Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 10

Baked Scribe Flashback : Nachzehrer

 

Coming to visit this grave was difficult enough, add to it the ominous silence of the family’s private graveyard at night and it was a wonder that she hadn’t simply begged off. But this was important. No one in the family had ever been there for him in life, the least she could do was try and be there for him in death, suicide or no. It had barely been a week since the funeral, but she still felt strongly that she needed to visit, to be here in this place where she would be able to pay her respects.

The discovery upon reaching the burial site made her breath stop in her throat. She paused and took a step back as her brain scrambled to catch up with what she never would have thought possible.

The grave had been dug up.

No tools. The hole didn’t look to be the handiwork of a shovel. Dirt and debris were blown outward in a circular radius from the hole as if something had exploded out from within.

Or crawled out.

The thought was absurd. What kind of animal would have caused that kind of destruction?

She heard the sound coming from the trees to her right.

It sounded like chewing.

Her brain pleaded with her to run, to sprint for the street, and put as much distance between herself and this place as she could. Her feet carried her on towards the sound.

Towards the darkened figure huddled down on the ground.

Her cousin.

Crouched down in a kneeling position with his own arm clenched between his teeth, consuming his own flesh in the midst of a meal that looked like it had been going on for a long time already.

Her scream caught in her throat as he suddenly looked up and saw her. His eyes blazed at the sight of her and, before she could react, he was on his feet and charging, overtaking her in a volley of snarling, hot breaths and clambering hands.

She pulled a hand out from her coat pocket, fingers clenching as she did so, grabbing a few of the coins left over from doing laundry. He opened his mouth wide and descended on her as she raised her hand up to try and hold him at bay. Somehow her hand ended up inside his mouth and a coin that had clung to her sweaty palm was knocked loose, in and through his questing teeth.

The contact of the metal against his tongue caused a violent gagging sound and he staggered back, away from her. His contorted expression of fury went suddenly slack. He toppled stiffly to the ground and did not move again.

Finally responding to her brain this time, she took to her feet and sprinted out of the cemetery, her screams breaking the silence, as lights began coming on in the neighboring houses and curious onlookers ran out onto now welcoming porches.

 

Beautiful Friends…..

It is with a heavy heart and with no small amount of regret that I must pass along this news to you.
After careful and extensive deliberation, I have come to the decision that the Baked Scribe will soon be taking its last bow. Issue number two hundred will be the final story I post to the blog.
This may come as a disappointment to some of you so please allow me to explain why this is happening.
The easiest answer I can give you would be that of time management. With two amazing sons, my life has become much fuller than it was when I started this blog, several years ago. As such, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with the demands of a regular posting schedule as well as other projects I have up in the air at any given time.
I knew from the beginning that this venture would not be indefinite. It has always been important to me that I maintain a level of quality. The worst path I could imagine would be if I found myself one day publishing issue number 637 and hearing nothing but crickets because everyone except me has figured out that I should have shut things down a long time ago. I want the stories to be fresh, not repeated versions of ten other stories I have already published. So while I feel no lessening in my enthusiasm or interest in the blog, I would rather walk away now, while things are still strong, than risk waiting too long and letting the fruit go bad on the vine.


I have benefited tremendously from doing this blog but as important as it has been, I have made the decision to move on and focus my energy on books. Ultimately, it’s what I feel is going to be best for me and in the end, puts less stress on me in my day-to-day life.
There will be one exception to this. While I will no longer be publishing stories on the blog, I will continue with the Stephen King project, Tracing The Trails Of The King, until I reach the end of his bibliography. Not long ago, I moved the project to its own dedicated site. Look for those reviews to continue posting at its new home on a regular schedule, as they have been up to this point.
For those of you who have been following and reading my stories here, I can’t express enough of my appreciation to you. I am humbled and grateful that you have shown an interest in my work and I hope you will consider following along and checking out my books in the future that lies ahead of us.
This is not an ending.
It’s merely the next step in my journey. Thank you for your attention and I am looking forward to sharing the final twenty-five stories with you.
Be well.  
Read.
Chad Clark

Issue #175 : Faded Memories

 

Dixon shook his head and glanced up to the end of the dugout.

“You might as well come out, I know you’re there.”

There was a sound of feet shuffling across the concrete and Jimmy stepped out from the tunnel.

“How’d you know I would be here?”

“You know you ask me that every night? Why can’t you ever remember?”

