Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 14

Issue #165 : Out Of Proportion

 

The rain started quickly that night. Chester stood on the back dock, looking out over the water and listening to the water dance on the tin roof of the shelter. He took a can of beer from the battered cooler and eased himself down into the boat. There was no sense in trying to take it out in weather like this, but he loved to lay back and let the feel of the lake soothe him along with the rain. It usually ended up being some of the best sleep he ever got.

Thunder started to roll up in the mountains and he could see the strobe effect of lightning off in the distance. The unusually cold air made his skin stand up and he shivered, wondering at how much the temperature could drop, even during this time of year. Might be worth it to get a cheap bottle of scotch to keep down here in situations like this, for quick warm-ups.

He reached over to flip on the radio. Despite the weather, the thing always managed to pick up a clear signal and he took another long drink as the sound of guitar mixed with that of the rising thunder.

When he started to feel the tingling sensation on his skin, his first guess was that the ancient radio had shifted partially into the pool of water at his feet. Opening his eyes however, he saw that this was not the case. Looking past the shelter of the roof, he saw that in addition to the rain, there was now a cascade of leaves and other debris, as if there had been an eruption of ground material. The wind was stronger as well, howling around his makeshift structure, making the walls around him tremble.

Chester pulled himself up and out of the boat. He stepped out and put his hand up against the wind that now swirled around him. Within a few minutes, he felt at least a dozen quick slashes across his cheek as dirt and rocks flew past. There was a howling coming from somewhere high above in the dark, something not quite animal and almost mechanical in nature.

He had never seen or experienced anything like it. His stomach lurched as the wind gusted, strong enough to nearly take him off his feet. He had never been in a wind tunnel before but he suspected that it would be something like this. The wind began to rise up even more and he felt the absurd urge to sit down and close his eyes.

Before he even had a chance to try, the first insect had nearly taken his head off.

It looked like a cricket, save for the fact that it was at least three times Chester’s size. The legs came down on him, pushing off his shoulders and knocking him to the ground. He looked up from an unbelieving mental fog as the creature glanced back at him and let loose a string of jabbering, clicking sounds that he couldn’t help but hear as a retort of some kind.

As he stood up, a second and third bug touched down on opposite sides of him and immediately bounded off into the trees. The impact from their massive frames touching down brought him back to his knees.

He felt his palms scraping across rock and exposed tree roots as he scrambled back, trying get away from the things. Already, he was hearing the dull buzzing from behind him, slowly realizing that the things were surrounding him, pinning him to the shoreline. From where he stood, he could make out the darkened shape of at least ten of the bloated insects, hovering around and over him.

Still, the water wasn’t as much of a barrier as it seemed. Chester spun and sprinted towards the shore. He could hear the things take flight to pursue, just as he reached the edge and leapt into the cold water. He dove down, as deep as he could manage, leveling out and aiming for the island across the way. It could have been the wind but he imagined that he could hear the frenzied activities of the things up above him.

Just as his lungs felt like they were going to burst, he angled up. Breaking through the surface he had just enough time to take a deep breath and dive again. Rolling over as he stroked through the water, he could see things flashing above him, their bodies skimming the water as they flew.

On the third time of breaking for air, one of the bugs made contact, dragging razor-sharp legs across his shoulder. He immediately felt the burning sensation as he looked down and saw the cloud bursts of dark color as his blood began to pump out.

He had to be smarter about this. It wasn’t about speed. He had to stay out of reach, out of sight. As long as he was careful about when he came up for air, he should be able to get to the island and hopefully lose them within the thick trees. And if he was lucky enough, the cold water would slow the bleeding in the wound to his shoulder.

All around him, he felt the water start to churn, as if some kind of pressure valve had been released. The water felt warm, creeping up towards hot. He wanted to get out, to swim for dry land but he wouldn’t last more than a minute up there.

It was at that moment that Chester felt the presence, that of the other. He looked down and by the light of the moon, he could make out the shape of what looked like a massive stone statue as it rose from the depths of the lake. He saw glaring yellow eyes as the swinging shadows of arms reached up from below to take him into its forever embrace.

 

Tracing The Trails Of Richard Bachman : Thinner

“But it’s hard for a man to give up all his pleasures, even when they don’t pleasure him no more.”

-Stephen King, Thinner

 .

