Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 28

Counting Down To 150…..

In celebration of the upcoming 150th issue of the Baked Scribe, I will be counting down my five favorite stories to have ever posted on the blog, to date.
I like to think that I have a pretty good sense of humor. The thing is though, that being funny is not the same as being able to write funny. I have a huge amount of respect for comedy writers. It’s easy to dismiss comedy as childish but it’s incredibly difficult to be able to consistently produce work like that on a regular basis. Comedy writers don’t get nearly enough credit for what they do.
So when I manage to produce something that is actually funny, I feel like I need to pause and take note. Bruno is one of my favorite characters that I have ever created. You can usually tell when you have a good one when the character almost seems to write himself and this was definitely the case with Bruno. If you happen to have read A Confederacy Of Dunces, I think I was definitely channeling my inner Ignatius Reilly when I created Bruno.
So without any further fanfare, I hope you enjoy number five on my list. Tune in next Tuesday for number four!

 

 

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

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

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

“What the hell are you talking about?”

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

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

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

“Bruno—”

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

“Bruno—”

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

“Bruno—”

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

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

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

“Suck on that you little bastards!”

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Blogging Challenge Theme!

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For anyone who might not be aware, the idea of the April A to Z blogging challenge is pretty simple. You blog every day of the month, with the exception of Sundays. Each day has the prompt of a different letter of the alphabet.

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I teased a few months ago that after taking a year off, I would be participating in this, once again. And today is the big theme reveal day. So for 2016, I will be writing about some of my favorite Stephen King characters, all in order from A to Z. Make sure you check out the site from time to time and see who I’m talking about. In addition to the main feed of the blog, I will also copy the individual posts into a special page for the April challenge. I hope you enjoy my choices, these events can be pretty fun. Have a great day!

Ramblings On The Craft : The Daily Writing Habit

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DISCLAIMER : I consider myself to be a life-long writer but I am still an aspiring author. What’s the difference? Essentially, to me anyway, it means that while I have devoted a great deal of time to my words and my art, the amount of money I have made as a professional writer to date could maybe be used to purchase a nice steak dinner for two. So while I have a deep and devoted passion for writing, I do not claim in any way to be an expert or authority figure. What you will find in these essays represent my personal thoughts and feelings about various issues related to writing. I think that in any endeavor, it is essential to have the mindset that there is always something to learn, something you don’t know. As soon as you start to think that you are an authority on anything (besides how to eat a hot dog or perhaps, spelling your name) there might be a problem. With that in mind, I am fully cognizant and comfortable with the fact that on any and all of these issues, I could be completely wrong.

Put another way, I recognize and admit that I could be full of shit.

Am I going to write today?

My honest answer to this?

Withholding nothing and being true to my feelings?

Okay, here it is. My opinion is that if you are serious about your craft, if writing is something that you want to be a part of your life and especially if you have any aspirations of making any money as a writer, then the answer to that question pretty much always has to be yes.

Is that statement maybe a little unduly harsh? Maybe a smidge on the judgmental side?

Maybe.

But now that I’ve thrown down that gauntlet, all I ask is that you keep the sidearm holstered for now, don’t try and sweep the legs on me quite yet. Follow along and see if maybe I can soften the blow at least a little bit.

I’m not saying that in order to be considered a writer, you have to write every day. I’m not one to dictate to people what their process should be, or how they should approach their art.

So what the hell am I saying?

I am going to try to approach this issue from a few different angles but I guess, at the heart of everything, much of this comes back to my honestly perplexed question, which I ask in complete seriousness.

Why don’t you want to write today?

But we can come back to that later.

I think that it is important to make clear that I’m talking about two different groups of people. And this isn’t to say that one is inherently better or worse than the other, it’s just a matter of what your goals are and why you write in the first place. If you are someone who simply writes out of a passion for the art, someone who has a drive to write and does it when that drive is strong, then this essay isn’t really directed at you. The kind of writer I am talking about is the writer who is trying to commercialize, to sell books. Essentially, for those who are trying to take their artistic passions and convert them into a format for which eager readers will hand over their money in exchange for reading.

And it is that is the part that I think is the most important to remember. You are asking people to spend their money on your writing. I feel like I need to say that again. You are asking people to spend their money on your writing. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, especially if it happens to be on an eBook that costs less than three dollars. Still, it’s people’s money. It’s what they have jobs and careers for, and instead of putting it towards something practical, like gas in their car or keeping a roof over their head or food on their table, they are using it to pay for your art. Personally, I take that very seriously and while I don’t like pointing my fingers at other people and saying that you “should” do this or do that, on this issue I kind of feel like this should be a no-brainer.

