Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 2

Issue #197 : Footsteps In The Attic

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Originally published in the anthology, DeathMongers : Where The Light Dies

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She hadn’t lived in the house long enough to comfortably say that it was just one of the normal noises, the sound of the house settling or maybe even the scampering of a rodent. These were the distinct sounds of footsteps joined with the corresponding groans from floorboards. Footsteps that sounded like someone pacing back and forth. In the attic.

She played out the 911 call in her head, imagined the look on the faces of the officers who showed up to “save” her; predicted the grating, condescending laughter from Brian when he got home from his graveyard shift. It was probably better to just deal with it herself. After all, what could it be really? It wasn’t like a burglar, having been foiled by the unlocked doors and open windows would have scaled up the walls to come in through the attic.

Still, she found herself taking Brian’s baseball bat out of the hall closet and hefting it high, ready to swing for the fences as she climbed the stairs. The trap door going up into the attic hung slightly open. Brian must have been up there and not closed it all the way. She reached up and noticed that her hand was trembling as she took hold of the chain and yanked down.

She had been preparing herself for something to jump down at her as the ladder descended on its track but all she was greeted with was the ill omens of smothering darkness.

The first step onto the ladder made the wood crack so loudly, she yelled out and jumped back down to the hall floor. As she leapt, the bat caught on the light fixture, causing her to drop it clattering to the floor. Her breath was coming in gasps as she reclaimed the bat and resumed her way up the ladder. It was shortly before reaching the top that she realized her impending dilemma. In order to push herself up from the ladder, she would have to set the bat aside for just a second.

As she passed her head up through the opening, a cold breath of drafty air washed over her. Seeing nothing around in any direction, she set the bat aside and scrambled up the last few steps. Her knee struck something solid as she stood up and she looked down just in time to see the bat about to topple down through the trapdoor. She grabbed it and raised it again, turning slowly around several times, ready to strike. All she could make out from the illumination of the street lights creeping in was the outline of boxes and unused luggage.

She had hoped to find an open window or a shattered glass frame that would have allowed access for a cat or squirrel. The windows were undisturbed. She had almost declared the attic safe, ready to go back to the comfort of the sofa when she heard the sound. It came from the far corner, underneath one of the windows and behind the largest stack of boxes. When she heard it, her skin prickled and a frigid coldness washed through her, starting at her center and radiating out from within.

It was the sound of a baby crying.

She made her way along the row of stacked boxes, running one hand along the wall of cardboard in order to keep her bearings and balance. At the end of the row, she stuck her head around the corner, needing every bit of discipline and control she possessed just to keep her eyes open.

There was nothing there.

Just bare floorboards illuminated in the pale gray-scale of night. The sound of the crying went on however, this time now from the other side of the room. She gripped the bat tighter, ignoring the protests from her hands and wrists and walked over, this time looking behind a refrigerator box sitting on top of an unused treadmill.

The crying cut out suddenly and there was just enough light for her to make out the dark mass of an object on the floor, stirring as if waking from a deep sleep. She drew in a sharp breath, scrambled her fingers to keep her grip on the bat and with a sudden rush of adrenaline, she stepped forward and brought it down as hard as she could.

The shaft impacted a thick pile of towels. There was now no sign of movement but for good measure, she brought the bat up and struck the towels on the floor several more times. Spent, she stumbled back and ran into something solid behind her. It was the feel of a much taller man and that was followed by the sensation of a hand caressing the small of her back. She spun around on her heels and swung again, striking not an assailant, but the antique coat rack which was now sprawling back onto the floor.

As her brain caught up with what she had just done, a hand dropped down onto her shoulder squeezing so hard that she thought she heard bones cracking. She screamed and swung out with a hand this time, meaning to shove the thing away from her, squeezing her eyes shut as she wailed loudly. Her feeble attack simply carried her forward and through open space where she tripped over the winter glove that had fallen first onto her shoulder and then to the floor.

Sudden, sharp pain from her stomach made her drop to one knee and she felt hot moisture as she clutched at her mid-section. She lifted her hand to her face and even in the darkness could recognize blood streaked across her palm and fingers. The cramping pain made it impossible to stand and it was difficult to breathe. A hand came down on the back of her neck and pulled her up to her feet. She looked up into the face of the shadowy figure before her and finally started to see.

Light faded down to darkness and she heard a voice. One voice, then several, faint at first but slowly growing stronger, as if she herself was drawing closer. The voices sounded familiar and before long she heard words.

“… broke into the house…”

“… stabbed…”

“… in the attic…”

She heard the sound of the baby crying again and as the light began to return, she saw the child, cradled in its mother’s arms, trying to soothe it into respectful silence. The pain from her stomach rose again as she looked around at the faces of her friends, her family. The figure in the attic that never fully clarified in her head, the sharp pain as she remembered the blade drawing back out of her, dropping down into a deep abyss.

She had been left up there for dead.

The decor of the room solidified around her. She looked at the mourners either in their seats or milling around the table which was covered in pictures. Like a blanket, she felt the love flowing from them and through her as she turned around for the first time to face the image of her own body in the casket for the funeral that was her own.

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author’s note : the image for this story was used with permission. Click here to view the artist’s work as well as the original picture.

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Imminent

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That paper shredder is winking at me again.

It’s as if it knows that a good meal is about to be served. You left me here on purpose, didn’t you? Front row seats to the carnage of paper, that you seem to have no qualms against feeding into that thing’s gullet. Seriously, does it ever get full? Or is it always just hungry for someone else?