Jimmy shrugged as he sat down, looking out over the field. For a few minutes, Dixon thought that there would be no conversation that night, that their time would be occupied by listening to the cicadas and the clicking of the sprinklers. Still, as he shifted his attention back to his feet, Jimmy spoke.

“I don’t understand why I keep ending up here,” he said. “I mean, I just keep walking back in here. And you’re always here, too.”

“Yeah,” Dixon replied. “Always here.”

“Why do you always wait out here like this? What, am I special or something?”

“How do you know I’m here for you? Could be I just like coming down here at night, right about the same time you come down.”

Jimmy snorted quietly. “Sure. I’m sure that’s why you come. It sure isn’t to play, you’ve got about as many cracks in that face of yours as a piece of dried fruit.”

“Speak for yourself.” Dixon gave the expected retort but he knew full well that Jimmy to this day looked as healthy and vital as he ever had. He looked over at his friend, at the look of confusion behind the tightened jaw, the pursed lips. “You doing all right?”

Jimmy looked like he was actually surprised by the question. “Don’t know what you mean. Look, how long did we play together out there?”

“You mean, how long did you let me pretend I actually knew what I was doing? Hoofing it over to me to snag flies I should have been rightfully getting?” Dixon responded.

“Shut up, it wasn’t all like that.”

Jimmy looked away and Dixon realized that a tear was about to roll down his cheek. “How long did we okay out there? Longer than I remember,” he said.

Jimmy nodded as he turned back, as if his whole point had been proven. “Exactly. And after all that time, you still can’t tell for sure if something is wrong with me or not? Why I keep ending up here? You got to work on your people skills.”

“I just…it just seems like you keep coming back because you can’t…there has to be something that happened here that you keep coming back for. Why won’t you let me help you?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t even know what needs to be fixed. I think this place has got something to do with it, like something happened to me but…” He trailed off, as if the answer had been there, but not long enough for him to take hold of it.  

He always seemed to come so close, but never quite made it all the way. Dixon knew somehow that if he could get Jimmy to remember that night, all of this could change and Jimmy could finally get some peace. He met him here, night after night. He turned his back on his wife in order to try and do this one last good thing, to do what was right. Still, after months of trying, he had gone through so many versions of this conversation, he wasn’t sure if it was even possible.

And just like every other night, he knew that his time was short.

“Don’t you think—” Jimmy started to say but was cut off by a strangled, choking sound. Dixon turned to look, although he knew full well what the sound had been.

Jimmy had fallen forward from the bench and was on his knees, clutching at a wound in his stomach, blood flowing out over his hands. He looked up at Dixon with a look of agonized lack of understanding, but there was nothing Dixon could do. Blood trickled out of Jimmy’s mouth as he tried to speak and toppled over backwards, dead before he even hit the ground.

Dixon knelt over him and looked down at the knife wound, the exact spot when Jimmy had been killed, forty years ago. He reached out to caress the cheek that was already starting to dissolve into the nighttime air and whispered to him softly.

“See you tomorrow.”

 

Tracing The Trails Of The King : The Drawing Of The Three

Click on over to the dedicated Tracing The Trails web site to see my review of the second installment to the Dark Tower series, The Drawing Of The Three. Click here to see the review now.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Manananggal

 

There were no words, nothing that they could think of to do or say, not even awkward laughter which the alcohol would have normally provoked. They stared at the legs sticking out of the ground, as if someone had been planted there in the dirt up to their knees and then severed at the waist, leaving the lower half behind. Blood and other matter oozed out from a cutting blow that looked fresh.

They took another simultaneous step forward when a scream ripped through the silence, vocalized rage that rained down on them from above. A woman descended from the darkened sky, a beautiful woman at that. Beautiful, save for the horrific row of teeth that were now visible from behind lips, peeling back into a snarl. Beautiful, if you didn’t notice the large, leathery wings sprouting out from behind her.

Beautiful, if you didn’t pick up on the fact that she was missing the bottom half of her body.

They turned to run but immediately were taken up in her grasp. She hurled Freddie across the clearing, where he landed roughly on his neck and went limp, showing no sign of movement. Her wings beat the air as she lifted David straight up with her, teeth sinking into his chest as she did so. He cried out but was already starting to drift away as his blood was drawn out into her in long, deep drinks. The world around him began to spin crazily, and he vaguely realized that she had released him as the ground rushed back up at him.