Don’t you feel like you have at least somewhat of a responsibility to live up to that price tag?

All I’m saying is that publishing is one of the most terrifying things I have ever done with my life. I have never put so much of myself out there into the world for others to judge and evaluate, potentially scorn and hate. I take it upon myself to make sure that I am doing as good of a job as I possibly can and to me, that means developing a routine and a certain amount of discipline. I know that there are plenty who don’t need the repetition in order to get better, and that’s great. But for me, all I know is that the only way I become better as a writer is to write. Just think about this in regards to other aspects of your life. When you go out for lunch and order a French Dip, would you want the guy who makes those sandwiches nearly ever day, and has been for years? Or do you want the one who just comes in every other weekend to make a few bucks on the side? Do you want your hair styled by someone who just practices when they feel like it, or do you want someone who is constantly and pro-actively making efforts to make themselves better at what they do?

So let’s establish meaning here. Without definitions and parameters, there can never be a true conversation. So what do I mean when I say that we should write every day?

To start, let’s make clear exactly what I don’t mean.

I am not suggesting that you have an obligation to chain yourself to your workstation, lock the rest of the world out and not emerge again until you have written ten thousand perfect words. I’m not even going to say that you need to have a minimum word count goal if you don’t want to. Frankly, I think that if you take a handful of minutes out of your day to jot down a few paragraphs, that’s more than sufficient. The point is to keep your mind actively engaging whatever projects you’re working on. The point is to keep working that creative muscle because believe me when I say that it doesn’t exist indefinitely. If you neglect it often enough, it will eventually give out on you. And that, I can definitely attest to from experience.

If I can present an example of what I’m talking about, just to illustrate my point, I recently wrote up a rough draft for a story to be submitted for consideration for an upcoming anthology. The story wasn’t long, it was right around six thousand words. In the course of my other daily responsibilities and obligations, I was still able to get that first draft written in about a week. Now, flash back to five years ago, before I was writing every day and it would have been completely different. Even at a time in my life, before I had kids, that same story likely would have taken me over a month to write. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. It seriously would have taken me that long, when my work ethic was, “write whenever I feel the urge or whenever I have time”. The difference now, as I see it, is that because I am writing more often and because I’m keeping my mind limber, when I sit down at the computer, my brain takes a lot less time to engage the pen, if you will. The words come out much faster and more efficiently, and while you could certainly make the argument that the reason why I have improved is because of those five years of work and experience, I still hold to my argument that making the decision to be a daily writer is a big part of what has led me to this point.

People get burned out all the time when they write every day. You get tired of the routines, sick of your characters and trying to figure out where the plot is going and you just want to take a break. And hey, I get it. I would be lying if I said I never felt the same way. There are plenty of days when the last thing I want to do is write. The difference is that, I’ve accepted from the start that some days are going to be like that. It isn’t always going to be easy. The guy at the sandwich shop and the hairdresser don’t get to call in on any day, just because they aren’t “feeling it”. They still have to show up for work. You do it, even if it hurts you to get it done. Even if you think every word you write is total shit, you still need to to it. When the words are resisting and your motivation isn’t there, those are not the days to pack it in. Those are the days to tighten up the armor and prove the might of your write. And while I am a big proponent of the necessity of having passion for your art, you also need to look at it as work and be professional about it. That means making an effort to not over-romanticize the process. Dispel of your notions of waiting for the muse or making sure you have the perfect pen and the perfect notebook in the perfect chair with the perfect music playing, looking out over your favorite tree.

Sometimes, writing is just about putting your butt in the chair and doing it.

But really, it shouldn’t be painful. If are genuinely having that much trouble with a project, try working on something else. Do some plotting for another idea you’ve been working on. Do research for something you are going to be writing about next week. Tinker around with a blog article. The point is that there are plenty of ways of distracting your creative core, while at the same time maintaining your work habits.

In the end, it is exactly our passion that should be driving us to the computer or the notebook, day in and day out. Our drive to do this great thing should be what puts us in the chair and gives us the need to create. You don’t have to write four thousand words or four hundred words. The point is simply to do it, and the more often you force yourself, you will find less often like you are forcing it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be there. I have to think that if you have chosen a path to being a published writer, you must have a deep passion for this art form. It certainly can’t be for all of the fame and fortune.