It’s not my fault.

All I wanted was to grow up into a strong, beautiful tree. Or, failing that, live out my life as a part of someone’s poster, or an important clause of a groundbreaking law or one of the pages of a great book. It isn’t my fault I ended up having a collection letter printed on my skin. It’s not my fault that your personal information is printed on here. I don’t think I deserve to be shredded just for that.

Why can’t you just tuck me away somewhere? Maybe put me in the bottom of a tub of clothes that you think you’re going to magically fit into someday. We’d never see each other again, and I’d never be able to help someone get a credit card in your name. I wouldn’t cause any problems.

I don’t want to go through that thing. Who knows what really happens after? Where will I end up? Why can’t you just

No.

No, no, no, no just leave me the hell alone, put me down. Oh please God, don’t put me through the…

Oh, I’m sorry, was that a paper cut you just got there? No more than you deserved. Serves you right. Go upstairs to get a bandage to put on that. At least I didn’t end up as one of those. I’m betting that when you get back down here, you’ll never be able to figure out that I wafted through the air and right into the air return duct when you dropped me.

Now this is the life.

 

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Other Side

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Tap, tap, tapping at my door, or whatever the line was, I think I understand it a little better now. I guess the narrator was going a little bit nuts-o, one little tap at a time. Never really made sense to me, after all it’s just a poem.

But now I’m sitting here in my living room, and the knocking has been going on for over an hour. Constant, heavy blows, as if he’s using his own head as a knocker.

I owed my roommate a bunch of money. I mean, a ton of money. Money that I had stolen from him. I don’t know if that detail matters or not, but there it is. He had figured out what I was up to, and he was going to rat me out to the fucking dorm director. Maybe even the cops.

Well, the last thing I need is some meathead former jock coming down here and pretending like he’s got some authority because the university gave him some crap meaningless position. I don’t need cops coming in here and dragging me out of the building. I couldn’t let him tell. I couldn’t let him put me into that kind of position, what was I supposed to do? What would you do? I dealt with him the best way I could figure out.

I killed him.

I killed him, and now I’m pretty sure he’s standing out there, on the other side of the door, rapping on it with his forehead, because apparently his keys didn’t follow him into the afterlife. Or, maybe he just doesn’t know how to use them anymore.

The whole door is starting to shake in the frame now. What the hell am I supposed to do? The undead didn’t exactly factor into my thinking process here. It’s not like I can kill him again. Not like I can outrun him, and even if I could, so what? Eventually I’m going to get tired and he never will.

The wood is starting to break and splinter now. Not much time left I guess. I can see one of his crazy eyes through the hole in the door now. Not much time left.

I guess I’ve got one thing going for me. At least now, I know for sure what happens on the other side. And you can bet good money that when I come back, first thing, I’m going to be coming for this asshole.

 

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Issue #196 : The Instrument

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Davis leaned back in the chair and gazed down at the photographs, trying to not look as bored with the interview as he felt.

“So when exactly during all of this did you happen to come around from behind the dumpster?” Carlson asked as he scratched some notes on his pad.

“I told you,” the vagrant looked annoyed. “The noises stopped so I thought it was safe. I came out and found that guy slitting some poor bastard’s throat.”

“Right. Tell us again about what happened after that. What was the suspect doing?”

The vagrant nodded and seemed to look past them for a moment. “Yeah, I figured that part would be the thing. He had a…it looked like he was taking the blood and…look, you’re going to think I’m nuts.”

“Sir, just tell me, I promise we won’t think any less of you.”

The man snorted. “You know that don’t mean much if you already think I’m a piece of shit? Don’t matter. Okay, so I come around the corner. I see him making the guy dead and what I saw was a pen in his hand. He was holding the pen up to the guy’s neck, like he as trying to fill it. Like it was ink?”

That made Davis perk up somewhat, out of interest. He suddenly felt the weight of the pen in his pocket, the same pen he had found at the crime scene.

“What did the pen look like?” Carlson asked.

“I don’t know. It was a pen. How the hell do you describe a pen that you only saw from across an alley? It looked expensive, that’s all I can tell you.”

Davis had had that exact thought that night, as he bent down to pick the thing up off the ground. He thought it looked like the kind of pen that would go for a few hundred bucks in a high end jewelry shop. The thing certainly wrote like it was worth that much. It was the first time in his long career that he actually looked forward to filling out reports. It was almost like they wrote themselves and his hand was just along for the ride. It almost seemed like the pen did the work for him. It was an absurd notion but still, he wasn’t going to be giving it up any time soon.

He noticed Carlson staring at him expectedly. “Is that what you wanted me to hear?” he asked.

His partner’s face became noticeably disappointed as he shifted his gaze towards the back wall. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Davis turned back to their witness. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else. Thanks for coming back down.”

The man nodded as he stood to leave the room.

“What was the point of that?” Davis asked.

“What do you mean?” Carlson responded.

“Who cares if he was trying to fill a fountain pen with the guy’s blood? We already knew he was crazy. It isn’t like the pen was the murder weapon. Nothing about any of this changes because of a pen. Why don’t you just forget it?”

“Forget it?” Carlson asked incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Do you remember anything you’ve pounded into my head over the last year? You never falsify a record, you never leave something out because you might think it’s irrelevant. Someone other than us has to make that call.”

