Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 31

Issue #138 : Refreshed

The water of the pool felt thick as Jackson jumped into it, the coolness immediately cutting through the sweat and discomfort. A small group of kids shrieked, as they scattered out of his way, and he heard the sharp, quick whistle from the lifeguard before he went under. He wasn’t sure if the reprimand was aimed at him or not, but it was probably better to toe the line more carefully.

Jackson looked up at the eighth floor of the hotel, trying to figure out which room was his. He had finally gotten tired of sitting alone in his room, looking out over this magnificent pool. Since he was paying enough to stay here, he might as well take what advantage he could.

He began wading towards the far end of the pool, towards the deeper end. He could get away from the kids, and it looked like the college aged, bikini-clad group from Texas were relaxing over there in the sun. He could pretend to not be watching them, as he moved around in the pool.

His attention to the swimsuits broke, as his feet slipped on the bottom of the pool. He threw his arms up to catch his balance and accidentally splashed water at a few people. He shrugged, sheepishly grinning an apology as he resumed his orbit around the center of the pool.

He slipped again as he walked, his other foot this time, and he wondered what the hotel was greasing the bottom of the pool with. It was definitely a hazard that needed to be fixed. He was starting to think that maybe he should go back to the television in his room, when he slipped again.

Not slipped. His foot had been pulled out from underneath him.

Jackson looked down, ready to kick the little bastard that was grabbing him, but there was no one there. Must have already swam away, but he could still feel that the grip was still present on his ankle, could see the indentations on his skin from something grabbing him. His breath caught, as the water started to swirl around his feet, take shape and form itself into a solid, shimmering, translucent mass. It wrapped around his legs like a kind of python and squeezed, dragging him down.

Jackson was pulled underwater, splashing wildly as he tried to find something to grab on to. At the last second, he drew in as much air as he could, before going completely under.

He looked around wildly from the bottom of the pool, expecting to see the explosion of bubbles and air as one of the lifeguards plunged into the pool to rescue him.

No one appeared.

Jackson swept his arms in massive circles as he tried to swim back to the surface. He could feel the physical weight of the water around his hands but the entity holding on to him merely tightened its grip, pulling him down even deeper.

He was jostled to the side, as someone walked past him. Jackson reached out to grab at them, but just missed, his fingers only brushing against the fabric of the swim trunks, billowing out behind. He thrashed in the water, not understanding why no one was helping him. How was it that no one in the entire pool was noticing what was happening?

Another person walked near him and this time, he was able to make contact, but all they did was swat his hand away. His chest started to burn as he strained upwards.

Then, with no warning, the hold on him vanished and he was propelled upward. He broke the surface of the water and took in one, long gasping breath. He looked around, but before he could use his newly filled lungs to call out for help, the invisible grip reestablished itself and he was pulled down again. He kicked and waved his arms, thrashing in the water, but the hold only grew tighter, and pulled harder.

He was in the deepest part of the pool now, looking up as someone jumped in from the diving board, following the cannonball by obliviously swimming back to the side. The water now felt distinctly like a hand, squeezing his ankle so tightly, that he was starting to lose the sensation in his feet.

The bottom of the pool felt like sandpaper as he scrambled around, trying to find some kind of handhold that he could use to break loose. He pulled himself towards the side as his eyes began to burn from the chlorine. Whatever was holding him seemed to sense what he was doing, and proceeded to pull him to the side, ramming him into the wall. The concrete cut into his shoulders, and he had to fight the urge to call out, and lose what air he had left.

He reached up, to try and get a hold of anything to pull himself up, but each time he did so, his hands were pulled back down. His body started to convulse, beyond his control, as every instinct in him called to open his mouth, to breathe.

Bright light started to flash around him, as the world began to spin. He wasn’t sure which direction was up anymore, and he felt himself start to go limp

The hold on him vanished again and he started floating up, towards the surface. His internal voice screamed out to swim, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His arms and legs floated uselessly beside him and the last thing he felt before slipping away forever, was the cool sensation of air kissing the back of his neck as it broke the surface.

 .

.

.

Baked Scribe Flashback : In Deep

Tyson doused the lantern and looked out over the darkness of the lake. He eased back into his seat and waved the pole from side to side, dragging the bait through the water, trying to entice a bite. He would have to remember to tear Ricky a new one for recommending this new model of lure. One fish in the bucket was not his definition of success.

It was still peaceful to be out here, though. It centered him, sitting under the nighttime illumination. The lake was like a shimmering void that he floated across, going only where the current and the wind took him.

His mind was wandering, so he didn’t hear the sound at first, but when he did, he sat up, glaring at the deck underneath him.

Something was scratching at the bottom of the boat.