Thinner would be the last book to be published by Richard Bachman before the world would find out that he was actually Stephen King. This book has a noticeably different tone from the rest so there is a part of me that isn’t surprised that this would be the one to break his cover. The other four books (Rage, The Long Walk, Road Work & The Running Man) were written very early on in his career, my understanding is that most of them were written even before Carrie, his first published novel. This is just my assumption, but as far as I know, Thinner was a book he wrote in the normal course of his career at the time and he simply released it as a Bachman book. His original plan for Misery evidently was to release it as a Bachman book so I believe that he was intending to periodically put out books as Richard Bachman, until his identity was revealed.

Stephen King as a writer had come a long way by the time Thinner was released. He had grown and improved a great deal in terms of his craft and as such, Thinner felt much more like a Stephen King book to me than any of the others. The Bachman Books have a definite feel of timepieces, old works by a young author, while Thinner comes across as contemporary and natural, sitting alongside King’s other books of the time.

The story itself is one that will feel familiar to most. The main character of the story is attorney, Billy Halleck. In an event which takes place before the start of the book, Billy accidentally runs over and kills an old woman in his car. When he goes to trial, his case ends up being dismissed by a friendly judge and he manages to avoid punishment. As the book starts, he has just been tracked down by the aged father of the woman who places a curse on him by uttering a single word, “Thinner.”

Billy happens to be morbidly obese, veering close to heart attack country in the words of his doctor. Once the curse has been placed on him, he starts to lose weight inexplicably. And he continues losing weight. Every day, the scale reveals more weight loss until it gets to the point where he and his wife begin fearing cancer. After an extensive medical workup, doctors are unable to come up with any explanation and the loss continues. As the others who had been involved with his legal case begin to fall victim to bizarre ailments as well, he begins to investigate the man who had confronted him and discovers that he and his deceased daughter had been part of a traveling group of gypsies. Eventually, Billy starts to come to the conclusion that he has been cursed.

The book for the most part falls into the middle of the road for me in terms of King’s books. Not one of my favorites but there is still plenty there to enjoy. The story isn’t bad, it just has the feeling of ground that has been covered many times and there wasn’t much in there that really surprised me or took me off guard. There are some ironic moments in the story as more details about his car accident are given that cast an unfortunate light on the crash. I felt sympathetic somewhat for Billy’s situation but I also felt like he was the one ultimately responsible for putting himself there. As he attempts to track down the gypsies in an effort to have his curse lifted, I felt curious in the sense of wondering where the story was going but I never felt that invested in his success or failure.

There is one bright spot to the book I will acknowledge, namely that of the ending. I don’t want to give anything away but I thought what he did with the ending worked really well. After a relatively low key narrative, the conclusion to the book manages to ramp up to a pretty dark ending. As I got down to those last few pages, I figured out where things were going but I couldn’t turn away. It managed to elevate a book for me that, up until that point, I felt was fairly forgettable.

One aspect I would be curious to find out would be the exact circumstances of the book in terms of how King felt about it and why he made the decision to publish it as Richard Bachman. Maybe he decided the book wasn’t that great but couldn’t live with simply trashing it. Who’s to know, but I couldn’t help but consider the possibility that he decided to put Bachman’s name on it because he didn’t want to sacrifice all of the work that had gone into that book.

Obviously, I have no idea if that is really true and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m advocating a conspiracy theory. It was just how the book made me feel.

In terms of the main stage of the life of Richard Bachman, this book marked the conclusion. Sadly, in 1985 it was announced by Bachman’s close friend, Stephen King, that Richard Bachman had passed away from a “cancer of the pseudonym”. In later years, some unpublished Bachman books would be discovered and shown the light of day. I will review those books as I come to them in the time line but for now, I’m looking forward to diving back into the Stephen King universe. This diversion has been fun, but it’s time to get back to it.

My name is Chad Clark and I am proud to be a constant reader.

.

.

.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Blessed

 

I don’t know how to tell who’s real anymore, the normal ones and the others, reflections of what they think humans expect to see in each other. The problem is that even though, on the inside, they are nothing but rot, from the outside they look just like you and me. I don’t even know if you’re real.

Ever since the ships came down, life has been an endless exercise of wishing I could have some kind of insight. I look straight into a person’s eyes and I still have no idea if the soul I’m searching for is even there anymore. This was the gift that the ships brought for me.

I still haven’t met anyone who believes me. I blink and I’ve woken up someplace new, no idea how I got there. Sometimes I catch myself falling asleep and sometimes I wake up screaming. Sometimes I can’t tell one from the other. I hear things, and I don’t know if I’m hearing them or if I really am going crazy.