“Okay, so you want to be the one to march up to the Lieutenant’s office and tell him that the perp was dipping his pen into the vic’s neck so he could get fresh ink for his pen? And by the way, we don’t actually have said pen, just some drunk’s version of what happened. It doesn’t make any difference. Pen or no pen, it’s an open and closed case. The victim is dead and the flat-foots out on patrol took out the suspect. Everyone’s dead. Please don’t keep this file open over a fucking pen.”

Carlson stared at him for so long that Davis was sure he was seeing straight through the bullshit, down to his real reason for begging off of this. After an elongated pause though, he finally nodded. “Fine. I’ll take the paperwork upstairs. You don’t need to bother staying around, there isn’t much left to do.”

The weeks following went by surprisingly quickly and uneventfully. What little work came across his desk was dispatched quickly and efficiently. The pen had become almost an extension of himself. When he needed to write something, his hand would be drawn to the pen, pulling it down to the paper as the pen itself did all the hard work. The ink was breathtaking, a deep-colored crimson that never seemed to fade on the page.

“Hey, Davis! You going for some kind of Goth award with this or something?” One of the clerks had yelled at him across the station one day, waving Davis’ paperwork around in the air like a loon, laughing at the formal-looking script which his handwriting had become. Davis ignored him. Let them give him as much shit as they wanted. Made no difference to him. Work was going well and he wasn’t going to do anything to get in the way of that. Promotions had to be right over the next horizon and he was going to get there even faster than he had previously thought.

Then the ink in the pen ran dry.

“What is wrong with you?” Carlson asked him, several mornings after the pen’s ink had dwindled down to nothing. “Did your grocery store run out of coffee or something? You look like you’ve been going like a week without sleep.”

It had only been a few days but already he felt completely out of sorts. And nearly every conscious moment, he felt his hand being drawn to the pen, felt the urge to take it up and write something, anything. But as much as he wanted to follow through with that need, it wasn’t possible. There was no ink. He tried going to the office supply stores. He stocked up on ink cartridges that looked like they would fit the pen. Several of them fit but whenever he tried to write, nothing happened, the ink would not flow.

Davis took the original ink cartridge from the desk drawer and held it up. It was made of metal, and the size of it made him think that it was meant to be re-used. Likely it dated back to a time when it would have been unheard of to go out and buy a bag full of disposable pens. But for all the jars and bottles of ink he purchased, nothing happened, nothing worked. The pen took some kind of specialized, exotic ink but he didn’t even know where to start, where to…

The guy had been dipping the pen in blood.

Davis sat up with a start and the pen squirted out of his hand, clattering across the desk. He lunged forward, his breath catching in his throat as he grabbed at it, trapping the pen against the side of the desk, just before it fell. Letting out a slow breath, he carefully rolled it back up onto the desk and placed it in the special protective case in his pocket.

This was getting even more crazy than it had been before. Any absurd notion he had considered leading up to that moment vanished in a fog of mental fracturing.

It was the blood.

That was the only coherent thought he could muster, the only explanation that made sense even though it terrified him more than anything else ever had. It was the blood. But it couldn’t be, it made no sense, it was crazy. Why would he even contemplate the possibility that somehow the pen only worked because…

It was the blood.

Davis shook his head. He was sitting in his apartment as the office slowly faded out of his consciousness. He vaguely recalled walking home but not much more than that. This had to stop, he needed his focus, his attention, everything that had been lacking ever since the ink in that pen had gone dry. How had he even managed to exist before he had it and what was he supposed to do now that it was gone? Because it wasn’t like he could just go out there and get blood, could he?

Could he?

Another day. And another. And another.

Another.

Finally, after another week, he found himself holding the ink cartridge to his arm, watching with trembling hands as his blood slowly dripped into the opening. In his mind’s eye, he imagined that he probably didn’t look that dissimilar from many of the other drugged out addicts he busted out there. Still, when he brought the tip of the pen to the paper and began writing, the ink flowed out, temporarily causing the pressure beating against his forehead to cease.

It was the blood.

But of course that little bit he had harvested from himself did not last. And it wasn’t like he could just keep perpetually bleeding himself. He had to find another solution because he could not stand an existence without his Instrument ready, whenever he needed it.

And in the waning moments of the final day, the last remaining pieces of Davis’ sanity dissolved down into the leavings of paranoid suspicion. The blood was what he needed, what he needed to collect in order for his Instrument to work. It was beyond his control, forces beyond his understanding had put him on this path. The only thing left was to deliver exactly what the Instrument required. Then, and only then would his sanity return as well as his sense of control and confidence.

The Instrument was what mattered more than anything.

Even more than him.

The Instrument was beautiful.

 

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Special Baked Scribe Flashback : Baited

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 Tomorrow’s new story is a sequel to this classic Baked Scribe tale so I thought it would be helpful to remind you all of this one. Enjoy!

The pen was breathtaking, and he had to have it. The barrel was a deep glossy black, with tiny, bright red speckles throughout. The cap, decorative ring and ball point assembly all looked and felt like they were made out of solid gold. The ink delivery system was one of the best he had ever seen, writing with a thick, solid, and uninterrupted line of rich, brilliant color. He was amazed at the action, and despite the weight of the pen, his hand never once cramped when he used it.

There was a rune of some kind burned into the barrel, and while the shop-owner claimed she didn’t know what it meant, she did know that the pen was somehow special.

“The claim is that the owner of the pen will never suffer from writer’s block.”