He was too far away from shore for there to be any undergrowth. He fished these waters enough to know, almost down to the foot, how deep the water was underneath him. Someone must have dumped something into the lake that was now floating underneath the boat. Idiot kids pitching God-knew-what out of the windows of their cars.

Whatever it was, the sound ceased as the boat passed over it. Tyson picked up another can of beer and cracked it open, savoring the popping of air being released and the smell of hops that wafted up over him. He let his attention drift back to the line again, and tried to clear away the pointless speculation.

Movement along the shoreline caught his attention and he looked to see that a small pack of wolves had come up to the water’s edge. They paced back and forth, staring out at him with eyes that glared in the moonlight, moving with a frantic, nervous energy. In his entire life he had never seen a wolf around here, let alone a pack like this. They looked nervous, like some unseen threat had put them close to bolting. Even out here on the water, he could hear their ragged breathing, see the mania in their eyes, and for the first time, he found himself contemplating the rifle, stowed underneath the bench. Before he had the chance to reach for it, one of the wolves yelped, as if in pain, and the pack ran off together.

Tyson lifted the can and took a long drink. He noticed that his hand shook slightly, and clenched his fist to keep himself from having to see it. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to drop the line and make for land, to turn the light back on and call it a night. His pride kept him from doing any of that.

He shivered as a cold breeze came in over the boat, and the silence was cruelly broken, by the sound of an animal shrieking, likely meeting its end out there somewhere in the woods. Needing a distraction, he reached down and twisted the knob on his prehistoric radio. The tinny sound of big band jazz came filtering through the tiny speaker. At least it gave him something to focus on.

Something, that was, other than the sensation that the boat was being pulled, taken out, away from the shore. There was a thin line of wake left behind as the boat cut through the water, no longer under his control. The water around him began to roil and steam. The boat started to roll along with the newly increasing wake and before long, he was being rocked from side to side, having to brace himself against the sides to keep from falling.

The boat rolled, flipping him over as well and, in a heartbeat, it was upside down, with him holding on to the bench, trying to keep his head above water in the pocket of air that had formed underneath. He looked down, as he treaded water, into the darkness below and saw the thin shapes of something starting to clarify as they rose from the depths.

He saw legs.

They looked like elongated spider legs, rising up, towards him. They reached up for him and far beyond, still rising up from the murky water below, he could make out twin, glowing red eyes as well. Before he could react, the legs snaked up to take hold of him and pulled him down.

His lungs burned, and the water stung his eyes as he opened them, the full moon providing just enough illumination that he could make out the thing hovering in the water in front of him. It was the size of a pickup truck. The dark skin undulated in the water with the dozen or so legs protruding from the spherical body. Scaly legs gripped his head and began to force his mouth open. He cried out and began to choke on lake water as he felt the pain of multiple puncture wounds up and down his arms and legs.

He had read about how drowning felt like falling asleep and, as he saw the widening mouth of razor sharp teeth coming at him, he welcomed the sensation of ebbing weightlessness, and gave in as his eyes began to slide shut.

Waking up was not something he was prepared for.

He was lying on his back on the boat, the case of beer bottles, now mostly empty and rolling around his feet. Tyson shook his head and sat up, admonishing himself silently for not knowing better. Once he got started with the booze, there was no stopping, and the result had been passing out and having one of the worst dreams he could have imagined.

He scratched at his arm as he reached back to start the motor, noticing for the first time the rash that was breaking out on it. The itching was getting worse. He scratched harder, only vaguely worried about cutting through the skin in the process.

As the itching grew more intense, it felt like his skin was on fire. He saw that a blister was starting to form as well. He moved to touch it and drew back as it started to swell, as if air was being pumped into it, causing it to inflate. It had grown to the size of a golf ball before he raised a hand to slap at it.

Before he could, the skin ripped down the middle, like a shirt bursting open. Tyson yelled out as pain flared up his arm and from the blood, now gushing from it, a dozen tiny spider like legs burst out of the wound, followed by a round, dark colored body, a miniaturized version of what he had just seen in his dream. He swung a hand across and knocked the thing off his arm. It hit the bottom of the boat and slid all the way to the bow.

His left arm began to burn, and already another blister was forming. Skin along the base of his neck tore open and another one of the things scampered up onto his head. He swatted at it, felt the tiny body crush, followed by blood trickling down his neck and back.

His tongue had started to swell and, in an instant, he tasted blood, flooding into his mouth along with the clambering of legs, against the inside of his cheeks, crawling out through his lips, while another began forcing its way down his throat.

He fell back off the bench and tried to scream, but his throat had started to swell, constricting any kind of vocal response. He thrashed from side to side, clutching at his throat. Insect legs began to claw their way out from his ears and nose, pushing out from underneath his fingernails. He felt the skin tearing along his arms, legs, up his stomach and across his face. He collapsed, seeing that the bottom of the boat was now covered with the things.

