Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 15

Baked Scribe Flashback : Sealed Delivered

 

The only reason he had come to the house was to deliver the pizza. But from the moment he buzzed, and the door opened, he knew that he was in for a lot more. Whatever the argument that the woman had just finished with the boyfriend or the husband or the girlfriend or whomever, the result was her standing here on the threshold wearing the moist tracks of tears, and barely more than a suggestive smile.

Timmy had immediately averted his gaze, suddenly fascinated by the crown molding and the color of the drapes. She was asking him something about accepting special gratuities. He tried to focus on what it would feel like to have a knife driven into him at Jenna’s hands if she ever heard about this incident.

“It’s…” his voice was lost in a volley of coughing and he took another run at it. “It’s $17.95 ma’am.”

“But you need my coupon,” she said, running a hand down the front of her shirt, conveniently unbuttoned. She slid her hand to one side, revealing the swell of one breast. “I think I’ve got it here under my—”

“Nope, I’m good.” Timmy let out an abrupt laugh that sounded fake, even to him. “I don’t need your coupon, I’ll take your word for it.”

She looked down at herself, underneath the tails of the shirt that revealed the micro-thin underwear that she was wearing. “My wallet is all the way over there on the table by the phone. Take whatever you think is fair.”

Timmy contemplated paying for the pizza himself, just to get the hell out of there, but ended up lurching into the room and grabbing the wallet. He was looking through the bills when suddenly her hand reached around from behind him, caressing softly and moving for a vacation down south. Timmy groaned and turned, finding himself thrust into a clumsy embrace. The hands that he had raised to push her away had ended up cupping the least opportune place on her body while her lips were suddenly on his and her hands were fumbling with the elastic band of his shorts.

“What in the blue fuck is going on here?” the authoritative tone of the police officer that was evidently also her husband, brought a high pitched shriek to Timmy’s voice and he pushed her away. She tumbled backwards over the coffee table and fell roughly to the ground. To his dismay, she was now screaming at her husband to help her. All she wanted was a pizza and thank God, he had come home, just in time to save her. Timmy froze over her prone body, vaguely aware that her purse was now clutched tightly in his grip. The sight of the officer reaching for his pepper spray broke him out of his stupor and he fled towards the back door.

When he hit the yard, the husband hadn’t taken pursuit yet. Timmy dove into the gigantic play house that the man had probably built himself for his kids. He slammed the door shut behind him and looked around at the plastic tea set that he had knocked askew.

Outside he heard the husband raging obscenities and throwing lawn ornaments. It went on for some time, but eventually, the sound began to fade and Timmy started to feel like maybe it was safe.

Then he heard gravel crunching, followed by the sound of all things, a light tapping on the front door of the playhouse. Timmy’s voice went up several more octaves as the only words he could think to say spilled out.

“Not without a warrant!”

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : Hope

 

She looked down at the creased letter on her bureau. It had been sitting there for so long that dust and grime was starting to collect within the deep folds of the paper. Dozens of fading yellow rings were visible where she had set her mug down onto it as a makeshift coaster. She gazed down at the grease stains on the corners from when she had reached over while eating and picked it up to look at it, to maintain some kind of physical connection with it.

Mariah had been over that night for her weekly dinner that turned into a crying session. She always expected Mariah to spot the letter. It wasn’t like she ever tried to hide it. But for some reason it always stayed there, unnoticed. Was that fate telling her that she was doing the right thing?

Every day, Mariah spent at least an hour walking around the neighborhood, putting up fliers. She would nail them to telephone poles, place them under windshield wipers, ask local stores to put them up and on the weekends she would knock on people’s doors, taking care to come calling after dinner but before the 9:00 news. She did this without fail, variations of the same theme every day, because her sister had never been found. No body meant that there was still hope.

Her sister could still be alive somewhere.

Over the past year, hope had been the cornerstone of Mariah’s own five food groups alongside anger, despair, denial, and resentment. The hope she clung to was the only thing that made the other four palatable.

Who was she to let that hope be taken away? Mariah was her friend. Wasn’t it her responsibility to protect and take care of her? Was it just luck that she had found the letter that day? She had no idea what had possessed her to go through Mariah’s mail, but she had absentmindedly leafed through it while her friend was making lunch, and had found this letter, unfound, and tucked away between the penny saver and the apartment finder. The official letter. All reasonable leads had been exhausted. The case would be kept on file but, barring a major breakthrough, a positive outcome was becoming less and less likely.