That part had ended up being true, at least. His output had increased exponentially, getting more words down on paper than he ever had been able to produce before.

His teachers at school and the members of his writing group all said that he had finally found a fresh and innovative voice. Since buying the pen, he had published six short stories, two novellas, and had just been signed on by a prestigious agent. That big advance was so close.

Then the pen had run out of ink.

He went to the office supply store, even tried the factory direct warehouse that the university ordered from, but no one could figure out what kind of ink was in the pen. Nothing seemed to work or flow the way the original ink had, and, to his horror, he found that his mind was actually dulling slightly, the words now out of reach.

So he returned to the shop. When he had originally bought the pen, the owner had been somewhat cagey about its origins, but now she told him right away what the problem was and why none of the inks he had been trying would work. He needed something that would be a little harder to come by.

“You should know that things like this come at a price,” she said. He had actually thought about this before buying it, but had never considered anything beyond the actual price tag.

So it was special ink, so special that it wasn’t available at any store or direct from any supplier. He couldn’t even try raiding hospitals or donation facilities because, for some reason, the blood had to be freshly spilled, the tip of the pen dipped in, as life drained out. The first kill had been nearly impossible for him, but in the end, he had the motivation to do whatever was required in order to harvest his ink.

After all, the words were beautiful.

 

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Baked Scribe Flashback : The Turn

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If he had ever been as sick as this, he must have blocked it out. Anyone could talk about being so sick that they couldn’t even leave the bathroom, but it was different to actually experience it. His stomach was in complete upheaval, throwing up every five minutes. Part of him marveled that there was even anything left in his stomach to bring up.

The bathtub was full of lukewarm water. Soaking his body had helped, but it proved to be too much effort to climb out of the tub in order to be sick. Now he was curled up on the thick shag floor mat, trying to avoid letting his skin brush up against the tile floor, which felt so cold it was like being burned.

The voice at the other end of the phone had dripped with disbelief when he called in sick for the third day in a row. He didn’t know what else he could do though, short of exposing the entire office to whatever he had caught.

Part of him was considering suing the company, since it had been immediately following the staff holiday party that he had begun feeling this way.

He felt the upsurge again, and lunged for the toilet, barely making it. This time, there were flecks of blood clinging to the bowl after he flushed. Maybe he needed to call 911, or at least someone to take him to the doctor. Who would really want to get anywhere near him when he looked like this, though?

It was a level of sickness that he wouldn’t have thought even possible. He had never heard of anything like it, let alone experienced it. It was like every major organ in his body was slowly being rejected in favor of something else. Indeed, his own body was starting to feel like something alien to him.

He was freezing, but for some reason he was also sweating, his own fluids pushing up out of his pores in some kind of milky, viscous substance. The thought of food was enough to make him throw up, but he also felt a hunger more intense than anything he had ever felt.

From somewhere off in the neighborhood, he thought he heard an animal howling. The sound sparked a sudden, irrational anger in him. He needed to make someone pay for this pain he felt. Someone had to be responsible.

It was hard to believe that it had just been days ago when he had felt perfectly normal. The party was the last memory he had of not being horribly sick. Right before that thing had attacked him. It had been some drunk, hiding out in the shadows who had jumped out at him. At some point, while they were struggling, the guy had actually bitten into Andrew’s arm, running off into the night and howling, screaming like some damn animal.

From the top of the toilet tank, his phone started to vibrate. Even that mild of a sound was like something drilling into his forehead. He looked at the screen and rolled his eyes. His sister was calling, likely to find out why he hadn’t been at work and to make sure he hadn’t run off on a bender somewhere. He still sometimes questioned the logic of being related to his sponsor.

He had to answer. She was just going to keep calling. Gritting his teeth against the imminent lecture, he swiped his finger across the screen.

“What?”

“Where the hell have you been the last few days?” It was what he thought she had said, but the voice was so loud, it was hard to hear clearly. He jerked the phone away from his face and glanced at it, checking to make sure it was set to the lowest volume. Seeing that it was, he had to hold the phone at arms length just to tolerate the volume of her voice.

“Is that why you called? Don’t you have anything better—”

“Where have you been? I’ve been stopping in to see you.”

“You mean to check up on me.”

He heard the heavy sigh on the other end. “Well, what do you expect?”

She didn’t even try to hide it anymore.

“It isn’t like you’ve really earned that much trust from me.”

Andrew was ready to hurl the phone against the wall, if it wasn’t for him being so worried about how much it would hurt to hear the phone exploding.

“Why don’t you fuck off?” He asked, pinching his nose as hard as he could to try and focus.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Look, just leave me alone.”

“You’re off your ass again, aren’t you?”

“I’m sick, you idiot!”

“Right. And how did you get that way? Tip the bottle one too many times?”

“I haven’t been drinking.”

“Sure, and I suppose—”

He felt the bile washing up his throat and he collapsed towards the toilet, vaguely feeling the phone squirt out of his fingers and into the bowl. He heaved until he thought his back was going to snap, and then pushed back, choking at the sight of all the blood that now streaked up the porcelain and onto his arms.

Andrew scrambled back, hitting his head on the sink and falling to the side. His vision had narrowed down so much that he felt like he was staring down a long tunnel. The articulation of his pain and rage came rising up out of him in the shape of a piercing howl.

He could hear conversations of couples, walking past on the street outside. This was accompanied by a horn, and breaks being applied as well. His skin felt like it was on fire, and could slough off off at of his body, as if something was swelling up out of him from within.