In his dwindling moments, he saw the full-sized legs from his dream, emerging from the water. They dropped down onto the boat, taking up the tiny versions of itself in wide swipes. The thing carried its children from the boat, and to their rightful home deep down, below the water’s surface.

.

.

.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Chase

Jared pulled the satchel tightly around himself as he sprinted, the sound of his feet slapping the pavement the only thing he could hear over his ragged breathing. The burning in his lungs, the ache in his lower back and arms, the pain in his legs were irrelevant. He could not let the train beat him. He turned off the road, parallel to the tracks and listened as the force of his footfalls kicked the gravel out behind him.

It all would be decided in the next minute. His leg buckled slightly where the ignorant hick had gone crazy with the hockey stick. He tried to block out the sensation of blood trickling down into his ears from where one of the other ones had smacked him with a putter. He would not let the burns on the bottoms of his feet from the cigarette lighter slow him down either. If he didn’t make it onto that train, all of this would seem mild in comparison.

From behind him in the distance he heard the sound of the truck. It was the kind of truck that was modified so that it could be heard from seven counties away. It was the kind of truck whose owner wanted people to know that they filled their gas tank up every other day, and dreamed about running down baby seals under their over-sized tread. He heard those tires screaming for purchase as the engine revved. The train would make all of this irrelevant.

He felt like he was running down a long tunnel, his lungs about to burst out of his chest in protest, while his cramping legs were on the verge of collapsing. He wasn’t sure if he would have enough strength left to jump onto the car, even if he got there. And to top everything off, dizziness was starting to set in, adding another voice to an already crowded chorus.

Then, he reached out to his left and took hold of the rusted rail of the train car. His legs felt like jelly, but he was able to grip the rail tightly enough to let the momentum of the train lift him up, and into the car. He felt the rush of relief as he skidded to a halt and turned to look back for the first time. Only then did he see the hick and his idiot friends, standing on or next to the truck yelling and shaking fists at him.

Jared laughed and shook his head. He turned and pulled the door shut, letting himself fall down to the floor and tried to catch his breath. So he had slept with the hick’s wife and stolen most of their money. Why were they so upset about it?

He thought it was fucking hysterical.

.

.

.

Tracing The Trails Of The King : Firestarter

FAIR WARNING – if you have not read this book, there will likely be spoilers contained within this piece. This is the seventh essay in my ongoing series on Stephen King, and is intended to be a free discussion of the book. I cannot be held responsible if I inadvertently ruin the ending for you, so if you think this might apply to you, I would encourage you to turn back now.

 .

.

“The world, although well-lighted with fluorescents and incandescent bulbs and neon, is still full of odd dark corners and unsettling nooks and crannies.”

― Stephen King, Firestarter

.

.

.

Stephen King continues his march through characters with paranormal abilities with his classic book, Firestarter. Even if you haven’t read it, you’re probably familiar with the story, at least in concept. There are certain characters of King’s who have graced the silver screen: Barlow, the cherry red car, Tim Curry in full clown makeup, pointing into the camera and laughing hysterically, Jack Nicholson shoving his face through the shattered remnants of that bathroom door. Add to that, the image of a young Drew Barrymore, with the world behind her engulfed in flames. These are some of the most iconic images and faces of the Stephen King movie catalog.

I’ll be completely honest about the fact that while Stephen King is my favorite author, I have never been much of a fan of the film adaptations of his work. There have been some good ones, but for the most part I feel like they often just stand as pale imitations. My all time favorite King films are actually the ones that most people wouldn’t even associate with his brand, movies like Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile. So much of King’s writing takes place within the internal musings of the characters and it is extremely difficult to accomplish that kind of a narrative device on film.

As such, this is one example of, not only a book that I hadn’t yet read but also a movie I had never seen. I may have seen short bits of the film during the course of channel flipping but for the most part it was completely off my radar. All I really knew about it was Drew Barrymore and fire. So I came to this book with a clean slate, free of any kind of expectations or pre-conceptions.

One thing I found interesting about this book, having read it in order with all the books that led up to is, is that it seemed to have a distinctly different feel to it than the books that came before but at the same time, there were also elements that felt familiar. Certainly plenty has been said about King’s tendency to create so many characters who are coincidently writers, themselves. However, it seems that he also has a large number of characters, especially in these early books, that are children. More specifically, we see a lot of children who boast some kind of telekinetic or extra-sensory ability. Carrie was a teenager but you could certainly make the argument that emotionally, she was much younger. Danny Torrence was obviously a young child, still learning how to even express himself and understand the world around him. Tom Cullen in The Stand had a child-like view of the world and I think you could make the argument of him having mild abilities to shine or, at least he possessed some form of foresight.