Every day, she debated whether or not she would give Mariah the letter. Was she hurting or helping? And would their friendship survive the anger over the violation of Mariah’s privacy? It was possible that she always knew what to do. It was just a matter of going through with it.

Hope heals all.

She couldn’t take the only thing that was getting Mariah up in the morning. There needed to be a reason to foster hope and all this letter did was rip it to shreds.

She placed the letter in the sink, and reached for the matches.

 

Issue #162 : Paying It Back

 

Drew let out a slow breath and reached blindly for the low-ball glass on the table. The bass from the stage seeped in through the wall, in perfect time with the throbbing of his headache. And somehow not one person in the band had any pain-killers in their bags. Or at least if they did, they weren’t sharing. So he was left with nothing else to dull himself to the pain except for this, one gulp at a time. The once full bottle sat next to the glass, now over half consumed.

This was exactly how he thought his summer would end up but that didn’t make it any less torturous. Nothing quite like babysitting a bunch of crybabies who just expected everything to be done for them. What? Why would we break down our own gear or help set up? Why would we dare to sit at the merch table and, God forbid actually talk to people? Why would we actually go out for the food or pump the gas?

And the inevitable answer to the obvious question would be, “No, we aren’t bringing on any roadies. We aren’t spending money like that. But we still expect all of those things to be done for us. And we still expect to be making money by the end of this tour.”

It wasn’t as if no one had warned him about this a bunch of knuckleheads. He knew. If he had possessed an ounce more of self respect, or a healthier bank account, he would have laughed off the offer for what it was.

The problem with self-respect was that it just didn’t pay the bills like it used to.

Maybe it was appropriate metaphorically that, as he reached one of the low moments of his career, it would happen in a club that itself, was one of the lowest spots in the universe. There were only two kinds of people who came here. The ones who had hit rock bottom and couldn’t seem to find their way back out. And then there were the dregs, the ones who simply existed from day one at rock bottom.

Drew picked up the bottle and weaved his way out of the dressing room. The hallway felt like some kind of a fun house ride as he stumbled along, bracing himself against the walls as he did so. The music got louder and there was a part of him that would have prayed for a blown amp or a broken string, if it weren’t for the fact that he would end up being the one to have to deal with it. Every day, he seemed to learn that the only thing these assholes were missing was the diapers. Maybe he needed to call it quits if this was the best he could hope for anymore.

Maybe Starbucks was hiring.

From somewhere ahead, in the darkness between the fluorescents, he heard what sounded like a woman crying. Even in his dulled condition, he couldn’t help but smirk at the sound. Probably wasn’t the first time these walls had reverberated with that before. He tilted the headache cure up and lost himself in the high pitched ringing of the liquid sloshing around in the neck of the bottle.

She sounded like she was pretty upset and as he got close enough he finally saw her, curled up on the floor like a baby, face pressed to the ground. He considered simply walking past her. This was also not an unusual sight and who knew why she was upset. Someone could have hurt her or maybe her BFF was kissing the wrong guy. And maybe she had gotten hold of some bad product and thought her earlobes were melting.

Still, he knew that if he just stepped over, it would be one more self-inflicted wound to his character. He couldn’t just ignore her.

“Hey,” he reached down to place his fingertips on her exposed shoulder.

Her skin was cool and clammy to the touch and she jumped at the feel of his. Her breath hitched up in her chest as she seemed to crouch even lower, as if trying to get away from him by scrambling backwards.

“Hey, wait,” he said again, “don’t worry, you’re not—”

“Get…” She started to speak but her voice seemed to crack and dissolve before she regrouped and started again. “Get… OUT!” This last was uttered so loudly that the sound of it echoed up and down the corridor, so much that he wondered if the band could actually hear it. Her head snapped up and the visage before him made him stumble backwards.

“Christ!” he said as the bottle slipped from his hand.

“OUT!” She screamed again. Where her eyes should have been were instead two gaping holes, filling with some kind of thick, viscous liquid. As she screamed, her mouth opened, revealing a row of teeth that looked like they should have been in the mouth of a shark. Her mouth continued to open until nearly twice as large as it should have been. The volume of her voice rose in pitch as he staggered back, feeling a hot wind blowing over him.