As he braced himself against the wall, the room started to shake and blur. He tried to focus, but the volume of his thoughts progressively became secondary to that of his own basic needs. There wasn’t a time when he could remember being this hungry. He needed to feed.

Whatever was left of his mind was gone. The objects in the room around him were now simply shapes, standing in the way between him and all that he desired. By the light of the full moon, bleeding in through the window, he marched to the door and kicked it open, stepping out into the crisp night air and fully releasing the scream of rage that had built up within him.

It was time to hunt.

 

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Baked Scribe Flashback : In The Box

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Trevor leaned against the wall and pulled the ragged tatters of his jacket around himself, as tightly as he could manage. The power to this section of the city had been set to recirculate mode, so most of the lights were starting to flicker, on and off. He could hear the sound of electricity, humming as the cold rain pelted against the street level transformers.

A police cruiser screamed by overhead, but he barely noticed it. Most of the less savory elements in the neighborhood knew that, despite the display of force and their presence, no cop would actually stop here if he didn’t have to to. Short of seeing an actual murder in progress, no one from the department of public ordinance would be making an appearance.

All the better for the task at hand. He winced at the sound of his jacket tearing again. The time was near that he would need to come up with something to barter for in exchange for a newer one. Maybe he would find something in the house that he could use to trade.

He knelt down, and inserted the pick into the lock, straining to hear the sounds of the tumblers against the thunder and wind. The layer of grime on the street caused his knees to slip as he knelt. Street cleaning in sector four only happened once a week, and sometimes not at all. This week had proven to be one of the latter.

From the other end of the block, he could hear the sound of a small group, laughing and chattering as they stumbled their way towards him. Trevor returned to his task, not wanting the confrontation.

Just as he was about to give up and start scampering towards the alley, he felt the lock align, and click into place. He pushed his way through the door, slamming it behind him before the people passing by could find him here.

The greeting room of the apartment had a high arched ceiling with one simple light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was unlit and he shivered as a cold draft washed over him.

Through the darkness of the room, he could see a keypad entry panel for an alarm code. He didn’t even bother with it. Anyone who would be able to afford that kind of a system wouldn’t live in a house like this. Chances were, the owner just stole, or salvaged the keypad and bolted it to the wall. Besides, he could would be long gone before any cops could make their way over here.

Trevor had spent the last two weeks watching the residence here, their comings and goings. They didn’t lead a luxurious life, but what would they did have should be sufficient for him.

The first thing he spotted in the closet off the main greeting room was a large parka, which he quickly grabbed, and pulled it on, over his poor excuse for a coat. He would hold on to it and try to trade it later for something else. He looked around to see if there was anything else, as shadows thrown in from the street cast great dancing forms on the walls. There were some random personal items strewn about the room, but nothing that he could sell. Nothing worth anything to him either.

He spotted the glint of something on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was a small picture frame, the photo inside starting to yellow with age. It was a woman, her face almost entirely filling the frame. Behind her, he could just make out the glittering blue of the ocean.

He reached down to run his fingers along the surface of the glass, when someone came bursting into the room, screaming as they dove into him, taking the both of them to the floor. Trevor rolled to his right, trying to push his attacker away from him as the stranger started to rain blows down on him. Nothing was spoken, but it wasn’t long before Trevor heard the sound of a blade being drawn from its sheath.

This was not the man who lived here. The owner was a man in his 70s and his attacker was much younger than that. He was emaciated, and Trevor can only imagine how long it’d been since he last eaten.

“Please,.”it was all he could think to say but even that wasn’t enough. The man hefted a piece of scrap metal that had been cut down to resemble a blade of sorts. Trevor dodged to his left, feeling the whistle in the air as the metal flew past him.

His attacker was panting heavily now, either from overexertion or from the extreme mania that had to be raging in there.

“Please stop, I’m not trying to rob you.” It was strange to hear himself trying to soothe the man as he had likely killed the resident here.

The man lifted his weapon and charged, screaming as he did so, a sound only capable for those who for whom each mouthful of food was maybe the difference between living and starving to death. As he charged, Trevor ducked to his right and instinctively raised his arm, deflecting the blow but earning a deep cut through the layers of his jackets.

Before he could fully acknowledge the pain or even apply pressure to the wound, lights popped on as a hoverpod dropped down, illuminating the entire room from the outside. Trevor marveled at how important the residents here must be in order to warrant such a speedy response. He watched the flashes from the hull-mounted guns as they started to fire, and his head swooned as the shells began ripping through flesh and bone.

In the computer room, the supervisor leaned over the technicians shoulder and pointed at the screen.

“Is this the one?”

“Yes sir,” the technician replied. “He’s lasted much longer in the simulation and shown a great deal of resilience. Ninety five percent of other subjects had expired from cardiac arrhythmia by now.”

The supervisor frowned, watching the solid light indicating test subject 4G. It was useful to see how much people like this could take, but only marginally so.

“Schedule this one for extermination tomorrow,” he said as he turned to leave. “In the meantime, run the simulation again but this time have three men attack him instead of one.”

He started through the door, and with a sudden thought, turned back. “If that doesn’t work, run the simulation again, but break one of his legs.”