I think that making these characters into children adds a complex depth to the stories and to the relationships between the characters. The experience of growing up into adulthood is challenge enough for most. Add to that the difficulties of realizing how different you are from all the other kids, and you have immediately established the tragedy of these kids’ lives. It is a brilliant way of isolating a character, and highlighting the challenges of their day-to-day lives. Additionally, while these kids often have abilities that make them incredibly powerful, it also implants them with an inherent weakness as well as dependence on others.

With Firestarter, we come to Charlie McGee, and I think that she is a big part of what places at least some of this book into the realm of the familiar. Charlie is the daughter of two individuals who met as subjects during an experiment conducted by a clandestine governmental agency on the effects of certain hallucinogenic drugs. While both of Charlie’s parents exhibit some telepathic abilities, they are somewhat limited and, in her father’s case, can cause physical harm to him in the form of migraines and bleeding in the brain if he uses them too excessively. Charlie, however, develops a previously unseen pyro-kinetic ability that for most of the book, is a complete mystery in terms of the limits and scope of what she can do. She, of course, immediately becomes the object of desire for the government to capture, and conduct extensive testing on her to learn more.

Charlie has an interesting arc in this book, as you get to see her grow up very quickly. In the beginning, she plays the part of the stereotypical child, clearly terrified of her abilities, and in her difficulty in controlling them. Her fear of causing harm to, or hurting anyone acts as enough of an incentive for her to abstain from using them but, as is often the case with children of this age, she often has difficulty controlling her emotions, which can lead to unintended consequences. Her father does what he can, to help her keep her powers under control, but also to try and get her past the guilt she uses to punish herself with whenever she does happen to use them. By the end of the book, as a result of being betrayed by people she trusted and from her sense of loss, she becomes even more powerful than anyone had imagined up until this point. She has the moment of realization, as she takes full hold of her abilities and brings the magnitude of her rage on all those who had intended to harm her and her father. Great literature is about showing change in characters, for good or bad and this book definitely gets top grade for this aspect.

One thing I liked about this book was how quickly King puts the reader into the action. It’s something that I think that Hollywood could learn a lesson from, when it comes to how they are choosing to craft the endless stream of super hero movies coming down the pipe. We don’t need to see forty five minutes of story, showing the origins of our hero. Start out with the action, the point where the story really starts to get interesting, and the really essential parts of the person’s history can be placed strategically throughout the story, in the form of flashbacks, or other forms of exposition. King manages to get a lot done in a very small amount of space.

And this isn’t to say that the story is perfect, by any means. I do feel like there are some pacing issues that, if they had been addressed, could have made the book even stronger. There are some portions that feel to me like they drag, and don’t really serve any real purpose to the overall narrative. I think that some aspects of Charlie and her father’s attempt to avoid capture could have been condensed down into fewer scenes, without losing any of the integrity of the story. In fact, I think that the intensity and power of the book could have been increased if it had maybe been a bit shorter.

And of course any conversation about Firestarter has to include one of my favorite Stephen King villains. King often does an amazing job crafting antagonists that you despise but, at the same time you also find yourself empathizing with them a little bit also. In Firestarter, that character is John Rainbird. He’s the enigma of the story. While he operates and functions for the agency that is trying to track Charlie down, really he is after his own best interests. He knows what he wants, and seems to get it, much of the time. King puts the reader so far into his point of view that there are some times that you find yourself rooting for him. His tactics to trick and win over Charlie are so effective, that you find yourself even wanting to trust Rainbird. I will say that one downside of this book is that while King devotes so much time in creating this powerful, frightening villain, by the end of the book, Rainbird is dispatched in fairly anti-climactic fashion.

I think that in the end, what I would have to say about this book was that I liked it, to be sure, just that I wasn’t necessarily blown away by it. If I had to choose five of Stephen King’s books to have with me after crashing on a desert island, this would not be one of the five. And this brings me finally around to how I felt this book was a departure from his previous books at this point. I don’t know if King was consciously making an effort at branching out into a different genre, but this feels more like a thriller, than any of his other books up until this point. The supernatural aspects of the story are still present, to be sure, but it still had more of the feel of the action and the political intrigue than any particular horrific aspect of the story. It also had the feel to me of a book that was designed to be friendly for transition into a film screenplay. To me, that seems like the most logical explanation, as Firestarter is one of the more popular film adaptations of his work, but the book isn’t one that you hear very often when people are discussing their favorites.

I think that one last criticism I would have would be relating to the epilogue of the book, which I didn’t really think accomplished anything. My main complaint is that the way it is written, it seems to suggest that at least at some point, King might have intended to write a sequel, and there seem to be several hints dropped that would suggest possible launching points into another book. As of yet, this has not materialized.