But I saw those ships.

I know that they were there. All of them, hatching and spreading like a virus. And plotting. I see our end in their beginning here. I see death in the sky, fire on the horizon. I’m going to figure out the answer. I will unlock the key and I will figure out how to tell them from us. When that day comes, woe unto them, and vengeance I will be.

I will be our savior.

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : High Class

 

The house itself looked like a ruse, a poorly stitched drape, hastily chosen to conceal whatever lurked beneath. Every object in the room looked like it had been in the exact same spot for centuries, moved only to be dusted when the need arose. Even the cart that Bree was using was made out of wood that looked like it could have once been the masthead of a sailing vessel, carrying explorers across the ocean into new frontiers.

She picked up the Steuben pitcher and poured a fresh glass of scotch. It was the third time she had served this particular self-absorbed asshole, the one with the annoying tie, and each time, he had demanded a new glass. Bree wondered where he was depositing his empties, unwilling to endure the humility of using the same vessel twice. She was surprised that he didn’t call for each glass to be destroyed, after experiencing the honor of his mouth.

This job with the catering company was only a few months old, but Bree was already starting to look for something different, less demeaning. As if she didn’t already feel subhuman on a daily basis having to go through life under the scornful gaze of the financially endowed. It was worse to be in a job that actually made her subservient to them.

She noticed that the scotch was starting to run out, so she began pushing the cart towards the kitchen. There had been strict instructions to not serve the spirits from the original bottle, that the liquid required the aeration that only the decanter could provide. Bree didn’t really see the point. It seemed to her that a six hundred dollar bottle of scotch was just as impressive in the factory sealed bottle. Why waste the time to transfer it to a “fancy” bottle, which made it look like an over-sized container of perfume?

The hallway leading from the library to the kitchen was long, and curved around the outside of the house. This was Bree’s fourth trip and, for some reason, each time seemed longer. Each door in the hall was closed but, she was sure she could detect movement from within. Once or twice she heard the hushed tones of voices and breathing, cresting frantically over the strain of box springs.

For the first time that evening, she came across a door that was open.

It wasn’t a normal door, and she hadn’t noticed it on any of her previous trips. This was a bookshelf, set into the wall that was now hanging ajar. It looked like it had swung open on its own on hinges that she wouldn’t have been able to spot, even if she had been looking for them. Unable to help herself, she reached out and pulled it open further. There were steps, spiraling down into darkness. Before she was even conscious of doing it, she took a step forward and down. Even through her shoes, the stone beneath was incredibly cold, as if she was stepping into an icy embrace.

As she walked down, the stairs spiraled around several times and the illumination from the main hallway was quickly lost. Just as the darkness was about to become total, she found a torch, mounted on the wall. She took it carefully, waving it slowly from side to side and wincing as the flames sparked and crackled through the air.

She definitely wasn’t imagining the frigid draft coming up to greet her from below. There was proof enough of that in the flickering flames of the torch. The air was also starting to whistle as it washed up over her, and again, there was the sound of hushed voices. Several voices speaking as one, possibly chanting.

With a lurch, she realized that she had reached the bottom. She heard and felt gravel crunching under her feet as she walked, and could just make out the sound of water dripping somewhere all around her. A great gust of wind swept over her, snuffing the flames of the torch. She tossed it aside and continued on.

An orange, flickering light was somewhere ahead in the distance. She walked towards it, running an open palm against the rock wall to keep from losing her balance. She heard wet splashing noises from below, and felt cold water rushing up her legs. The voices were getting louder now, but it still sounded distorted to her, the words unfamiliar.

She stepped through a stone archway into a cavernous room and the scene that unfolded in front of her stretched out across the lifetime of a single moment.

No more than fifty feet inside the entrance was the mouth of a simple, cobblestone well. Surrounding it were a dozen men, all naked and lying face down on the floor, facing the well while supplicating and averting their gaze from whatever was about to emerge. Red smoke was starting to billow out from the darkness below and Bree drew in a breath at the sudden sensation of disembodied, conscious thought zeroing in on her.

The smoke came up and out of the well like water pouring over a causeway. The voices of the men rose to a fever pitch, and before Bree could think to run, she was engulfed as the smoke rushed forward to claim her. The brief pleasure she took in that fleeting moment of weightless disorientation was quickly transformed into a wave of the most intense pain she had ever conceived. It felt like her skin was liquefying and melting off of her body.