Drew blinked, realizing that he had fallen down and was now looking up from a sitting position as the thing charged him, sickeningly fast. Before he could react, she was on him, swatting at his outstretched hands and lunging for his throat, teeth gleaming in the low light.

“What in the—” he couldn’t even finish the thought as he braced against her hurtling shape, trying to shove her up and away. She snapped at him like an animal and he could already see streaks of blood on his arms where her teeth had met their mark. The music continued to pulse around him, oblivious to what was happening just off stage. He tried to push himself down the corridor a little more, where the drummer might be able to see him if he ever actually looked up. But he could get nowhere, pinned to the floor.

The thing wearing the woman’s body screamed again, leaning down so far that they were almost nose to nose. His arms were on fire as he shoved again, feeling the thing move ever so slightly. It started to drool as it lunged for him.

His first thought has been drugs, that this woman was out of her skull on something, bad shit passed along by some back alley kid who didn’t know his ass from the waste dump valve on an RV. Now that the thing was on top of him and he had the feel of it, the weight of it, he could tell there was something materially wrong. It wasn’t some drug making her into something different.

He didn’t think she was human at all.

The skin felt like plastic, rubber stretched out over a skeletal face. It felt lifeless, like a mannequin. He looked up into her eyes and saw no sign of any kind of conscious thought there, no calculation or reason. All he saw was emotion, pure and uncontrollable rage. It was as if Drew had become the personification of every evil to this thing and was now the target of her need for violence.

Drew tried to get clear enough to roll out from underneath but just as he started to slide away, he felt something clamp down on his ankles and savagely pull him back. He grabbed at a nearby pillar to try and keep away, crying out as two of his fingers bent back from the effort.

The figure of the girl swelled above him, expanded until all he could see over him was the massive face, the mouth and the teeth snapping for him. He could feel the strength ebbing from his arms and knew that they were close to giving in.

And she was gone.

Drew felt his mouth drop open as the immense pressure abruptly lifted. The girl was gone, leaving him lying on his back in the darkened hallway, the thumping of the bass highlighting the world’s ignorance to what had just happened.

He staggered out into the street, no thought spared for the squadron of entitled assholes he left behind. He didn’t even care if this ended up irreparably damaging his reputation professionally. That was more than he had signed up for.

As he staggered out, he passed a makeshift stand on the sidewalk, near the entrance to the club. He had seen it earlier and had mistaken for someone selling trinkets to tourists. This time, he stopped. The kid looked barely old enough to vote, and was handing out fliers protesting the club, the violence that had happened there. Drew looked over a panel of black-and-white photos, victims over the years of the drunken assholes that inhabited this particular place.

He recognized her immediately. Her picture was right in the middle of the page.

Killed three years ago.

Drew felt all the booze starting to hurtle back up from where he had left it and he stumbled on, hand pressed to his mouth. It didn’t take long to get back to his room. One advantage of working with cheapskates, the shitty clubs were usually pretty close to the shitty hotels.

Dropping onto the pathetic excuse for a chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. It was stupid. The whole thing was crazy. Impossible. It was a good thing he kept another stash of booze here to replace the bottle he had dropped.

He was about to stand when he felt the presence behind him. He didn’t even have to look, could feel the truth in the cold sensation on his skin. The floor creaked as the thing leaned over him, eyes ablaze. He could feel the rage baking off of her and he closed his eyes, doing everything he could to ignore the hot stink of that eager, questing breath.

 

Issue #161 : Paying It Back

 

Drew let out a slow breath and reached blindly for the low-ball glass on the table. The bass from the stage seeped in through the wall, in perfect time with the throbbing of his headache. And somehow not one person in the band had any pain-killers in their bags. Or at least if they did, they weren’t sharing. So he was left with nothing else to dull himself to the pain except for this, one gulp at a time. The once full bottle sat next to the glass, now over half consumed.

This was exactly how he thought his summer would end up but that didn’t make it any less torturous. Nothing quite like babysitting a bunch of crybabies who just expected everything to be done for them. What? Why would we break down our own gear or help set up? Why would we dare to sit at the merch table and, God forbid actually talk to people? Why would we actually go out for the food or pump the gas?