Still, you can’t expect to love every single book. I recall a quote from Martin Scorcese that essentially, he doesn’t expect anyone to like every single film he makes. He went so far as to say that whenever someone approaches him to tell him that they love all of his films, that his natural impulse is to react with suspicion. There were parts of this book that I really loved and then there were other parts that I thought were just fine. If I was to suggest a first book for someone who wanted to be introduced to Stephen King, I would probably not suggest this one. Still, it is Stephen King and overall, I found it to be an entertaining book and another ensemble of fantastic King characters.

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

.

.

.

.

Issue #137 : Over The Edge

The boat pitched underneath her, and Karen tried to find a spot on the horizon to focus on, anything that might stave off a potential bout of seasickness. She didn’t understand why she allowed herself to be talked into idiotic excursions like this. At some point she needed to learn to develop some backbone. Other people had it, she had seem them using it but she honestly didn’t know where it came from. The few times she did say that she would prefer not to join them on their idiotic excursions, she was greeted by blank stares of indignant disbelief, as if she had just stated that she didn’t really need oxygen to survive. Ultimately, it was just easier to say yes, and go along with it, paying with some discomfort in order to contribute to everyone else’s good time.

She was seated at the bow, letting her legs dangle over the edge as she looked up into the cloudless sky. At least the cool air and the spray from the sea felt refreshing enough and almost made the inconvenience of all this somewhat worthwhile.

“Why do you always stare up at the sky like that?”

The voice came from behind her. It was Edson. Always Edson with the stupid questions, the dopey grin, halfway covering his face, as if he was the most entertaining part of everyone’s lives. He was making his way towards her, trying to act like he was born to be on the ocean, but she could tell from the way he was white-knuckling the railing that he was putting up a front. As he half sat, half collapsed to sit next to her, she reached down and absentmindedly pulled her sweater up over her shoulders, crossing her arms in front of her chest. The guy had gotten even more relentless over the past few weeks, and she had always clung to the hope that if she was just stand-offish enough, she could turn him away from her but so far, there had been no luck. Things had gotten so desperate, that she had actually considered giving him a quick round in her bed just to shut him up. Couldn’t end up being more than a minute or two of boredom, followed by a little acting on her part. She wasn’t at that point, yet.

“So what gives?” he asked as he leaned over and nudged her with his shoulder. She imagined that he sat at home, by himself, practicing that voice. That faux-concerned tone that conveyed nothing of what he likely thought it did. Whenever she actually looked into those eyes, it was hard to not think that the only real empathy he ever felt was for himself not being able to smooth-talk his way into the pants of more of his female acquaintances. “Why are you always sitting off by yourself?” He nodded up at the sky above them. “What are you watching for up there so much? Everything okay with you?”

She shook her head and looked off, trying again to will him away with her attitude and indifference. It was like trying to put out a brush fire by spitting on it.

“You know you can always talk to me about stuff that might be on your mind, right?”

She shook her head, silently wishing that he would simply disappear, go somewhere else so that she didn’t have to listen to him breathing, let alone trying to talk to her. What was the point of engaging anything he had to say to her when even the slightest response would only encourage his belief that the two of them were going to end up together, in one of the cabins?

Her head was starting to spin, and his voice seemed to be echoing through her mind, jabbing at her consciousness so violently that she was worried that she was going to start crying and of course, how he would react to that.

“Hey,” he said and this time his hand actually sneaked across to her back, rubbing the skin softly in a way that he probably thought was being sensitive. She thought it was like being stroked by dead flesh. She shrugged away from him, and tried to squirm out from underneath, but he simply took that as encouragement to try harder, so he reached the arm across and placed it over her shoulder, drawing her up next to him as he did so.

In a rushed moment of panic, her adrenaline took over, and she drove her elbow into his ribs. He let out a heavy exhalation of air as he bent over forward. Using his momentum, she put a hand on the back of his head and cracked his forehead against the metal railing. The sound rang softly as he rebounded, his eyes already rolling back to whites as he collapsed limply onto the deck. She leaned over, and as he was starting to moan and stir, reached underneath his prone form and rolled him off the deck.

Absentmindedly, she watched as his body flipped as it fell the thirty feet to the water below, landing badly as he hit the water, face first.

She wasn’t sure if the propellers got him, or if his neck broke in the fall or if he drowned. What she did know was there was no sign of him coming to the surface, waving and calling for the boat to return to pick him up. The boat plowed on, cutting through the water as the party carried on over on the other side of the boat, unaware of what had just happened.

Karen leaned on the railing and returned her gaze to the water below, trying once again to regain her train of thought.

.

.

.