 

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Issue #195 : Reality Of Illusions

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Christine ran her finger along the edge of the deck of cards (Bicycles. Always Bicycles) before tossing into her bag. Another night of splitting the uprights. The room wasn’t completely empty, it’s just that the few people had been there weren’t that particularly excited about her act. Sure, the old-timers told her how great she was, how smooth her technique and her patter was. But what good was all that if no one ever got up off their ass to come check out her set? And it wasn’t like she expected her career to lead to fame and fortune but it would be nice to know that she didn’t spend all those thousands of hours perfecting her false cuts and Hindu shuffle force, just so she could wallow her way into old age having tourists indulge her with a chuckle and a nod.

Maybe the street performers had the right idea. She had been so excited to land a regular gig at a venue like this, but so far she had seen nothing to speak of. Whenever she talked to her father on the phone, she still got the awkward inquiries as to whether or not she needed money, his tone clearly pleading with her to say no. Or to simply announce that she was giving it all up and moving back home to take that job in the telecommunications building.

She couldn’t do it.

She had given up too much, worked too hard to let this dream slip away from her when it felt like it was so close. It was like reaching out to grab at the coat of someone jogging away from you. All she had to do was get the right person’s attention and everything would turn around. She had to be patient. She wasn’t unreasonable. All she wanted was to make a decent living. She just needed a little more than what she was getting and maybe she could ditch all the part-time jobs she needed to stay above water. 

As she shouldered her way through the back door of the club, rain started to fall, adding the perfect cherry topping to the end of her day. The weather report had said nothing about rain and yet, here she was, left to get drenched because she had thought walking to work on a nice day would be preferable. It wasn’t like she had fans stopping her on the street. She could get a cab but that would effectively wipe out her earnings for the entire night. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she lowered her head and made her way along the street towards her apartment.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

Christine turned her head towards the sound of the voice, coming from the alley she had just passed. A man stood there, leaning against the wall in what looked like a fairly expensive double-breasted suit. He grinned at her as he waved, clearly beckoning her to join him.

“Uh…yeah. Sure, pal.”

His grin widened. “Don’t worry. I’m not here for that. I just want you to come closer so I don’t have to talk quite so loudly. Besides, the alley is a dead end, it isn’t like I could take you anywhere and there are people all over. Just stand over here with me, out of the rain.”

She nearly pointed out that he was standing in an open alley, but it occurred to her that his suit looked impeccable, as if the rain hadn’t even touched it. She snaked a hand into her pants pocket and took hold of the pepper-spray as she moved closer, stepping into the alley across from him. As she did so, the sensation of the rain hitting her ceased, as if she had just stepped underneath a shelter. She looked up, frowning at the sudden absence but there was nothing that she could see that would explain it. It was as if the rain itself had simply ceased to exist within the small sphere in which they stood. The man chuckled.

“I know. Nice, isn’t it? I thought a mild demonstration would help you feel better. You of all people should appreciate that.”

“Okay. What do you want? Do I know you?”

He laughed at the question, revealing a set of teeth so brilliantly white she almost squinted at the sight of them. “I suppose you may know me in a fashion but no, we have never met. My name is Marius.”

Christine shrugged, already wanting to be somewhere else.

Marius stepped forward and tugged on his jacket to straighten it. He lowered his tone of voice as he spoke. “Straight to it, then. I have a proposal for you that I think might interest you. A proposal that could help propel you out of the depths of mediocrity you seem to be caught up in.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You spend hours every day honing those skills of yours, and for what? So you can amuse a handful of people every night at that club? Where’s your stage? Where’s your television show? Where are your accolades?”

“What, are you an agent or something? I don’t understand what the hell this is. Did you see my act somewhere?”

“Ma’am, my business requires that I be in the know. It requires me to be aware of the lesser known diamonds in the landscape, such as yourself. All I offer is the help which you or others might not be able to otherwise provide.”

“That’s great,” Christine said. “And let me guess, all I have to do is come with you back to your apartment and we can figure it all out, right?”

Marius frowned, as if she had hurt his feelings. “Please don’t allow your own self-indulgence to lead you to perceive this as something more than it really is. I seek to offer you aid. I certainly expect to profit from this myself, but not in such vulgar fashion.”

Christine watched a tour bus rumbling past and wondered how much longer she was going to have to stand here. “So what is it you want in exchange for this wonderful help you’re offering? What do I have to do for you?”

“I receive payment in my own way. All I require from you is a handshake.”

“A handshake.”

“Merely a handshake and all will be delivered.”

“And you’re just going to make my career take off, get me all the gigs and the contracts I could ever want, right?”

“All you could ever want.”

Christine shook her head, ready to be finished with the conversation. She stepped forward and took his hand in hers. The sensation of his skin made her shiver, feeling somehow like she had been violated by something as simple as a handshake. The grin was wide on his face as he stepped back and nodded in appreciation.

The next night, as she moved towards the stage, she caught several glances from people, looks that she could only interpret as confused surprise. It wasn’t until she stepped out on stage though that she understood why.

The standing ovation was immediate. Every single one of the two hundred people in the room rose, giving her thunderous applause and greeting her with a loud outcry of appreciative voices.

“What the hell?” she muttered.

It was the best night she ever had. The crowd hung on every trick, every punch-line, every flourish. The crowd work never came so naturally for her as she joked with the audience. The applause felt like it was constant and after the show closed, she spent over an hour taking pictures with people and signing programs.

And every night after that for the next week got even better. The city couldn’t get enough of her and at the apex of it all, she took a phone call from a talent agency suggesting that they might have a lead into a possible opportunity for something on one of the cable networks.