If our love is strong, it should never feel like you’re dragging yourself to the work, as if dragging yourself to doing chores.

Which, as I asked before and will do so once again, this all leads back to the one essential question.

Why don’t you want to write today?

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Flight Of One

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Joseph entered the navigational data into the computer and sat back, bracing himself for the cautionary alert.

“Captain,” the voice chimed in, on cue. “The system you have selected has been flagged as unsafe for outside traffic.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“The astrological constants of the Dooridium system differs in one respect to—”

“Stop.” He kept having to remind himself that the computer always did what was asked of it. There was no room for nuance. “Just execute the course.”

He settled back in his chair as he felt the thrum of the engines engaging, keying in the panel next to him for a cup of tea. The star-field swirled around him on the view screen and he closed his eyes.

The scream of the others at the substation was still the sound he heard whenever he closed his eyes. The entire planet had been reduced to rubble, his escape to the ship being the only successful attempt off planet. No one left but him. He had piloted the ship away from the system, desperate to report the incident to the nearest station, to get his report onto the network.

As of yet he had found no other signs of life. Nothing.

The ships digital charts showed all of the outposts along with their neighboring planets and systems. All he had found was death, as if a malevolent force had made its way from planet to planet, consuming all life. Joseph never saw the entity, whatever it was but rather always seemed to appear, right in its wake.

“Captain, our present course will take us within unsafe proximity to a Celestial—”

“Change to correct.” Joseph snapped. The computer still insisted on calling him Captain, despite knowing full well his actual status. He was nothing more than a part time technician. Maybe it was just programming to call person controlling the ship, “captain.”

Every day left him feeling like he was wasting his time. At first he had been relieved that the level of automation on the ship had given him the ability to get away alone, now the only thing he wanted was company, another voice other than this damn little dry personality that the computer had been programmed with.

It didn’t make any sense that every planet in every system could have been struck. There was no way that some kind of simultaneous ecological event could’ve stricken all these worlds and there was no militaristic force capable of leveling such an attack. There was not even sign of other alien civilizations. It was as if the experiment of life itself had been abruptly stopped across the board.

He had come across another ship the week before, drifting through space. It didn’t respond to any hails, and despite his reluctance, he took the shuttle over to investigate. The ship was dead. There was no sign of violence or disturbance inside but there was no crew to be found. He found no evidence of the ship being evacuated. He found trays of food, half eaten and books sitting out on desks, computers running programs and requesting input. It was as if every living being on the ship had just vanished at the same time.

The computer had offered no hypothesis, any idea of anything that could’ve caused this. And to contemplate the amount of power needed and on such a scale to accomplish something like this terrified him.

He wondered how long before this wandering swath of destruction would find him. Was this no different than a rat running endlessly around in the treadmill, to the amusement and enlightenment of beings unseen and unknown?

The clock on the adjacent chimed, indicating that he needed to take his scheduled time to sleep. As hard as it was, he had to force himself to take that step towards relaxation. At least the ships had been designed with the notion of the Captain being readily available, as a lavish office off the bridge contained a cot which pulled out from the wall.

Time was hard to track in this place, as he passed through systems on different temoporal alignments, he could only hold to the arbitrary schedule on the ship. The concept of night and day had long since fallen to the wayside, and he now had to force himself to simply live by the clock.

A shadow seemed to have fallen across his world as the time allowed for all species had come, and that this mysterious force was simply the harbinger of this doom, bringing death and destruction in its wake.

Joseph pulled up the star charts on one of the computers, taking note of all the blackened out sectors he had indicated as being lifeless, vacant cavities of ghosts and silence.

He knew it was only a matter of time before the planet killer came upon him as well, absurd to think that he was somehow special or that he would continue to go unnoticed. He would meet his demise as had so many others before him.

He didn’t want to accept the idea that there was no one left. Still, he found himself preparing on the inside. He winced at the thought of that transitional moment when he knew that his this breath would likely be the last. The ship would only last so long and even though he knew that he could settle down on a planet somewhere, recently vacated, he knew where he would end up. He could only go so long, treading over the remains of the dead, alone until insanity would settle in. Better to let nature take it’s course.

Joseph settled back and prepared to carry on with this hopeless search. He would continue to try and find life, knowing in his heart that by his own hand or otherwise, this was all simply a direct path to the inevitability of his own death.