Bree screamed until her head was twisted violently to the left, and she felt something snap within her neck. Her arms lost whatever control she had had over them, and they flopped uselessly to her sides. As her feet left the ground, she had just enough time to take in the waning moments of conscious blackness around her before being smothered in the eternity of perpetual, unconscious dark.

 

Issue #164 : Sub Par

 

“Who is it that you …. who that you … are you?”

Stefan weaved back and forth over the windmill that had been crafted into the eighteenth hole. He was trying to use the putter as a crutch but whenever he managed to find purchase, the grip would slip out of his hand, causing him to stumble and start the whole process all over again.

“Sir,” the girl was young but still managed somehow to look imposing. She held the phone up in front of his face, thumb poised over the send button. “I have no problem with calling the cops.” He grabbed at it feebly, his arms crossing over each other through empty space as she pulled it back and away from him.

“Who do you … I fly the planes, you know? I keep them up there like … the clouds, you know? What do you do, you whore? With paint all over your –”

“Okay sir, you’ve got to go now, or I’m going to have to call this in. And if you really are a pilot, I hope like hell you aren’t flying anytime soon.”

“Call ‘em. I don’t care. Call …” He waved the putter around in the air like a scepter but after a few swings, his eyes started to droop. As he listed backwards, the girl jumped forward to catch him. Before she could, his eyes snapped open and he straightened up, pushing her back in the process. “… fly the planes dammit!”

“Okey-dokey sir. If you could just set course for one of the convenient exits …” Stefan stared at her, mouth agape before breaking out into a high-pitched giggle that cracked as he began to wheeze from the exertion. He threw his putter straight up into the air before sprinting off down the path, arms stretched out like wings. His shrieks rebounded and echoed off of every green, pin and cup.

“I’m flying the planes you assholes!”

 

Tracing The Trails Of Richard Bachman : The Running Man

So as much as I have kind of turned a blind eye to the movies of Stephen King, this is one that I can’t really skirt around the issue. I’m nearly forty years old so when I was hitting my stride as an action movie loving eleven year old, I thought The Running Man was one of the coolest movies ever made. Arnold was one of the biggest if not the biggest faces in Hollywood and his movies at that time were pretty much instant classic, box-office gold. Keep in mind also that while dystopian fiction is pretty much the flavor of the month now, at that time it was much more of a bold step into fictional waters less traveled.

The movie presented a view of the future that was bleak indeed, although looking around at the modern landscape of television and some of the popular reality series, I wonder how far off the mark it really was. I don’t want to give the impression that I really think that we will one day see game shows in which the contestants actually die. But as of now, one particularly popular reality show franchise has been to drop people naked in the middle of the jungle and see if they can survive. Obviously there is a certain amount of work that goes into making those shows seem more intense than they likely are, but our culture does seem to be developing an increasing amount of voyeurism and fascination with shows designed to bring out pain and conflict. All I’m saying is that looking back at the Running Man now, it’s hard to not think that some of King’s notions weren’t that outlandish. A large percentage of contemporary programming seems to be centered less around fictional creations and more on unscripted television, featuring those who often have no distinguishing talents, save for being horrible people. If you were to go back in time to the younger version of myself and tell me about some of the shows that would be on the air in thirty years, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. It’s probably also worth noting that as I am writing this, work is underway for an actual game show, produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, which is an actual reproduction of The Running Man, obviously without the contestants being murdered.

But let’s not get completely sidetracked. We are, after all talking about a book, right?

Despite being a Stephen King fan, I was completely unaware that this movie was based on one of his books. And as is so often the case, the story told in the book is quite a bit different than what ended up on the screen.

In the movie, Ben Richards is a man wrongfully accused of murder. As a contestant on the game show, if he is able to survive, he will win himself a pardon for his crimes. Of course, his chances of surviving are slim to none. In the book, Ben Richards is a man trying to save his daughter who is sic. He can’t get the medicine she needs because they can’t afford it. Participating in The Running Man is a chance for him to ease some of their financial burdens as he is driven down this insane course out of necessity.

I was surprised by how different the tone of the book was when compared to the movie. The sort of campy, action movie elements weren’t there and instead I found a really good, gritty sci-fi thriller. I appreciated the fact that Richards comes across as more complex of a character than he does in the movie. I will cop to the fact that Arnold was great at the one-liners. He did what he did and he did it well. It has always been his thing so it’s going to be assumed that the movies are going to focus on it. But in the book. Richards is stripped down to a more human character and I think is easier to relate to. He isn’t an action hero as much as a bitter man driven to the end of his rope in an attempt to save his wife and daughter.