As he lay there, lacking the strength to move any part of his broken frame, he watched her take Freddie apart before returning to the other half of her body, which was still standing tethered to the ground. The last thing he saw was her hovering in the air over her other half before settling down, reattaching and stepping out of the ground. With her newly regained limbs, she quietly moved onto the walking path where she strolled off into the swelling darkness of the woods around them.

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : Luison

 

The iron gate into the cemetery clanked loudly in the wind as they hurried past. Even though nothing was spoken, they all seemed to pick up their pace, not wanting to linger, so close to this eternal place of rest. This was why Elaine hated going to the late night showings, but Kim, Caroline and Rhyanna had all insisted.

There was a tiny building located on the edge of the cemetery, presumably for the caretaker, and for some reason, she found it almost as unnerving as the bone-yard itself. It was built out of heavy iron, with no windows and no visible utility lines going to it, but there was always a line of bright light emanating from underneath the heavy door. The wind picked up just as they passed, and it carried with it the smell of death and rot.

They had almost made it to the end of the block, where she would be able to see their condo, when the door to the building was thrown open and a man came staggering out. She couldn’t help but clamp a hand over her mouth at the sight. He weaved from side to side, as if drunk. The long black coat and pants he wore were covered in slimy, foul smelling earth and his hair hung all around, mostly obscuring his face behind long, greasy strands. All she could see was his eyes, which blazed out at them with an unholy rage.

None of them were able to move as he stumbled up to them, scrutinizing each as if judging a contest of some kind. He lifted up one hand, flinging disgusting moisture all over them and reached out. Every instinct told her to run, but her feet remained immobile. The man took another step forward and placed a hand carefully on Kim’s forehead. With the other hand, he reached over and did the same to Caroline. They stood like that for several moments before the man let out a long sigh and dropped his hands. He looked them all over again before shaking his head and shambling back to the iron building, slamming the door behind him.

The nervous laughter that followed was interrupted by the screaming of brakes and the thud of a sub-woofer as the sports car came flying around the corner, hitting all of them in the process.

It was a week before Elaine woke up in the hospital. She was recovering from massive internal injuries and several broken bones and as for Rhyanna, it would be several weeks before the doctors would be able to bring her out of the induced coma. Elaine would likely walk with a cane for the rest of her life, but at least she was alive. She found her thoughts constantly occupied by those few minutes before the accident, how he had laid his hands on only two of them, as if he had been choosing.

It had to be a coincidence that Kim and Caroline were the two who had not survived.

 

Issue #174 : It’s The Last Step…

 

The money spent on the sleep-aid had made all the difference. Tim had never been able to sleep on a plane before so the fact that he had fallen into such a deep slumber, disturbed only occasionally and briefly, was making the trip actually feel like a vacation. No seat on any plane had ever felt this comfortable. The side-to-side motion soothed him even further as he leaned back into the cushions. Even the pressure from the vent above him was amazing as air flowed over him in a cool rush. He would use this airline from now on and for damn sure, he was going to make sure that his prescription was up to date whenever he had to fly.

Of course, nothing could be perfect.

Something wet hit his face, hitting him hard. He slapped at his cheek, sure that some bastard of a child was at that moment, perched up on the seat in front of him, leering down at him after pouring what was left of his soda on him. Tim opened his eyes to give the kid a piece of his mind.

There was no kid.

For that matter, there was no seat in front of him. There were no seats to the right or left of him. Below, above and all around him, the entire plane had seemingly blinked out of existence. Air whipped around him and all he could see was blue sky and clouds, the ground sickeningly far below, getting larger by the second.

A loud report of thunder echoed from above and Tim, still with no clue what had happened, looked up. He did so just in time to see what was left of the plane he had just been on, vanishing into the blossoming flames of a blazing explosion.

 

Issue #173 : Evil At Hand

 

This is the final installment of a five part story. If you haven’t started at the beginning, click here to go back to the first part.

 

Richard looked around the room, the same one in which he had first uttered the rites of passage. He had not been here since declaring his allegiance to the order, six hundred years ago. To combat the forces of all that evil would strive to do and take from this world. It was a noble charge and one that he took freely. He was proud to be one of the chosen few, selected to watch over humanity and protect it in secrecy from the dangers which it, as of yet knew nothing about. The brethren of the order filed past him, touching their ceremonial blades to his chest, accepting him as one of their select few.