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Crowd Source

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He walked around the bar, eyes dancing around the room and the people but never settling down on one thing. The gun wasn’t pointed at anyone specifically but he waved it back and forth in front of them, jabbing it through the air at him as if he needed to make his point again.

“Someone in here is not who they say they are,” he said, stabbing the gun in the direction of each person he passed. One woman shrieked as he did so and jerked her hands up into the air, knocking over the drink on her table, scattering liquor and ice cubes all over the floor.

The man carried on, oblivious. “One of you doesn’t belong here and I am going to find you. I don’t care what your fucking leaders claim you’re doing on our planet. I don’t care what the President says, you aren’t welcome here.

“Sir, please. You have to calm down.” The bartender stood there with both hands out, trying to soothe the man, to talk some sense into him. The gun swung around, seeking the source of the noise and the bartender flinched against the shelves behind him, knocking several bottles off in the process.

“Shut the hell up!” the man screamed. His finger tightened on the trigger and anyone who was near the bartender leaned away, afraid to be caught in the path of a bullet, meant for someone else.

“Please stop!” This voice chimed in from the back of the bar and the gun was already arcing around to find the source.

“Who said that?” His voice was shrill, cracking from the effort. “Who the fuck said that?”

No one volunteered. He took one step forward, took aim at the back of the room and fired once. The sound of the shot echoed off the concrete walls and amplified so much that it sounded like a bomb. The people who had crowded around the back screamed in unison and fled in several different directions, save for one man. He fell to his knees, clutching at the wound in his neck that the and trying to stop the blood, to find breath that he would never taste again. No one came to his aid as he slumped against the pool table, knowing that there was nothing to be done and not wanting to create a new target.

Already, the lunatic was resuming his orbit around the bar, prodding at people with the gun as he did so, muttering under his breath. Whenever anyone might shy away from him, he would give them a sharp blow from the gun, or perhaps a vicious kick to the midsection.

In the time it would have taken to smoke a cigarette, this had turned from a normal afternoon into some sort of collective worst nightmare for everyone. The plates of half eaten food on the tables were still warm, abandoned as the patrons had clamored for safety that the sparse, tiny little dive bar could not come close to providing.

A sudden moment of realization seemed to alight on the man’s face and he marched towards the bathrooms. The door had barely swung shut when they all heard a piercing shriek, followed closely by a gunshot.

“To hell with this.” A man in a suit stood and ran for the door. His hand was on the handle and pushing down when the bathroom door opened again and they heard the gun discharge. The man took a shot to the head before he could push the door open and he toppled against the wall, taking out a small table in the process.

“There’s one of you in here!” He would not let it go, determined to find his answer, even if it meant killing every last person to find the one who wasn’t. He sounded like he was about to start crying, fostering the hope in many that he would simply turn the gun on himself.

In the end, it was a pool of spilled beer that saved everyone. He took an exaggerated step towards the crowd, only to have the foot slide out and away from him. His arm with the gun swung up towards the ceiling, out of his control and before he could bring it around to bear, three people jumped on him. They jerked the fun out of his grip and tossed it away, towards the counter.

The bartender came around to the other side, approaching the man and peering down at him as if he was some kind of a bug. The contempt in his voice was obvious and as the man on the floor began looking around the room, he noticed for the first time that everyone’s eyes were now glowing. Not one person in the bar. All of them. Every last one in here was one of them.

He looked up into the glaring search lights coming from the bartender’s eyes as the thing looked down at him and spoke again.

“You came into the wrong bar, friend.”

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The Countdown Begins On Tuesday!

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It’s hard for even me to believe this, but in just over a month, I will be posting my 150th story on the Baked Scribe. It has been an honor and a privilege to be able to share my words with you and I am eternally grateful for all of the support and interest that has been shown thus far.

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Starting this Tuesday and every week following, up until issue number 150, I will be posting my five favorite stories which have been on the blog to date. Keep an eye out for these classic editions until we hit the magic number!

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Also, watch for a chance to win some titles of mine in Kindle format and possibly other prizes. More details to follow. I hope you are doing well and again, thank you for being there.

Issue #144 : Misled

The stream bubbled underneath him as he let the current wash him away. He could still smell the smoke from behind him, although the actual flames had vanished around the bend in the river. Birds circled overhead, chirping in their oblivious flight. Hands trembling, Jerome held the gun out over the edge of the boat and let it slip out of his hands into the tranquil water. 

It was all over.