And the inevitable answer to the obvious question would be, “No, we aren’t bringing on any roadies. We aren’t spending money like that. But we still expect all of those things to be done for us. And we still expect to be making money by the end of this tour.”

It wasn’t as if no one had warned him about this a bunch of knuckleheads. He knew. If he had possessed an ounce more of self respect, or a healthier bank account, he would have laughed off the offer for what it was.

The problem with self-respect was that it just didn’t pay the bills like it used to.

Maybe it was appropriate metaphorically that, as he reached one of the low moments of his career, it would happen in a club that itself, was one of the lowest spots in the universe. There were only two kinds of people who came here. The ones who had hit rock bottom and couldn’t seem to find their way back out. And then there were the dregs, the ones who simply existed from day one at rock bottom.

Drew picked up the bottle and weaved his way out of the dressing room. The hallway felt like some kind of a fun house ride as he stumbled along, bracing himself against the walls as he did so. The music got louder and there was a part of him that would have prayed for a blown amp or a broken string, if it weren’t for the fact that he would end up being the one to have to deal with it. Every day, he seemed to learn that the only thing these assholes were missing was the diapers. Maybe he needed to call it quits if this was the best he could hope for anymore.

Maybe Starbucks was hiring.

From somewhere ahead, in the darkness between the fluorescents, he heard what sounded like a woman crying. Even in his dulled condition, he couldn’t help but smirk at the sound. Probably wasn’t the first time these walls had reverberated with that before. He tilted the headache cure up and lost himself in the high pitched ringing of the liquid sloshing around in the neck of the bottle.

She sounded like she was pretty upset and as he got close enough he finally saw her, curled up on the floor like a baby, face pressed to the ground. He considered simply walking past her. This was also not an unusual sight and who knew why she was upset. Someone could have hurt her or maybe her BFF was kissing the wrong guy. And maybe she had gotten hold of some bad product and thought her earlobes were melting.

Still, he knew that if he just stepped over, it would be one more self-inflicted wound to his character. He couldn’t just ignore her.

“Hey,” he reached down to place his fingertips on her exposed shoulder.

Her skin was cool and clammy to the touch and she jumped at the feel of his. Her breath hitched up in her chest as she seemed to crouch even lower, as if trying to get away from him by scrambling backwards.

“Hey, wait,” he said again, “don’t worry, you’re not—”

“Get…” She started to speak but her voice seemed to crack and dissolve before she regrouped and started again. “Get… OUT!” This last was uttered so loudly that the sound of it echoed up and down the corridor, so much that he wondered if the band could actually hear it. Her head snapped up and the visage before him made him stumble backwards.

“Christ!” he said as the bottle slipped from his hand.

“OUT!” She screamed again. Where her eyes should have been were instead two gaping holes, filling with some kind of thick, viscous liquid. As she screamed, her mouth opened, revealing a row of teeth that looked like they should have been in the mouth of a shark. Her mouth continued to open until nearly twice as large as it should have been. The volume of her voice rose in pitch as he staggered back, feeling a hot wind blowing over him.

Drew blinked, realizing that he had fallen down and was now looking up from a sitting position as the thing charged him, sickeningly fast. Before he could react, she was on him, swatting at his outstretched hands and lunging for his throat, teeth gleaming in the low light.

“What in the—” he couldn’t even finish the thought as he braced against her hurtling shape, trying to shove her up and away. She snapped at him like an animal and he could already see streaks of blood on his arms where her teeth had met their mark. The music continued to pulse around him, oblivious to what was happening just off stage. He tried to push himself down the corridor a little more, where the drummer might be able to see him if he ever actually looked up. But he could get nowhere, pinned to the floor.

The thing wearing the woman’s body screamed again, leaning down so far that they were almost nose to nose. His arms were on fire as he shoved again, feeling the thing move ever so slightly. It started to drool as it lunged for him.

His first thought has been drugs, that this woman was out of her skull on something, bad shit passed along by some back alley kid who didn’t know his ass from the waste dump valve on an RV. Now that the thing was on top of him and he had the feel of it, the weight of it, he could tell there was something materially wrong. It wasn’t some drug making her into something different.

He didn’t think she was human at all.