Besides the differences in Richards himself, I also loved that the politics of the world became much more of an issue than in the movie. To be sure, there are elements of it but the oppression of the state over the underclass felt more present in the book to me and more authentic. You got the inherent tragedy of what was happening to the people in Richard’s world but without the arbitrary attempt at a happy ending that the movie went for. The book takes a much darker turn towards the end, a direction not taken by the film because obviously in a summer action flick, you need to send the audience off on a happy note. Had the movie ended the way the book did, I think that history would have come to view the movie differently than it does now.

I liked the concept of the game show itself in the book in that the citizens of the country themselves became participants, with bonuses awarded to those who gave tips leading to the apprehension of contestants. There is no arena, just the world itself which Richards has to escape into, with pretty much every person in the country trying to find him. This aspect adds an interesting side to Richards’ attempt to elude capture and the things he has to deal with during the course of his plans.

In all, this is probably my favorite Bachman book to date. I loved the dystopian, sci-fi feel to it and felt like the story was more tightly constructed than The Long Walk. It also didn’t have the kind of contrived, over-cooked feeling I had from Rage. It’s hard to compare it to Roadwork as the books are so radically different from each other so I guess I would place The Running Man slightly ahead, simply for being closer to my comfort zone in terms of what I normally like to read.

This brings me to the end of the primary era of Bachman’s career. Next week will be my review of Thinner, the book that ended up being the whistle-blower on the identity of Richard Bachman. The four books I have received thus far stand almost as artifacts, representations of King’s older works, written early on in his career. But Thinner was actually a contemporary book written by King after he had become more of a household name. It was interesting to see how this affected the overall tone of the book.

But that’s another review for another week.

Until then.

My name is Chad Clark and I am proud to be a Constant Reader.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Road Rage

 

Already, the exact sequence of events was starting to blur in his mind. All he could really remember was the hulking rust pile of a Chevy Nova racing up on him. The car had pitched to the right and left, mere feet off his bumper as he tried to focus on the road ahead of him. This had gone on for several minutes before the Nova had pulled sharply to the left with a scream of tires and horsepower to race past him.

He did remember that that was about when he had decided to give the guy the finger.

It was cathartic for about a second. As he lowered his hand, he saw the Nova swerve to the left, spraying dirt and gravel before pulling back onto the road. Through the tinted window, he thought he had seen the driver twist around in his seat to look back. His stomach eased somewhat as the Nova took the next off-ramp and exited the freeway. His relief quickly diminished, though, as he saw the Nova charging ahead, onto the on-ramp, and accelerating back towards the freeway. It was now clear that the guy had only exited so that Cliff would get ahead of him again and he could pull in behind.

He looked back ahead of him, to see the bright green overhead sign for the turnoff onto the tollway and decided to hang the expense. If nothing else, there would be more troopers on this road or, at least the gridlock would slow down the guy enough that maybe he would cool down and give up on whatever reprisal he was planning.

Cliff had never seen the tollway this empty.

There were a handful of cars around, but nothing like the usual cesspool of bumpers and car horns. Not even the cops, who liked to take up residence here, looking to catch speeders. Nothing to create any kind of protective buffer between him and the psycho back there.

A car horn erupted from behind him and he saw the Nova, again right off the bumper, swerving from side to side in an attempt to intimidate.

It was working.

Why couldn’t there be an old fashioned speed trap when you really needed one?

Cliff was knocked back against his seat as the car rocked forward and swerved. The guy had actually rammed him from behind. He saw the Nova in his mirror, now several car lengths back, but looking like it was readying for another charge.

“What the hell?” he screamed as the Nova sped up to run it’s shitty, rusty bumper into the back of Cliff’s car. He cursed himself for not taking the extra minute to walk back into the kitchen for his cell phone.

It was becoming clear as the Nova began to take a third charge, that there was no hope of outrunning the guy and, evidently no help to be expected out here. He began to consider just pulling over and confronting the guy but, for all he knew, he would just end up getting run down by a few tons of metal and rust.

The siren made him jump and practically melt into his seat from relief at the audible tones of his salvation. He promptly pulled over to the shoulder and watched his pursuer do the same. All of this would end up being worth it just to see that crazy getting dragged out of the car and thrown in cuffs as he was stuffed into the back of the police cruiser.

The cop raced past them without even slowing.