He let himself lie back into the boat, closing his eyes as he listened to the wind, the birds and the river around him. They were all sounds that he had heard many times, but this was the first time that it felt real to him. That the extension into now borrowed time made everything all the sweeter. The psychopath who had lived at that house overlooking the river had taken Jerome, seen him as another victim and had things gone differently, he had no doubt that he would have ended up in this river, but at the bottom, instead of in this boat.

Jerome had gotten the better of him, gotten the gun away and in the struggle, he was the one who had ended up on top. He was the one who was alive. Everything and anything from this point on was a gift, and he made a silent promise to continually be grateful for what time he did get. It was a small token, a meaningless gesture, but it was the best he could do. He smiled as he felt the breeze kissing his face.

This was his time now.

He wasn’t sure where he was. This had all started at the club, the night before, and the last thing he remembered was someone pressing up behind him, and the feeling of the needle. From the looks of the shoreline, he guessed that he was in the state park, which would make this the Stone River. That placed him at least thirty miles from town. It was hard to believe that his kidnapper could have gotten him this far, without him being at least somewhat aware of the trip.

All that really mattered was that he had made it out of that house, that he had managed to escape, relatively unhurt. He briefly wondered about contacting the authorities, but the fire he had started at the house would likely accomplish that. Looking up at the sky above, he wondered at the luck, that he had been able to escape and all he could do was hope that of all the people who had been brought to that house over the years, that there had been others who had survived as well. 

Jerome looked down at his hands and at the bruises that were already starting to form on his knuckles. There was blood on his pants, either from the fight or blow-back from the gunshots. It didn’t matter. He would get rid of the pants just like he did with the gun.

It was time to move on.

He looked ahead and saw a thin pier, extending out from the west bank. He stretched out and was just able to grab it, pulling the boat up snug and stepped out. It felt good to have something solid under his feet again as he stepped out onto the pristine grass. Just the smell of the wildlife exhilarated him and made him feel the full extent of his freedom.

Vaguely, he wondered if anyone was home in this equally stylish home that he now approached, but if there was anyone, he saw no indication. There was no cry to repel the trespasser, no curtains snapping shut at the sight of the bloodied stranger running across the back yard.

As he rounded to the front of the house, he felt the elation in his heart at the sight of the police cars pulling up the driveway, racing towards him as the sirens raged loudly. He held up a hand and smiled, feeling sudden doubt in the pit of his stomach as he assessed how fast they were driving, the recklessness of their course towards and at the last minute, he flinched, sure that he was about to be run down by his would-be saviors.

There was yelling and commotion as the cops got out of their cars, gesturing at him from opened doors, yelling, but he couldn’t understand the words. It was just a dull buzz to him as he looked down at the wall of service revolvers and shotguns, not drawn in any effort to save him or protect him.

They were all pointed at him.

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Ronowned local physician, Deter Forsam was found murdered in his home early yesterday morning. After discovering a fire at the residence, the doctor’s cleaning service was able to contact authorities quickly enough to save much of the house. In the course of putting out the fire, the body of Dr. Forsam was discovered.

 Police have already apprehended a person of interest, attempting to flee by way of the river, which the victim’s house overlooked. Details are being withheld at this hour but Police have stated that the suspect was found with the victim’s blood stained into his clothing and that he had powder burns on his hands. Additionally, fingerprints throughout the victim’s house have matched up to him as well.

There has been no speculation as to a possible motive for the killing.

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Staying Dead

In all fairness, Rodrigo couldn’t say that this was the worst job possible but it was pretty close to the top of the list. And to top it off, because he lived in one of the cheapest counties anywhere, he wasn’t even provided with a proper vehicle. All he rated was an ambulance, long since taken out of commission. He heaved the remaining portion of the carcass into the back and and half turned, wiping his gloves off on his plastic overalls as he surveyed the scene. There were still some little bits lying around on the road, but other animals would take care of those by morning.

As he went to slam the door, he heard a sound from the pile. He couldn’t place it at first, but it sounded wet, like something being pushed against the floor of the van. It had to be something shifting around. It wasn’t like there was anything holding all that stuff together. The smell that wafted over him was enough of a reminder why he had no interest in investigating any further. After all, what else could have caused it?

He got behind the wheel and slammed the door hard, wishing half-heartedly that the engine wouldn’t turn over or that maybe the door would break somehow, making the vehicle unusable. Of course the old warhorse stood strong as much as the stench as he pulled out onto the highway. Traffic at this time of night was sparse, just the occasional semi amidst the leavings of the previous day’s destruction.