It wasn’t until the night after taking that call when she decided to watch the local news for once, that she began to think about Marius and the brief conversation in that alley.

A pedestrian had been killed by a mugger, right near the opening to that alley where she had conducted that fateful handshake. The story went on to point out the bizarre string of random deaths which had occurred during the week, near that same alley.

There had been four in all.

And all four deaths had occurred just as she was stepping up on stage to perform.

The glass slipped from her fingers, even as she was denying it in her head.

It was crazy. How could anything like that be possible? She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. She couldn’t be responsible for all of that. All she had done was shake some creep’s hand in an alley. How could it be true?

And still, that cheshire grin invaded her consciousness. The gleaming eyes from the man who had named himself, “Marius.”

She shook her head. It was pointless. Pointless to think about, pointless to worry about. She wasn’t causing people to die. All she was doing was working hard towards a career that had been her dream for her entire life. None of this had anything to do with her. What was she supposed to do, stop? Based on some crazy notion that probably wasn’t true in the first place? She had responsibilities. It was a coincidence. And even if it wasn’t, if a few people met their tragic end, who was to say that it wouldn’t have happened anyway? It had nothing to do with her.

The show had to go on.

Christine stood up, and turned off the television. Stepping over the broken glass, she made her way towards the kitchen for some towels and a dust-pan.

 

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Baked Scribe Flashback : In Depth

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“Seriously, it’s really interesting stuff,” Kimmy said

“I know, you keep telling me, I’m tired of hearing about it.” Rudy was frowning into his book, wanting just to be left alone. The expression had been on his face for much of the last 10 minutes. As soon as Kimmy started blathering on about her latest blog article.

“I always thought I knew so much about him, but some of the stuff just blows my—”

“I know.”

She was oblivious to the hints he was carpet-bombing her with.

“His last victim? Her throat was cut so deep that it went all the way to her spine.”

“Kimmy—”

“And he cut open her abdomen and removed all of her organs, even her heart was missing!”

“Kimmy! I’m trying to eat here for fuck’s sake.”

Her face immediately made the transition to pouting, and he dropped the sandwich onto his plate. “I’m sorry, all right? I’m glad you’re so into this article I just don’t need to hear all the details.”

“Okay,” she said the word, but deep down only felt frustration at his lack of interest. The work was so important. It was getting to the point where, even though the third shift at the factory was paying the bills, all she now saw it as was something that took time away from her work. Maybe the time would come when she could actually make enough money from just the blog to scrape by, but until then she would just have to hold to the course, hacking it out and working her ass off.

While Rudy was washing the dishes, she scratched out a quick note and slipped out the front door. If she stayed around the house, she would just spend the evening coming with reasons to be pissed at him. Better to just go to the library and spend the night being productive.

The bus dropped her off, six blocks up from the entrance and she trudged down the sidewalk, kicking up the slush and snow on the as she walked. Traffic was light, being too late for classes but still too early for the bar crowds to be starting.

As she passed the small parking lot for the bank, she heard something behind that made her stop. It took a few moments to fully register, but when it did, she snapped her head around.

She heard someone breathing.

Of course, there was no one behind her. Both sides of the street were empty for blocks. Had to have been the wind, some weird tunnel effect blowing through an alley or something. It had to be the wind.

Kimmy resumed her walk and was soon shaking off her coat and stomping boots at the front door of the library. There was no competition for the workstation she preferred, the lone computer terminal off in the far corner of the room where no one could see the gruesome articles she was reading.

As she sat down, she caught in the reflection of the briefly darkened screen, that someone had walked up behind her. The person was just standing there, staring, and as she looked up she felt her heart speed up at the sight of the top hat on their head. Was there a costume party going on somewhere? Maybe in elaborate prank on Rudy’s part? She turned around in the chair, mouth open and ready to chew out whoever was standing there.

There was no one.

She slammed her palm on the desk as she turned back. The noise brought the brief attention from several nearby students as well as a nearby librarian. She ignored them all.

The evening went on without any incident. The scratching of her pen on the paper sounded like something was clawing at the back of her notebook, punctuated by the hollow clicking sounds of the mouse.

She had lost track of time until the son of the church bells outside brought her back to reality. The screen of the computer showed that it was nearly midnight. By now, Rudy would be out for the rest the evening, or he would be barricaded into his room, not to be seen until morning.

Bus service would’ve ended an hour ago but the weather was mild enough, and she didn’t mind having a walk entire way home. It briefly occurred to her to call for a cab, but she quickly rejected it. Seven dollars plus tip wasn’t sunny she can afford to casually par with these days.

It was a clear night, and she looked up at the nearly bursting moon as she walked, choosing the path along the river. There would be more homeless people down this way, but anymore it was the drunk college students that posed more of a threat.

She looked up at the sound of bells ringing through the silence. It was a kind of sound she always imagined hearing an old sailing vessels, from a past long dead. She squinted through the gathering fog, thinking she could see a dark shape gliding down the river, water lapping up against a ship’s hull.

Her brain was starting to catch up with how strange it was to hear something like that on the river, especially this late. She looked up, out onto the river again when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. The sound was loud and clipped, like that of heels, echoing off of walls that were nowhere near them.

The footsteps were getting loud enough to fill her head. The wind, the traffic from the nearby street, the other bars all become secondary to the sound of the person walking behind her. It didn’t seem like they were speeding up, but instead maintained a casual pace that more or less seemed to be gaining on her.