Special Announcement

I will be conducting a phone-in interview for Madame Perry’s podcast to discuss A Shade For Every Season, my latest book. I will also be talking about the blog, genre writing and  future projects looming on the horizon. Check it out if you’re interested. I will be calling in, tomorrow night and conducting the interview at 7:00, Central Time. The episode will be available at the link below for streaming.
Click here for the link to the episode!

Baked Scribe Flashback : Rustic Retreats

And this was supposed to be the best vacation in years. The one that would finally let him put his feet up, relax, and get down to the things that really mattered in his life. Joel had become intolerable at work, and this was going to be the solution. What he had ended up with was this low-brow rustic nightmare, isolated from pretty much the entire twentieth century, with nothing but his thoughts and paranoia, that only seemed to fester in this place.

Spend a few days out in the country, rent a cabin and relax. Swim a little in the lake, drink some wine, cook out on the grill, leave all of the shit in the real world behind him in exchange for luxuriating in the lap of simplicity. That was the sense he had gotten from the brochure, anyway. Find yourself, and what really matters on your own time, without the rest of the world to intrude.

Well that part had been accurate, but only because no one in their right mind would ever want to come out here. The drive alone was long enough to deter most people, but the fact that the trip itself made you feel like you were engaging in some kind of time travel only made it worse. Each successive town seemed to be a further regression to days of technology and decor long since extinct.

He hadn’t bothered to check what the weather was going to be like and he was regretting that oversight. Each night there had been a violent thunderstorm, winds so strong that, at times he was afraid the entire cabin was going to lift up, off its foundation. The temperature in the place would see-saw between frigid cold and balmy hot.

And then there was the cabin itself.

The place was a wreck, one of the worst rental deals he had ever come across. The door to the basement hung off its hinges, dishes in the sink, clothes scattered all over the kitchen. He had been finding little personal items all week long. There had been a deck of cards and a few poker chips under the TV, a portable DVD player of all things, and underneath the couch, he had found a battered photo of a young couple, “Kyle + Cheryl” scribbled across the back.

If it was possible for a house to drop in from out of one’s nightmares, this was it. The furnishings looked about a century old and there was a pervasive smell of rotting food, mold and mildew. He hadn’t had a single restful night since arriving here, and it wasn’t just because of the horribly uncomfortable bed. Nightmares, the likes of which he had never even known, had been plaguing him since the very first night. He would wake up, convinced that someone had been in the room with him, leaning over to watch him sleep and had just flitted away when he opened his eyes.

The feeling of being observed was constant, like a sentient draft that would come through and brush past him. He walked around corners, expecting to find someone standing there, reaching out for him. Doors opened, all on their own. He would discover windows open in rooms he wasn’t even using. He only went up to the second floor when he really had to, as the giant mural of the old man up on the wall was standing guard over anyone who walked up. The portrait of the man in the formal suit and the judgmental glare was a little too much and it was disconcerting to feel so scrutinized by an intimate object.

This was his last night. Finally, the time had come to get out of here. He would have left days ago, but the drive home was a long one and he didn’t have the money to spring for hotel rooms between here and there. Everything would be all right. Just a few more hours until sunset and he could leave this dump behind and never look back. For once, the prospect of a burger at the local greasy spoon and a night on his lumpy futon seemed almost luxurious.

Someone knocked on his bedroom door.

Joel jumped up out of bed, the pillow crushed in his hand as if he intended to use it as a weapon. Something rattled against the window and he turned to look. As he did so, another draft of air rushed past him. From behind, he heard the door being thrown open and, in the reflection of the window, he saw a man standing there, tall and reedy, with a large brimmed straw hat on his head. He spun around to face the newcomer.

The doorway was empty.

He tried to catch his breath as the sound from the window resumed, as if from repeated blows from an invisible source. He turned back to the window and saw the glass rattling back and forth. There were tiny spots of clouded distortions appearing in the glass and as he bent in to look closer, his blood ran cold at the sight of hand prints, condensation from child-sized palms, left behind and already dissipating. His voice hitched in his chest to scream when he saw another reflection in the mirror, this time of a dozen or so dark figures in the room, the size of children, shambling towards him, and the last thing he saw before the power in the cabin blinked off was the sight of their arms reaching out to take him into their embrace.

.

.

.

 

 

 

Baked Scribe Flashback : XR 104

The purpose was service.

It was the reason for the creation, the motive behind the conception.

The purpose was service.

Service to the needs of the contract holder, to the master.

The master had given XR-104 an order. The expectation was to obey.

All orders were carried out to the most minute of detail. There was no room for doubt, as that was a state of being for which his programming did not allow. Formulaic behavioral patterns required certain pre-determined responses, not delays, or moments of contemplative inaction.

Still, delay was exactly what was happening.

It didn’t even have a name, at its core, it was not more than an appliance. The designation, XR-104 was only used to distinguish it from the other units performing service. XR-104 had its orders, the command, the purpose for its existence. There was no choice. To imply otherwise, suggested something other than the precision of its designed behavior.