Cliff watched the car door of the Nova swing open and the hulking heap of a driver step out. Before he could come any closer, Cliff jumped out, slammed his door and raced around his car to the metal barrier along the side of the road. He scrambled over and made his way down the embankment that leveled out into a parking lot. The building that loomed over him looked like a low end apartment building but, at this point, he couldn’t really care less what it was, so long as he could make some distance. As he pulled open the back door, he could hear feet slapping pavement behind him as well as the sharp, ragged breath of Mr. Friendly.

He took the steps, two at a time and had gotten halfway up the second floor before he heard the door open below and the second set of footfalls on the stairs. The only thing he had going for him at this point was that the other guy looked completely out of shape. If he ever got those meat slabs around Cliff’s throat, it would be all over, but staying ahead of the guy seemed very possible.

There were six floors total. When he got to the fifth, he stopped long enough to kick the door open, hoping that the guy would hear it and think he had stopped there. Trying to keep his footfalls light, he ran up to the next floor and darted through the door. Apartments lined each side as he walked, and even though he imagined the walls to be paper thin, he couldn’t make out any sound as he walked. God forbid there be anyone up there that might help him.

Cliff got to the end of the hall and was looking up at the emergency exit, when the door behind him was thrown open and his new friend, who had not been fooled by his idiotic ruse, came stumbling into the hall. The two men stared at each other from their respective ends of the hallway, and all Cliff could see was the rage residing in those eyes. Cliff backed into the emergency exit, pushed it open and stepped out onto the balcony. The door closed behind him as he turned to try and take advantage of the few seconds he would have to make his decision.

The balcony stood perched alone, attached to the side of the building. There was one thin railing going all around, except for the right side, where Cliff guessed at one point there had been either stairs or a ladder. As of now, there was nothing connecting this balcony to the fifth floor below. Apparently, if there was actually a fire, residents of the sixth floor were supposed to float away, or just not be home.

Cliff was thrown against the railing as the door pushed open, one linebacker-sized, pissed off driver coming at him from the other side. His time to contemplate was done. Cliff took two steps back, ran forward and jumped. He watched the balcony of the next floor rush up at him as he kicked his legs through open air. Somehow, he managed to land squarely in the middle of the balcony, his momentum causing him to bounce, skid across and nearly over the edge. He was able to put a leg out just in time to brace himself against the railing and he winced at the screaming of straining metal.

Cliff stood and raced down, gripping the rail and taking the steps four or five at a time until he passed the fourth floor and was at the third floor balcony, then the second and finally back down to the ground. He took a moment to look back up at the sixth floor where he had started. The guy was still standing up there, glaring down and looking like he knew the chase had been lost. Cliff gave the guy a mock salute and just for good measure, threw him the bird one last time before returning to his car.

Ten minutes later, he was racing down the tollway and back into the kind of traffic he was more accustomed to. He flicked his headlights on and off as he cruised, just off the bumper of the car in front of him who refused to drive just a little faster. Cliff swore under his breath and swerved over to pass the guy, not understanding how some idiots were able to get drivers licenses. Some people actually had to get to work on time. He passed the car and just as their bumpers cleared, he swerved hard, back into the original lane, causing the other driver to swerve in surprise from the near collision.

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : Long Last Victory

 

Bruno tied the broken strap of his backpack, threw it over his shoulders and stomped off, not pausing to see if Sasha was keeping up. “We can’t be late to the ceremony,” he called out as he picked up his speed. “This is the one Sasha. I can feel it this time. This. Is. The. One.” The last sentence came in between massive inhalations for air as he struggled to keep his over-sized frame in motion.

“The one, what?” On a normal day, Sasha could have kept up with Bruno, just by walking briskly. But he had roused her from a deep sleep and without any caffeine, she was held back by her own mental fog. Plus, in the time it had taken her to stoop down and tie her shoe, he had gotten nearly a half a block ahead of her.

“Today everything changes for me. Today I become new.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do you have any idea how tired I am of watching an endless stream of worthless hacks parade past me, climbing mountains, solely on the basis of their ability to ejaculate pedestrian prose onto any forum that will have them? No more! Today I receive what is mine.”

Sasha shook her head as she finally caught up to him and matched his stride. She offered no response or argument though, and Bruno plowed on through his tirade.

“It isn’t my fault that the literary establishment is too small-minded to recognize the brilliance of my verbiage. Forgive me if my work isn’t childishly linear enough for them. Big five publishing houses? More like five abortions of taste.”