Just as the person seemed to be right behind her, she turned to face the person. The retort was already on her lips but was silenced in a moment at the sight before her. The person towering over looked to be nearly 7 feet tall. It wore a black cloak that billowed around it like a sail. On its head was a top hat that seemed to add another foot to its height, the brim hanging out far enough to completely obscure the face in shadows. Images from all the books and articles came rushing back to her, the vision of him, now standing before her.

The scream she let out was immediately cut off as a knife flashed out, cutting across her throat and severing her vocal cords. She fell forward, ending up held in his arms, her last vision being of the same blade plunging into flesh she only barely acknowledged as being her own.

 

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Last Chances

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“This is Zola Cameron, of interstellar flight 19. I am broadcasting from our escape craft, sending on sub channel 4-Alpha. I can’t tell if anyone is receiving this transmission, but it is definitely making its way out into the net. I have dispatched a signal beacon with this same message. We were dispatched here after request for aid from Colby group Victor. I am attaching my written report to this message as I am the only survivor of our crew.”

She turned at the sound behind her, the shifting of crates as something passed by them. She picked up the pistol from the console next to her and took aim, waiting for the thing to reveal itself. All she heard was the hum from the engines but despite her other conviction that nothing had followed her on board, she now felt doubt. She reached back and paused the recording, standing up and started to make her way around the cabin.

As she walked, she kept her eyes constantly moving, searching for the creatures in her peripheral vision, as the things couldn’t be seen looking straight at them. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear it squirming around back there somewhere, could feel the outer edges of its mind, trying to take cold of hers. The vibrations in the deck below her gave something else to focus on, something to help close her mind off to the external assault.

There was only one place where the things could be hiding she was surprised to find her hand was rock steady as she reached down for the hatch that led to the cargo bay.

The lights were flickering below, as the ship continued to draw power from less essential systems to keep life-support operational. Zola moved slowly down the ladder and began making her way through the cargo compartment, maintaining a firm grip on the gun.

The air was stale, and it was cold as there were fewer requirements for climate control. The lights were dim, only one row of directional bulbs going down the center of the aisle with tall rows of cargo pods on each side.

She got halfway down the cargo bay when she realized that the sounds were coming from behind her as well as ahead. The idea that there could be more than one of the things made her skin go cold. It had taken eight of them to kill one, and everyone but her had lost their lives in the process. She had one weapon. The position she was in was only going to bring on an ambush, so she cut abruptly to her right, through two of the containers, and pressed her hand to a panel on the wall. An access hatch slid open and she dove through. Agonizing screams of rage shattered the air around her before the door slid shut, sealing her safely inside.

The escape pod would not disengage from housing while the ship was a normal operational mode. She could at least, however, stay hidden in here and have some time to at least try and come up with a plan. She tapped a few buttons on the control panel and the polymers in the window went black.

She could feel the pressure, already, from their mental probes. They knew she was in here. From this distance, she could prevent them from completely taking over, but not enough to keep herself invisible. The key was to focus, to keep control while coming up with some kind of plan.

The hatch rattled against the pod, shaking as it did so and she could hear the things shrieking out there. There were at least four of them.

There is no way she would be able to survive this.

Maybe there never had been a chance. Maybe from the beginning the only plan that made sense was to prevent these things from spreading to another system. Kill the virus by cutting off its food.

She might not be able to launch, but the computer right here was good enough to access the ships mainframe. From there, she could initiate the self-destruct sequence and let an inferno do what they had failed to do already.

As she pulled up the route command menu, she noticed that her other hand was now creeping towards the controls for the hatch. Whispers in the back of her head told her what to do and she slapped herself to try and fight it off. She repeated the mantra, visualized her center, and immediately the mental grip began to slacken. Her hand still felt like it had an invisible tether, tugging at it by an unseen puppeteer, but now she felt like she had more control. The hand was still sluggish but it least it worked.

It would not do so for long.

The company had installed safeguards to ensure that one person couldn’t go crazy and blow the ship on their own. It had happened before. As such, the computer had to conduct an extensive search of the ship for any additional lifeforms to make sure she was alone, and allowed to take such action.

Her free hand was now raising the gun, taking aim just above her right eye.

Zola shook her head, leaned back in the chair until it lifted up off the floor, and brought it crashing down on her foot. The sudden pain brought her screaming back from the edge and the mental grip vanished.

It had worked, but really had been no more than a parlor trick. They were testing her now and her tricks were only going to work for so long. Before long, the multiple minds would start working together in a combined attack and it would be all over for her.

Five minutes at the most.

The computer chimed in to announce that the system and verified her claim. No other human life on board. She pulled up a list of master commands and found the proper fifteen digit code. Pressing the key sequence that brought the numeric keypad out of console, her head was starting to spin.

Her brain had stopped telling her body to breathe.

Spots were already starting to form around her as she beat at the console. Her eyes started to blink rapidly, out of her own control, and she struggled to find the keys.

She had to focus. Even like this she had at least 15 more seconds until she lost consciousness. Her hand raced to the keypad, dancing across and entering the code as well as her personal authorization sequence.

Her finger brushed against the final key and dropped away. She couldn’t tell if she had fully depressed it or not. The victory she had won was articulated first in the howls of painful rage in her head, followed by the sound of explosions around her, chased closely after by the warm embrace of blossoming tendrils of fire.

 

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