something to say, but a lump bulged in her throat and words failed her. She turned and slowly and walked into the kitchen without answering. It was almost time for dinner.
Jim followed her into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her. He knew that his wife had been having a tough time and he felt bad for jumping all over her just because she was curious. He gave her a tight squeeze and kissed the back of her neck. Then he walked to the stove and lifted the lid on one of the pots.
“You need some help Hun?” He asked.
“Nope,” Katrina said; “I’m just boiling some spaghetti for dinner. I already made the sauce this afternoon. You should go wash up.”
Crises averted, Jim left the kitchen with a renewed bounce in his step. He took a shower and changed out of his work clothes. By the time he returned to the kitchen, his plate of spaghetti was waiting for him on the table.
They ate in relative silence. Katrina asked Jim how his day went, but he didn’t like to talk much about work, so the discussion was short-lived. Jim never asked her how her day was…not anymore. He finished his dinner, placed his sauce-stained plate in the sink and retired to the living room, where he planned to spend the rest of the evening playing on his computer and watching the news. Once the kitchen was set to rights, Katrina settled into her usual chair, opened her worn, well read copy of the New Testament, and waited.
The drug that Katrina put in Jim’s food took about an hour to take effect. Katrina began to worry after awhile that she hadn’t used enough of the narcotic. She cast glimpses at her husband over the top of her book, looking to see if he began to look drowsy, or tired in any way. There was no gradual decent into unconsciousness. Jim was wide awake one second, and lying flat on his face in front of his chair the next.
When Jim fell from the chair, the lap-top fell under him; so, Katrina had to maneuver him to the side in order to pry it out. She sat back in her own chair and looked at the computer monitor, her eyes narrowing as she read the message in the trash folder.
It was dark in the bedroom when Jim woke. He strained his eyes to see something in the blackness, then squinted against the light when a single match ignited, casting an ominous glow across Katrina’s face. She lit a candle and set it down on the dresser next to a large, white box. Justin tried to move, but found that he'd been tied to the bed. He tried to pull his arms and legs free, but the bindings were too tight.
"What are you doing, Katrina?"
“Who’s Jessica?” She said. She stood in front of the bed, looking down on him…towering over him.
“What?” Jim said. “What are you talking about?”
“Jessica,” Katrina repeated. “Who is she?”
Jim searched his wife’s face for a sign that she was bluffing, but he couldn’t find one.
“Have you stopped taking your medication again? Hun, you know that the doctor said…”
“Shut up!” Katrina screamed as she brought her fist down between her husband’s open legs. “You don’t get to make this about me…not anymore.” She turned from her tied up, slightly injured husband and walked back to the dresser. She reached into the box and pulled out a severed female's head by its long, black hair and held it out to him.
"You told her that you wanted some head," she said. "Here you go."
She threw Jessica’s head and it landed between her husband's open legs. The terror caught in Jim’s throat…he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.
“I’ll let you two spend a little time together and then I think that Jessica will deserve a little head herself; don’t you think?”
As her husband finally managed to find his voice, Jessica Miller walked out of the bedroom where they’d spent many years making love to each other, closed the door behind her, and smiled for the first time in months.