The skin felt like plastic, rubber stretched out over a skeletal face. It felt lifeless, like a mannequin. He looked up into her eyes and saw no sign of any kind of conscious thought there, no calculation or reason. All he saw was emotion, pure and uncontrollable rage. It was as if Drew had become the personification of every evil to this thing and was now the target of her need for violence.

Drew tried to get clear enough to roll out from underneath but just as he started to slide away, he felt something clamp down on his ankles and savagely pull him back. He grabbed at a nearby pillar to try and keep away, crying out as two of his fingers bent back from the effort.

The figure of the girl swelled above him, expanded until all he could see over him was the massive face, the mouth and the teeth snapping for him. He could feel the strength ebbing from his arms and knew that they were close to giving in.

And she was gone.

Drew felt his mouth drop open as the immense pressure abruptly lifted. The girl was gone, leaving him lying on his back in the darkened hallway, the thumping of the bass highlighting the world’s ignorance to what had just happened.

He staggered out into the street, no thought spared for the squadron of entitled assholes he left behind. He didn’t even care if this ended up irreparably damaging his reputation professionally. That was more than he had signed up for.

As he staggered out, he passed a makeshift stand on the sidewalk, near the entrance to the club. He had seen it earlier and had mistaken for someone selling trinkets to tourists. This time, he stopped. The kid looked barely old enough to vote, and was handing out fliers protesting the club, the violence that had happened there. Drew looked over a panel of black-and-white photos, victims over the years of the drunken assholes that inhabited this particular place.

He recognized her immediately. Her picture was right in the middle of the page.

Killed three years ago.

Drew felt all the booze starting to hurtle back up from where he had left it and he stumbled on, hand pressed to his mouth. It didn’t take long to get back to his room. One advantage of working with cheapskates, the shitty clubs were usually pretty close to the shitty hotels.

Dropping onto the pathetic excuse for a chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. It was stupid. The whole thing was crazy. Impossible. It was a good thing he kept another stash of booze here to replace the bottle he had dropped.

He was about to stand when he felt the presence behind him. He didn’t even have to look, could feel the truth in the cold sensation on his skin. The floor creaked as the thing leaned over him, eyes ablaze. He could feel the rage baking off of her and he closed his eyes, doing everything he could to ignore the hot stink of that eager, questing breath.

 

Tracing The Trails Of Richard Bachman : The Long Walk

The Long Walk was the second book to be published under the Bachman name and is probably one of the most on-the-nose titles I have ever seen for a book. Long Walk is a dystopian tale, with story and themes that would have a similar feel many years later to another Bachman book, The Running Man.

In the modern landscape of our popular culture, dystopian fiction has become more trendy, but in the mid to late seventies, this was not as much the case. I recently read an interview with King in which he discussed his earlier endeavors with Bachman’s books, how he had expressed in interest in the dystopian to his publisher but was told that it would never catch on. I suppose this could be another reason why he chose to use the pen name in the first place. Bachman would have a little bit more freedom to tell the stories he wanted to tell, regardless of the market and what was popular at the time.

The story is simple in its concept. Every year, a hundred young men vie for an opportunity to take part in the Long Walk. In the course of the competition, the one who ends up the last person standing is the one who wins. The winner is awarded with literally anything they want for the rest of their life.

One other thing? The one who wins the Long Walk is also the last one still alive.

The rules of the game are simple. The crowd begins to walk, en masse, and once the game starts, you aren’t allowed to stop, for any reason. The crowd is followed by a trailing vehicle, basically a truck with armed soldiers. If you do stop, you are given a warning. If you don’t get moving you get a second warning. After your third warning, you will be shot and the contest will have one less participant. As a way of keeping things interesting, if a participant who has received a warning can go an hour without any incidents, one of his warnings will be wiped away.

At a glance, I’m sure that there would be some who would dismiss this book as being childish or simplistic, not worth the time it would take to read it. However, I found that underneath this veneer of simplicity, you have a story that is actually very complex and difficult to craft. Don’t believe me? I would challenge you to write a three hundred page book about walking. 

And in addition to that, you have a ton of players wandering around the stage so you have to be able to pick out a few and give them unique voices and bring their individualities to bear on the story.