The chair of the order looked down at him and prepared to speak. As he did so however, the room began to tremble. The crowd of warriors looked up to try and discern the source as Richard rose to speak. Before he could get a word out however, his vision blurred and the world began to spin into darkness. He felt coldness underneath him as, through a fog, he began to hear his name called out.

He was on the floor of the church, pews on all sides of him from where the thing had hurled him as if he weighed nothing.

“Richard!” Jacob called out as the creature took him by the neck, lifting him up into the air and choking him mercilessly. Richard shook off the disorientation. Standing up, he drew the two silver blades from their sheaths and charged into the struggle. Jacob lifted his legs as Richard dove underneath, cutting from underneath at the thing. It managed to leap away to avoid the thrust but as it did, it released its grip on Jacob, letting him crash to the floor.

The room around them filled with the sound of the creature shrieking as it pushed off and soared up towards the ceiling. Before it could turn to resume its attack, it was taken from below by a solid blue beam of energy, bursting forth from the laptop in the corner. As it flew back and crumpled into the corner, the energy beam took on The shape of a massive giant. It picked the creature up off the floor and began pulling it in separate directions, straining to pull it in two.

“Brett!” Richard cried out at the digitalized form. “Release him!”

In an instant, the giant dissipated in a flash of light and the creature fell to the floor. Richard raced forward, producing the sacred blade and bringing it down in a vicious arc. Just before the blade struck home, a gnarled hand came up to block him, holding his hand at bay as he pressed down. The thing’s eyes gleamed up at him in rage as he pushed, trying to overpower it in a battle he knew that he was going to lose.

Then, from behind, he felt a hand snaking into his pocket and saw Jacob producing one of his last vials of origin flame. He held the vial down, just above the things eyes and snapped it in half. Flames immediately burst out and Jacob cried out in pain as he pulled his away, albeit too slowly. The thing screamed, lifting its hands to its eyes to try and protect itself from the explosion of bright light.

Richard drove the blade into the center of the thing’s chest.

The handle of the blade felt like it was turning to ice in his hands. He could see the monster’s skin begin to discolor and ripple, taking on a look of chiseled stone. The thing heaved as it tried to draw in air but no breath came. Smoke poured from its eyes and mouth as it writhed on the floor and a wave of light emerged from the wound, enveloping Richard in a cocoon of sudden, brilliant pain.

The light subsided and Richard saw that the thing’s skin had become bright red, as if a raging inferno had ignited there. A rending sound, like concrete splitting, filled the room. The scream of pain from the thing raised in pitch as the windows around them shattered in one final explosion.

Jacob and Brett approached the scorched remains on the floor.

“Is that it?” Jacob asked. “Did it work this time?”

Richard winced at the pain now building in his neck and joints as he nodded. “I think so. For both of us.”

Brett looked up at him, confused by the remark. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Richard felt his legs vanish underneath him as he lost the sensation. He fell to the floor, the other two barely catching him as he struggled to answer. “The blade,” he said. “It affects the one who uses it. The price. My body is dying, one piece at a time.”

“What?” Brett yelled out. Jacob looked stricken, but also like he had known this from the start. “What the hell? There had to have been a different way we could have done this! You shouldn’t have had to—”

Richard began to cough but as his lung tissue began to grow necrotic, he lost the ability to do even that. He bucked and twisted on the floor, trying to get control.

“This is too high a price,” Brett said. You can’t just—”

“My decision,” Richard forced out. “All that matters is this, the victory we win here. You must carry on.” He reached out to place Jacob’s hand on the hilt of the dagger. He felt warmth rushing out of him and through the connection, until all that was left behind was a useless appendage. He collapsed onto the floor, managing only a few last words as darkness crowded in.

“…..up to…you now.”

Brett and Jacob locked gazes over Richard’s body, now looking like he was hundreds of years old. Wind blew outside and knocked more glass out of the window frames.

“What the hell do we do now?” Brett asked.

“The only thing we can do,” Jacob replied. “Keep on going.” He looked at the dagger before tucking it into his coat. The frail skeleton on the floor that had once been Richard was already decaying into dust. A thrill of nausea ran through him as he contemplated that this would now likely end up being his fate as well, now that he had been tied to the blade.

“We need to get out of here,” Jacob said, leading Brett out of the church. They would need to find more people to replace Richard, the two of them alone couldn’t do it. Still, he had faith that it would happen. He felt the same strength of fate that Richard had carried through his life. How many more years did Jacob now have before his time would come around?