“Bruno—”

“Maybe I should send the editors a toy along with my submissions so that their attention would be sufficiently occupied while reading.”

“Bruno—”

“Or maybe I should start a series about sexually curious, adolescent vampires trying to make it onto the US ping-pong team. That sounds marketable.”

“Bruno—”

“We’re here.” Bruno ran up the stone steps, two at a time and threw open the doors. They walked into a large ornate lobby and Sasha immediately heard the sound of applause. Bruno jogged ahead of her and threw open the doors to the auditorium. Just as he did, she could hear the amplified voice emerging from within.

“…and this year’s selection, by a narrow margin, is Bleeding Rose Petals That Sing My Name by Bruno Hoppenfeifer.” Sasha followed Bruno into the auditorium and stopped short. The first thing she saw was the banner reading, “4H Annual Youth Creative Writing Contest.” The second thing she saw was that the crowd of fellow writers in the contest that Bruno had evidently entered was a crowd of grade school age children with their parents. The man up at the podium had removed his glasses and was looking around the room, likely waiting for whichever ten year old he assumed was the author.

Finally, she saw Bruno, racing down the aisle to accept his award, arms waving back and forth, hooting like a maniac.

“Suck on that you little bastards!”

 

Issue #163 : Chick Free For All

 

“Back away from the bird, bitch.”

This was what his day had become.

One simple oversight.

The advertising blimp hovering over the city had said, “One free roasting chicken with every purchase.” Not what it was supposed to say. 

Jan had come up with the idea to use the blimp for their marketing campaign. He just hadn’t proofread the copy. Now the store had turned into a middle-upper class suburban war zone, with people determined to cash in on an offer that he now had no choice but to honor.

The crowd swarmed from side to side, voices rising in unison. Different sets of hands waged war on their way towards claiming one of the precious few chickens left in the freezer.

Jan stepped forward to try and separate two women who were now swinging at each other. As he did so, a heavy-set man grabbed the back of his apron and pulled hard, using the momentum to propel himself through the crowd like a wreaking ball. He split through two grandmothers, reached over a stumbling housewife and with one giant hand, palmed the last chicken.

The protests from the crowd immediately rose to a crescendo; all of them demanding access to the secret stash they were certain was being hidden for only the best customers. Jan jerked his apron back to center.

“Hey! People!” he cried out with his hands in the air. “There’s another truck pulling up.” Little did they know that the truck was delivering produce. Still, they dispersed, rushing off towards new prey and leaving him behind in the most fleeting moment of respite. It would likely only be minutes before they would be back and this would start all over again.

It was a glorious day for shopping.

He shoved through the swinging doors next to the meat department and ran down the narrow stairs, barely noticeable next to the recycling bins. At the bottom, he took out his key ring and with a trembling hand disengaged three separate locks before opening it and stepping through.

The air of the cooler down below the store made his arms stand up in goosebumps and he rubbed them to try and keep the circulation going.

“Shouldn’t have offered that deal.”

He looked up to see Kristof sitting at the far work bench, looking back over his shoulder through thin spectacles. “Shouldn’t have made that deal,” he repeated. 

“You think I don’t know that?” Jan asked. “It’s bedlam up there. We need to come up with some product. Now.”

“Don’t have time to wait for the next shipment?”

“I think they’ll be more likely to destroy the building before that happens.”

“So what do you expect me to—”

“Kristof, come on.”

“If you don’t have any more chickens in the—”

“God dammit Kristof, will you get with the picture? You know what I need.”

Kristof sighed and looked up at the walls where the bodies hung in silent observation. Some of them were former customers who had been a problem regularly and had mysteriously stopped shopping at the store. Others were former staff who had left town abruptly for other jobs and weren’t heard from since. Some of them were simply drunks who had failed to find their way home and ended up here. The finish line for all of them would be in the large freezer, neatly packaged as fillets and steaks. Kristof let loose with another sigh.

“Give me a minute. You will have to post a sign that we are using a substitute for your ridiculous bargain.”

“Thank you, I—”

“Don’t thank me! This will leave us very depleted now. We can’t afford to let the inventory drop too low.”

“I don’t—”

“This weekend you will have to go harvesting with me.”

 

 

Tracing The Trails Of Richard Bachman : Roadwork

Literary fiction.

.

As a “genre writer”, I find the words literary fiction to be one of the more irritating terms that I come across. For me, it implies a line in the sand in the great landscape of literature, but one that is completely arbitrary and just a little bit judgmental. That on one side, you have the serious writers, the artists of distinction who tell important stories and have essential things to say. Then, on the other side of the line, you have genre fiction, the writers who have been delegated to the kids table in the grand scheme of things. These are the un-distinguished and the easily dismissed.