Regardless of what you have to say about King as a writer, I think few would deny that he has an aptitude for creating characters that have depth. This ability was clear, even as early as this novel was written as the characters are pretty much the only thing he had access to. The drama of the story, the tension and the struggles, they all have to be defined in reference to the characters. How do you construct a story that is this long without constantly repeating the same three or four scenes over and over? I honestly don’t know. I can say with certainty that if I were to try writing something like this, I would end up quitting pretty quickly out of frustration and hating every word that dripped out of my keyboard.

There are a few things I particularly appreciated about this book. There is a habit I think can be common for less experienced writers to feel like you have to explain everything in unending detail. To give an example, I spent a few years in my late twenties, pretending to be a musician and when I was taking bass lessons, one thing that really stuck with me was when my teacher tried to explan that when playing, you shouldn’t feel the need to fill every empty space with a note. That sometimes you can be as effective with the way you use pauses and breaks as you can with your actual playing.

The relevance here is that I think other authors might be tempted to break up a story like this with a ton of exposition, relating to the reader the nature of the world in which this book is set. MKing doesn’t seem to give a ton of details about the specifics. While information like that might have been intellectually interesting, I don’t think it would have contributed anything to the story itself. It might be nice to know more about the world of this book, but it really isn’t needed. King was brave enough to stick with the heart of the story and the aspects that were important.

One point I made regarding the first Bachman book, Rage, was that it felt to me like it tried to hard to be a sort of earnest exploration of the human condition. I think King accomplished something similar here, but without feeling quite as contrived as Rage does. I think you see the full range of human emotions through the horrible experience of this competition and King does a great job highlighting all of these, putting them on the display stand that this book represents. For me, The Long Walk felt genuine, more of a natural and organic exploration of human nature. With Rage, I felt more like he wanted to make specific commentary about the human condition and tried to mold together a story that would make that point. There might not seem like much of a difference between the two, but the net result is that I found myself enjoying The Long Walk more than I did Rage, for this reason.

There is a certain amount of suspension of disbelief that you have to employ here. Bowel movements would seem to make the whole endeavor impossible but you kind of have to let go of the little things and focus on the larger picture of the story. Just go with it and remember this, they only had one bathroom on the Enterprise.

I think any artist learns something about their voice with each project they put behind them and already, from Rage to The Long Walk, I can see an improvement in craft and technique.

Thanks for checking out the blog. Tune in next week when we turn our attention to Roadwork.

Until then.

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

Baked Scribe Flashback : Ad Spaced

 

“Look, I misread your ad all right? Can we just stop dwelling on it?” Angel’s patience was officially spent.

“It was in the singles section! How could you have misread it?”

“You had so many God dammed abbreviations in there, I couldn’t—”

“Do you have any idea how expensive those ads are?”

“No.”

“Well they’re expensive. I had to use all those abbreviations, because otherwise I couldn’t have afforded it. Besides, there’s a guide at the bottom of the page explaining them all.”

“Well I didn’t see that either.”

“You don’t see much do you?”

“I can see enough to see that you need to bite my—”

“Look, as charming as I’m sure the end of that sentence was going to be, how about we just call the whole thing off? Cut our losses. Sound good?”

“Fine. Bye.”

Angel watched her storm off across the parking lot. He had used this tactic of “misreading” personal ads, pretending to set up a date in order to fish for new victims for over a year now. Normally at this point, he would feel the tiniest twinge of guilt, but now he felt proud to have lifted her wallet. She hadn’t felt a thing and he deserved the cash for his time and for putting up with her attitude. He was at the Grand Canyon after all. At least he could get a souvenir and maybe a sandwich out of the deal, on her dime.

He stopped, mid-thought and mid-stride, as two things happened in rapid succession. The first was when he opened her wallet and found it to be empty, save for the fake paper credit cards that sometimes came with new wallets.

The second was when he looked to check the time and discovered that she had stolen his watch.

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : Walking In Memory

 

The plane set down in New Orleans in a pouring rain. He stepped out of the terminal, his bright red alligator boots crunching down on broken glass. He raised up a hand, clutching a pack of cigarettes, as he waved for the next cab.

He walked down Bourbon Street, glancing up at the balconies, and remembering how her hair had flowed in the breeze as they pelted the Mardi Gras crowds with peanuts. He took long drags from the cigarette, the smoke rising up to mingle with the banners and elaborate flower arrangements that lined the street.