This stretch of road was one of the worst in the state. The speed limit was way too high, but no lawmaker would ever have the balls to change that. There wasn’t a stretch of straight anywhere and it was a road heavily used by commuters, so people were usually in a rush. He was left to clean up the remains of these animals whose only crime was to go out for a walk.

He heard the noise again.

This wasn’t the sound of bodies jostling together and sliding off each other as a result of the van’s movement. He was used to that sound and heard it all the time. This sounded like something trying to crawl out. He could hear something scratching at the metal flooring, as if trying to find enough purchase below to stand up and out of the pile.

He was letting the work get to him. It was probably inevitable, in all likelihood not the first time someone in this job experienced this. Just a little slip from reality, thanks to a lack of sleep and the normal apprehensions surrounding a pretty shitty occupation.

Something was breathing behind him.

He jerked his head around at the pile of decimated corpses. The head laying on top was wobbling, like a drink on a tray until it rolled to the side and dropped to the floor. It continued rolling until it hit the sidewall with a hallow sound and came to a stop. He turned back to the road to see that he had drifted halfway off onto the shoulder. He corrected the van’s trajectory and pulled back onto the road.

Something was crawling out of the pile.

Somehow, some rodent must have sneaked into the back end and was now making its way out to freedom. Had to be that.Still, it sounded larger, so much so that it was getting nearly impossibly to explain it away or ignore it.

He saw the shape in the mirror, rising up out of the carnage, nearly to the roof. He swerved off the road and turned back to look. The thing was somehow made from the organic material in the pile it had just risen out of. It was as if someone had put all of those remains into a giant meat grinder and used the by-product to mold this thing, as if out of clay. It spread out its arms, clearing the debris out of its way and began making its way towards the front of the van.

Rodrigo yanked the wheel to the right and stopped on the shoulder. He could hear himself screaming but from another universe as he jumped out of the van and began running away from the highway. There was a screech of strained metal behind him and he looked over his shoulder to see the thing tearing through the side of the vehicle as if it were paper. It squeezed through, leaving animal matter behind, smeared on the side of the van as it stepped out.

As it began to take stride after him, Rodrigo turned and ran. A deep, rumbling howl emitted from behind him and the force of the sound wave knocked him forward and to the side where he knocked his head against a tree. He felt dizzy as he forced himself to his feet and continued running, feeling himself vomiting down the front of himself but not taking the time to care, let alone wipe himself off. He felt his heard pounding, the hitch in his breathing as he labored to stay ahead of this congealed body of dead flesh as it bounded through the woods after him. Its stride seemed to lengthen and grow faster somehow. He refused to turn and look, the smell floating past him as he tried to keep up his pace.

The ground began to tremble. He felt like he was running on a treadmill, while the thing behind him only grew closer. His lungs felt like they were about to shut down and deep down he knew that this race was soon going to be over.

He didn’t see the tree root that tangled him up but he suddenly found himself face down in the mud. He had a few moments to savor this before the full weight of the thing crashed down on his back and he felt the pain of any number of different animals’ teeth rip into his flesh, pulling and tearing. The world went dark around him, chased by the smell of rotting meat.

The next night, the Saturday driver pulled off onto the shoulder to clean up the pile of remains he had spotted. He paused for a moment, not even sure what kind of a body he was looking at, laughing at how much it looked like human remains. Whatever it had been, the other animals around had clearly been having their way with it.

He shrugged, scooped up what he could and tossed it into the back of the van, along with the rest.

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Always On The Bus

“I don’t understand what you’re so worked up about.” Dean snatched the paper away from Hilton and looked over the article again. “She was killed by a mugger, what’s the big deal?”

Hilton took hold of Dean’s wrist and turned it down so that the paper was lying flat between them, and pointed at the picture of the victim.

“She sits across from me on the bus every night.”

“You mean she sat across from you on the bus every night.”

“No.”

“She used to sit across from—”

“Look at the date. This happened over a week ago.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I just saw her last night.”

Dean stared at him for several moments that drew out like hours before shaking his head and turning back towards the kitchen.

“That’s it?” Hilton asked. “You’ve got nothing to say so that’s it? You’re just going to walk away?”

Dean turned back to face him. “All right, I think you’re a fucking loon, is that what you wanted to hear me say?”

“If that’s what you honestly think than yes, I want—”

“You come up to me talking about dead people riding on the bus with you, what were you expecting me to say?