Only the fight and the years would tell.

Thank you for hanging with this story. Don’t forget to tune in on Wednesday for a brand new tale!

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : Kraken

 

Ricky steered the ship towards the small island and started to power down the motor. When they had drawn close enough, he cut the engines entirely, and let the boat’s momentum carry them the rest of the way in. It was possibly the smallest island he had ever seen, not even worthy of stopping but for the fact that one of the men had spotted the body of the castaway on its shore. There was no way to tell if the man was alive, but it wouldn’t be right to move on without at least checking.

“Get one of the rafts ready and get over there.”

He watched two of the crew as they pulled the tarp loose and began moving the excursion craft over the water, when something from the corner of his eye grabbed his attention. What he was seeing wasn’t even remotely possible, but it was happening regardless. He blinked to try and focus, and turned to look directly.

The island was sinking.

Slowly and nearly imperceptibly, but it was definitely sinking. Already, the castaway was nearly a third closer to the waterline than he had been originally. As the island continued to sink, it began to turn as well and before he could say anything to alert the crew, the castaway had slid off and into the water. The island continued to turn as the crew were all now watching, equally speechless. Just before it dropped down under the water, Ricky saw something else that shouldn’t have been there.

Eyes.

Ricky spun back to the boat where the men still stood there dumbly, with the raft hovering over the water waiting to be dropped.

“Leave it!” They looked up at him blankly. “Release the—”

He was interrupted, as eight tentacles, each as thick as the boat itself shot up out of the water. They extended straight up into the air and hovered there, teetering back and forth, before coming back down, crashing onto the deck and reducing it to cinders.

The next seconds passed in a blur. Suddenly, he was paddling through the floating remains of his ship, swimming through blood and seawater, mixed with the sounds of screaming. The men reached for each other in vain as they were pulled down into a massive whirlpool. He kicked to try and get clear of the vortex and his feet struck something solid underneath him. Ricky looked down at the massive black shadow, but before he could react, something sharp bit into his lower torso. He screamed and tried to push off, but the strength in his arms was quickly fading. The burning pain in his legs soon matched the taste of the saltwater in his mouth as he was jerked down, pulled into the infinite depths of Davey Jones’ Locker.

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : Jenglot

 

They looked like fingers.

It was the only thought that ran through Braidon’s head as he bent down to examine the objects protruding up out of the ground, centered perfectly between two rows of corn. They weren’t any kind of weed or root that he had ever seen, nothing growing around them, or any sign that anything had been buried there recently. It looked like four fingertips, just breaking the surface of the ground, as if something was clawing its way out from underneath.

Whatever they were, he couldn’t leave them just sitting there, having no idea what they were doing to the soil quality. He dug down around the thing with his hand, grabbed it, and pulled.

He wasn’t even aware of falling down onto the ground from the shock of seeing the thing that crawled up, out of the ground. It was like a demonic garden gnome, the tiny hand was held tightly in his grip as it struggled to free itself. It screamed out, a high pitched sound that made his ears pop, and suddenly its other hand swept up and raked sharp claws across his arm. Braidon yelled out and released the thing. It tumbled to the ground, somehow landing on its feet, and he finally got a good look at what he had just extracted from his field.

It stood about two feet tall, with wild tufts of graying hair sprouting out of its head like some kind of rotting troll doll. The skin was pale and translucent, like brittle paper. Where the eyes should have been, there were black, empty sockets. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the sight of the thing when, from somewhere inside its ragged clothing, it produced a long dagger and charged.

Without giving himself time to think, Braidon kicked the thing like it was a football, lofting it about a dozen feet across the field where it crashed through some thick corn stalks and landed. It had managed to keep hold of the dagger but seemed disoriented from the impact. Braidon turned to run back to the house, already picturing the shotgun which hung over the fireplace. Before he could get more than a few feet, something grabbed his leg. He tripped, falling forward and bit down onto his tongue, causing stars to explode in front of him. He shook his head to look back at what was holding him.

More of the tiny hands were bursting up out of the ground, grabbing at him and clawing through his clothes. He yelled, trying to stand, and tripped again. As he fell, four more of the things leapt up onto him, daggers poised to strike. He tried to kick them off of him, but his legs stopped responding and he was left there, lying flat on his back, looking out over his own field under the repeated thrusts of child-like daggers.