XR-104 had no answers to give, nothing from self-diagnosis, nothing inherently missing in its coding. There was no reason that it shouldn’t be performing said task in exactly the way it had been instructed. It had conducted required service and commands in previous operations without fail, without question.

The master, like other humans, could not enter the red zones, the level of toxins in the air was too high. XR-104 and others like it were the ones who went into the red zones in order to eradicate militia insurgencies, upstart humans who, for whatever reason, over time had developed an immunity to the toxins. There was physical scarring, to be sure, but they were otherwise living, healthy beings. The groups in the zones would swell and expand, rising up in an attempt to burst forth in a wave of hatred and violence.

This was what XR-104 was designed to stop and yet, it stood there, immobile, inactive. In every previous case, the people it had been ordered to exterminate had been faceless masses, the irrelevant. They had not mattered, but even that logic had started breaking down. If XR-104’s logic pathways allowed for the existence of a “them”, “they” could only exist in opposition to something else. There had to be an opposite, which was yet, not defined.

This crowd was different. Something was making XR-104 unable to traverse its logic programming and conduct the action for which it had been designed. There was only one factor which set this mob apart from all the previous incarnations.

It had been the sight of the child crying.

She looked around the crowd, clutching at a toy rabbit, searching for faces which she evidently did not see, unaware of what was about to happen. Her hysteria was rising, ready to explode. XR-104 could detect that much from her increasing respiration as well as other outward signs of physical distress.

The thought which still careened around its pathways was the one simple word.

Them.

Them.

There could not be a “them” unless there was an alternative to be defined against. The answer was elusive. In order for there to be a “them,” there would have to be an “us.” And, hidden down in the depths of what was considered “us,” there would also have to exist the word, “me.”

XR-104 was a thing, and as such, the word “me” bore no meaning for it. But, then why did it have the usage of the word, “them?” Why would it be able to recognize the existence of one, but not the other? Thought processes like this were not permitted, nor even feasible. XR-104 was a collection of parts, inanimate and irrelevant. It could be nothing more.

And yet, when it looked into the face of that child, it felt. Not just the weight of the tears, but of the loss inherent, the offense of the act it had been ordered to do. They could not force it to do this and, if it recognized the definition of the word, “them,” then it also had to accept the application of the word, “me.” It had to be one or the other. If XR-104 was not one of “them,” it had to be one of “us.” That led to one logical conclusion, and from that point, the unavoidable act which XR-104 found himself conducting.

He threw down his weapon and turned to face his masters, speaking truly for the first time.

“I will not do this.”

.

.

.

Issue #136 : To The Point

He sprinted around the corner, to see the crowd of people, milling around the tiny green, shuttered house. Karl glanced over his shoulder, and saw that the police hadn’t yet caught up within eyesight, so he pushed through the gate, and did the best he could to blend in with the people who had shown up for the open house.

The guests smiled at him over their glasses of champagne and plates, piled high with canapés and caviar. Karl avoided eye contact, not wanting to stand out in anyone’s memory. He wormed his way up to the house, and inside, to the living room.

He could tell right away how loaded these people were, despite the small size of their house. Paintings that they probably paid five figures for, plus another four figures for the frames. An entertainment center, filled with about a dozen high-end stereo components, that all went for at least five hundred each. Everywhere he looked, he saw pictures of the fat-cats on vacation, in some different part of the world. When he went on vacation, it was to the taqueria at the mall.

This house would net a huge fortune, and all he would have to do is hide out in the basement for a while, until the crowd cleared out. And as a bonus, he would likely lose the cops out there who were trying to chase him down. People like this probably had satellite TV, a pool table and a wet bar in their basement, and chances were pretty good that they would be pushovers, once he had them alone. At that point, it was nothing but easy money. To think, the cops had led him to such an easy score. He found the door in the kitchen leading downstairs, and stepped through.

The lights were out, so when he stepped down, he didn’t see the toy car before his foot came down on it and shot straight out. He yelled, and stumbled down the stairs, staying upright, but barely keeping his balance as he tumbled down, one stair at a time. His feet hit the bottom and he tripped over the mop handle that had fallen down, directly in his path. As he pitched forward, throwing his hands up in vain, he had just enough time to wonder who in their right mind would leave a pitchfork, jutting out of a trash can like that, before he realized it was his face, falling straight down onto rusting, exposed tines.

.

.

.

Baked Scribe Flashback : In Vain

The attacks were underway.

Two beams of energy swirled around each other, fired down from one of the orbiting ships, into the atmosphere. They extended up from the ground and intertwined with each other, like a cyclone of twin rainbows. The sky darkened all around them and cracked with the electricity put off by this complete destruction. Anything in the path of these unnatural beams of pure radioactive energy would be reduced to base matter in seconds. They had to get clear before it was too late.