The coffee shop where he had met her was still there, now sandwiched between trendy chain restaurants. The ragged poster of Louis Armstrong still stood guard over the patrons, partaking in burnt espresso and stale sandwiches. He had never cared for the place, but the essence of her still lingered there and who was he to fight the pull of tradition?

On the next corner, as he tried to fight the taste of caffeinated memories, the smell of catfish frying wafted down from the balcony above, and he could make out the sound of someone inside, banging on an old piano. It was the same corner he had walked past with her, the preacher standing on his apple crate, reaching out to the crowd, reaching out for him.

She had always loved the city, the people and the music, the food and festivals. Loved the smell of spice in the air, and nights spent trudging through the worst parts of town to find restaurants hidden behind heavy metal doors. He was often surprised that they hadn’t needed a password, just to get in.

She had always been there next to him on these trips, here in the city and beyond. She was supposed to stay there, always at his side. Now the only presence he felt around him was the weight of absence.

So, hours after his informal walking tour, he blinked and found himself on the bed of a hotel room. He reached across to return the now empty bottle of gin next to the empty bottle of scotch. Satisfied that he had finished both, he reached to the table on the other side of the bed, took hold of the tiny prescription bottle and laid back, steeling himself against the imminent comfort of the outstretched shades of eternity.

 

Down The Beaten Path

I am proud to announce that my latest book, Down The Beaten Path, will be officially released on September 6. Down The Beaten Path is the story of a small town, a tightly woven religious community that goes missing. Many years later, one man’s obsession with the mystery around the town of Foster leads him down a dark path. Click on the page for Down The Beaten Path for more information.
In the meantime, click here to pre-order Down The Beaten Path for the Kindle.

Issue #161 : Mishandled Food

 

It’s not like being a zombie isn’t hard enough. Social outcasts, the monsters of society. What happened to the parades for us? Did they run out of colors for ribbons? Couldn’t find anyone for a charity concert?

No rights at all. Just walking garbage. Targets for a bullet to the brain.

And now evidently food poisoning is a thing for us?

What am I supposed to do? Seriously, what am I realistically expected to do? It’s not like I can just interview my meal, question them on their diet and personal hygiene habits. And even if I did get the chance, how would I even do it?

I can’t talk.

I’m a zombie.

So now apparently I’ve just got to just go on, hoping I won’t get the shitty luck of the draw. Sure, let’s just hope that guy was good about washing his hands after handling poultry. Really putting it all on the line, guessing whether or not that lady was using anti-bacterial soap in the shower and not just her shampoo. And I guess I’ll just find out if that tasty little brat had been letting his oral cavity turn into a warm cesspool of bacteria.

This wasn’t what I signed up for; not the lifestyle I had envisioned. Not so glamorous anymore is it? Now here I am, so sick that all I can do is think about how much I miss the days when I was just dealing with being undead. Is it possible to feel worse than dead?

Apparently it is.

But, then again, maybe it’s for the best.

After all, when they’re sick they don’t run as fast.

 

Issue #162 : Mishandled Food

 

It’s not like being a zombie isn’t hard enough. Social outcasts, the monsters of society. What happened to the parades for us? Did they run out of colors for ribbons? Couldn’t find anyone for a charity concert?

No rights at all. Just walking garbage. Targets for a bullet to the brain.

And now evidently food poisoning is a thing for us?

What am I supposed to do? Seriously, what am I realistically expected to do? It’s not like I can just interview my meal, question them on their diet and personal hygiene habits. And even if I did get the chance, how would I even do it?

I can’t talk.

I’m a zombie.

So now apparently I’ve just got to just go on, hoping I won’t get the shitty luck of the draw. Sure, let’s just hope that guy was good about washing his hands after handling poultry. Really putting it all on the line, guessing whether or not that lady was using anti-bacterial soap in the shower and not just her shampoo. And I guess I’ll just find out if that tasty little brat had been letting his oral cavity turn into a warm cesspool of bacteria.

This wasn’t what I signed up for; not the lifestyle I had envisioned. Not so glamorous anymore is it? Now here I am, so sick that all I can do is think about how much I miss the days when I was just dealing with being undead. Is it possible to feel worse than dead?

Apparently it is.

But, then again, maybe it’s for the best.

After all, when they’re sick they don’t run as fast.