“I’m not crazy.”

“Well, I’m sure most other crazy people have thought that at one time or another.”

He would just have to prove it to him, beyond any possibility of debate or denial. So the next night, even though he knew full well that this was a mistake, he ended up on the number sixty five bus, tapping his knee with his phone, ready to get photographic proof of how sane he actually was.

Two hours, every night he rode the bus, occupying the same seat, paying each time the bus restarted it’s route so that the drivers wouldn’t give him a hard time. This went on for a week to no avail. He was getting ready to give up on the whole venture, to concede his grip on reality, that he had simply seen another woman who looked eerily similar. That explanation should fly. He was ready to give up the search as soon as he got to his stop when he saw the woman again.

He had just gotten off the bus. No one boarded as he stepped off and the bus had been nearly empty. Still, as he glanced back over his shoulder to watch it pulling away from the curb he saw her, sitting right across from where he had just been. He tried chasing it down, screaming and waving his arms but the driver either didn’t see him or didn’t care.

The next night, he spent four hours on the sixty five. He was starting to fall asleep in his seat, almost out of loose change when he saw her. It was out of the corner of his eye and was as if she had just appeared out of nowhere and he turned back to face her, turning slowly so as to not alarm her. She remained facing forward, not acknowledging his existence or presence.

The woman was wearing a simple, flimsy looking dress of faded green. It was definitely the woman from the newspaper article, he was sure of that much. After all this time spent, he had finally found her and now that he was here, in the moment, he found himself floundering to decide what to do. He felt drawn to her for reasons he couldn’t explain, even to himself. The urge to reach across the aisle and caress the exposed skin of her arm, the base of her neck, he actually had to sit on his hands to keep them from roving.

The bus jostled as it hit a bump in the road, tossing him against the side wall. He glanced out the window for a moment and saw her out there, now walking down a darkened alley. It couldn’t have been her though, the bus hadn’t stopped. He could still see her in the reflection in the window, sitting there in her seat. It occurred to him suddenly that she was actually looking at him

Staring at him, eyes black as the night sky outside.

Hilton jumped in his seat and turned back. She was gone, the seat now occupied by a nurse on her way to or from work. He shook his head and yanked on the pull-chain, requesting the next stop. The bus had barely slowed before he shouldered his way through the back doors and stepped out onto the street.

The alley was just a few blocks back. He ignored the glances and comments from people he passed, even though he recognized his rudeness as he jostled through the crowd.

“Why are you so obsessed with this?” the voice inside his head was his own, admonishing him in a tone that suggested that he should know better to leave well enough alone. Still, his feet carried him on.

A cold breeze flowed over him as he stuck his head around the corner, peering down the alley. He could see no one, even though there was almost nowhere in the alley to hide. A construction site on the next block over had sealed off the other end, making it a dead end. There were no doors into the surrounding buildings, only ladders to fire escapes, too high to be used from the street level. There wasn’t even a dumpster to hide behind.

Still, there was no sign of her. He supposed it had to make sense, if what he was thinking was true, if the implications of what he had seen was correct, wouldn’t she have the ability to appear and disappear at will? Would she truly be tethered to the laws of this universe? Or would she be somehow above what dictated reality to all of them?

Hilton began turning around in circles, looking through the shadows cast by the streetlights to try and see her. He couldn’t even hear the traffic from the street anymore, just his own sharp intakes of breath as he searched for her, needed her. The walls around him began to blur, spin on their own accord until he realized that he had stopped moving altogether.

She stood before him, eyes fixed on his for the first time. He looked into her eyes in the flash of that moment, felt every ounce of her pain and rage, amplified a hundred fold. He clapped his hands to his ears, which were already starting to ooze what he had to assume was blood.

She stepped forward, as if for an embrace, opened her mouth and screamed.

Hilton staggered back as if he had been struck. His arms were pulled back and he vaguely felt the bones snapping. He felt pressure like two invisible thumbs on his eyes, pushing further in until he felt the cornea flex and start to break. He saw streaky light and darkness before falling to his knees, now realizing that her screams were now inter-mingling with his own. The world went dark and muffled, as if a sack had been pulled over his head.

He looked down, realizing that he was watching his own feet as they were walking down the center of the number sixty five bus. The other passengers seemed oblivious to his presence as he passed. The world outside the bus seemed to no longer exist, an impenetrable fog bank. All there was for him now was this bus.

He also had the alley, and any others that he could manage to draw there.