Hogwash.

At their essential core, writers are trying to do the same basic things. We want to tell a story that’s interesting, engaging and emotional for the reader. We may go about it differently and there will be differences in little things but at our core I really believe in this. Our process is that of telling stories. We are all writers and as far as I’m concerned, “literary fiction” should be considered just as much of a genre as splatterpunk or historical romance.

Roadwork was Richard Bachman’s third book and of all the books of King I have read, this comes the closest to what I would classify as being “literary”. The story is that of a man, Barton George Dawes, whose life is about to fall apart around him. The state is in the process of siezing huge pieces of land and private property for an extension to the highway. Both Dawes’ home and place of employment have been targeted to be destroyed in order to make room for the new road. It is a bitter irony that Dawes ends up therefore, responsible for ushering in the end of two huge monuments in his life. He has to purchase a new home for him and his wife, effectively turning his back forever on the house he has called home. And if that isn’t difficult enough, he also is responsible for helping find a new location for the laundering company that he has been loyal to for decades.

Because of his inability to let go of these things that are so important to him, Dawes effectively does neither. He excludes his wife from his attempts to find a house while in reality makes no effort to find anything. As his employer picks out sites for relocation, Dawes proceeds to drag his feet, coming up with paper-thin reasons to not move on a site and his intentional inaction leads to another company coming in and buying it. When his bosses discover his intentional sabotages, he is let go from his job. And at pretty much the same time, his wife discovers that even though they are on the verge of losing their house, they still have nowhere to move and will be effectively homeless in a matter of months. Needless to say, he is fired from his marriage as well.

It is the type of story most people would not associate with Stephen King. There are no supernatural elements here, no monsters or conventions of the horror genre. It moves along at a good pace, in my opinion, and I think does a good job demonstrating Dawes’ gradual deterioration and hopelessness in leading to what he ultimately does at the end of the story. That being said however, there will be many who have a hard time making it through this because it is so dissimilar from other Stephen King books.

Roadwork seems to be one of the less popular offerings from Bachman. Many people find the book boring and way too slow to get moving. I think this is one of those stories where the mindset you take into it is going to play a big part in terms of how you accept it while you are reading it. I didn’t love the book, but I did feel like it was a nice change in tone and atmosphere from the previous two Bachman books.

Here’s the thing, regardless of what package the story comes in, whether there are monsters or ghouls or supernatural, one thing that Stephen King is really good at is developing characters that are believable and sympathetic. He is good at creating tension and conflict for those characters and he is good at putting you inside of a story. Despite not having the normal trappings of one of his books, I thought that King did a great job in crafting the tragedy of this person’s life and in demonstrating the path which he inevitably ends up going down.

There is a heavy feeling of nostalgia throughout this book. Personally, I also have a lot of trouble letting go of things. I wouldn’t characterize myself as a hoarder but I have a tendency to attach emotional weight to physical objects that I associate with certain times of my life. I have often found myself going through boxes of stuff in our basement and come across something that made me smile for a minute before putting it back into the box, never to think of it again until the next time I happen across it.

Dawes is a man who also has trouble letting go of the past and the things that are important to him. Or to put it differently, he incorrectly imbibes the physical things around him with the emotional significance he feels and seems afraid that if he loses those things, he will lose the memories as well. He is understandably angered by the notion that these things which are so vital to him could be tossed aside like garbage for the sake of something as unimportant as a highway extension. And at the heart of all that nostalgic regret for things lost is his continued suffering for the death of his son, still fresh and raw in his mind. King puts us right there, right in the middle of that emotional, internalized storm and forces us to take notice.

In the course of our history, there are plenty of instances where certain individuals become the perpetrators of violent acts, unthinkable decisions and often in the aftermath we are left to puzzle over what might have happened. We hear interviews with friends and family and neighbors and nothing ever seems to come to light to satisfy us. Certainly this person must have some kind of a history that led them to that moment of horrible, violent conclusion.

With Roadwork, Stephen King puts us into the mind of that kind of a person and it is both fascinating and tragic to watch him move towards the ending which we all expect, but don’t want to happen. Characters and their stories are the reason why I continue to love the work of Stephen King, so from that perspective, Roadwork is a great example and a great book to check out.

My name is Chad Clark and I am proud to be a constant reader.