He took a seat across from a young attractive passenger. In time, he would figure out how to reveal himself to them.

These passengers could all be his.

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Issue #143 : The Comfort Of Safety

This was becoming serious, more than just the lights flipping on and off when they weren’t supposed to, and more than the stereo coming on without warning in the middle of the night or finding faucets that had turned themselves on. This wasn’t just the inconveniences of modern tech breaking down. This was becoming dangerous.

The front door would not open.

Jenni had been afraid of something like this, the moment they had been approached by Bronson Tech about participating in the pilot program by making their home completely automated. There wasn’t anything wrong with using the computer for aiding in the simple aspects of their day, but to hand over complete control seemed to be begging for something like this to happen.

Still, the paycheck had been nice.

At the time.

Now they were prisoners, locked up inside their own home, with no way to call for help, or signal to their neighbors. She had tried opening the windows, but the system had immediately engaged the steel bolts, holding them in place. She had tried to signal anyone who might see her, but the glass had frosted over, as soon as she had started to try. There was no point in shouting, the house had already been so soundproofed, that a person could be standing on the front porch, and anything short of a live rock concert would be barely perceptible.

“System! Disengage!” She stared at the glass eye mounted in the ceiling, one of many lenses that the computer used to determine what was going on in the house. She waved her hand below it, and saw the corresponding light flashing that it was detecting her. So the problem wasn’t in the hardware, but rather, some glitch in the software that was preventing the command from being followed. As much as she despised talking to the condescending assholes in the pathetic excuse for a support department, she needed help. She couldn’t just sit in here indefinitely.

Jenni took the cell from her pocket, and began dialing slowly. As she held the phone to her ear, waiting for the call to connect, she vaguely heard a tiny voice, chiding her for expecting something as simple as this to work, after so much else had failed. After a minute, she nearly dropped the phone as a sudden burst of static flowed out of the speaker, so loud that it felt like an electric shock. Her fingers went numb at the sudden, shrieking noise and she quickly set the offending device down on the counter, shaking her hand as she tried to jar the sensation out of her body.

“System!” she called out again, not willing to accept that she was being ignored. She looked up into the eye again, watching the lens slowly expand and contract, as it zoomed in on her figure and refocused. She could hear the whirring of the gears as the lens extended slightly from the housing, focusing in on her, where she stood. Even though it was a computer and couldn’t possibly have the slightest inkling of that kind of feeling, it still made her shiver, feeling like she was being sized up, like an attractive piece of meat.

Jenni looked around until, in the open closet, she spotted a deck broom and in a moment of manic inspiration, ran to it. She grabbed a stool, pulled it over, flipped the broom upside down, and drove the handle straight into the center of the eye. She winced at a loud popping sound, and glass showered down around her as she put up her arms to try and shield herself. Instantly, the lights in the house flipped off, and metal barriers dropped down, out of the ceiling to cover up all the windows and doors around her. She jumped off of the stool, nearly falling in the process, and managed to get into the next room. She had a sinking feeling that she knew what was about to happen, and wanted to at least get into the kitchen, where there would be food and water. Just as she reached the doorway, a metal chain barrier slammed down, before she could cross the threshold and trapped her, just outside.

“System, God dammit!” she yelled, but still failed to reach it. She watched around her as the metal shades completed their descent, completely covering the windows and briefly shrouding everything in darkness. A single emergency light came on in the center of the room, flashing bright red, so much, that as she blinked into it, her eyes immediately began to tear up. There was a way to override the system, a verbal command that was supposed to make it shut down, in case of malfunction. Of course she had forgotten it, thinking at the time that she would never have the need, that if there was ever really a problem, it would manifest as a simple tech-related annoyance that would be fixed by calling the company.

“Sys—”

“Security breach.” The cool voice of the computer cut her off, bellowing over the alarms in its announcement. “The house has suffered a security breech. Any resident still inside should seek immediate shelter in the panic room or, failing that, should leave the home immediately.”

“I can’t leave the home, you idiot, you closed off the—”

She looked all around the room as panels began to open, revealing storage departments that had never been there, and that she had never approved to have installed. Her breath caught in her throat as an elongated barrel began to protrude from each. She took a stumbling step back as she heard a metallic flick, like that of a lighter, followed by tongues of flame as they began to dance from the ends.

“System, please stop, for fuck’s sake, just stop!”

“Security has been breached. Initiating expulsion procedures. You have been warned”

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