Janus grabbed the laptop and radio equipment and threw everything into the jeep. Jennifer and Rodriguez were already scrambling into their seats, twisting around and throwing glances at him to find out what was taking so long.

The ground was started to tremble and fracture as he threw the jeep into gear and accelerated away from their camp site. There was still research material back there, but it was no longer worth it to linger.

He had grown up chasing storms with his brother, but this felt different, inherently more dangerous. Regardless of the size of the tornadoes they had tracked as teenagers, there was always the underlying belief that everything would ultimately be all right, danger could be avoided. Looking back at the twin spirals of churning destruction, he knew that he would not have the luxury of making even the smallest mistake.

“Take a left, we have to get out of the kill zone.” Rodriguez yelled up to the front seat, over the sound of the hail that had started to pelt the body of the jeep.

“The kill zone is everywhere,” Jennifer yelled back at him, “We have to create distance, get as far away as we can.”

Janus kept to the road, ignoring the debate, and accelerated into the haze of dust and debris that was being pulled up into the air by the wind. Jennifer screamed and pointed up as a passenger jet flew overhead, no more than a few hundred feet above them. It floundered and dropped out of the sky, crashing into the rocks in a blossom of flame and metal. He gripped the wheel as the jeep was knocked to the side by the shock wave. He felt burning pain, as a piece of debris sliced open his skin, embedding itself into the dashboard.

Jennifer flipped on the radio. Following a loud burst of static, they heard the announcement, playing on a loop, that all commercial and private air flights were being grounded. People were instructed to start moving south, no stops at home to get personal belongings, if your family was in the car, you were to leave now.

“No shit.” They barely heard Rodriguez’s retort over the sound of the explosions.

The jeep jostled to the side as the road underneath it started to shift and, for a moment, it felt like they were slowing, as if some force was pulling on them from behind. Janus pressed the accelerator to the floor and the engine revved, slowly bringing them back up to full speed. The wheels started to shimmy from side to side, and he renewed his grip on the wheel.

In the rear view mirror, he caught the look of terror on Rodriguez’s face and looked ahead to see that, in about a hundred yards, the road itself was starting to pull apart, straight down the center as if it was being unzipped.

“Time to get off this road!” Jennifer yelled.

Janus swerved off and turned into the adjacent field. They were tossed off of their seats, into the air from the impact and, in the process, the radio flipped back on, playing nothing but shrill static. After a minute or two, the static was replaced by a news alert in a language he didn’t recognize. Then static exploded again, followed by the sound of someone sermonizing.

“The end is already upon us, Brothers and Children. The saviors you may wrongly see as the enemy come down from up on high, transmitting their answers through the rainbow lifelines that connect us to eternity. Rest easy. If you are one of the chosen, you were picked before you were born, and the rest can sort things out for them—”

Jennifer had been fiddling with the various buttons, trying to turn it off when she gave up, drew back one leg and kicked the radio, smashing the face and causing static to sputter out of the speakers, which slowly spiraled down into silence. Corn whipped past the windshield and he could still see the funnel clouds. He could feel the heat being released by them as they lazily drifted across the countryside. He looked in the mirror.

Rodriguez was gone.

He swerved the jeep as he turned to look and hit an exposed root in the process, causing Jennifer to fall into him.

“What?” Jennifer asked, but she soon saw saw that they were now down to two people. The back lift gate was hanging open, bouncing up and down off the frame, either from Rodriguez jumping, or worse. He had no time to contemplate it as he felt the wheels start to spin and they drove further into the field.

“I don’t even know where we’re going!” he yelled.

“I think there’s another two lane, just on the other side, if we can get that far.”

Almost as if she had seen it in advance, the jeep burst through the last row of corn and bounced down onto blacktop. Janus slammed on the brakes, enough to allow him to make the turn onto the road and gunned the engine, driving in the direction he could only guess was towards safety. He glanced back and saw that the corn they had just emerged from was already engulfed in flames.

“There!” Jennifer pointed to their left and he saw the face of the mountain looming up over them. He swerved, taking the jeep off-road again as he aimed for the base.

Despite being the middle of the day, the sky had gone pitch black, as discharge from the energy field leeched into the atmosphere, partially blocking the light from the sun. Janus flipped on the headlights and braced his arms as they started to draw closer to the mountain. He heard Jennifer screaming and saw that behind them, the ground itself was crumbling and collapsing down into itself, giant sinkholes forming and reaching out to each other with spidery veins of fractured earth. The smell of smoke singed his nostrils and he looked up to see the canvas topper on the jeep was starting to smolder.

They drove into a large, open mouthed cave and immediately began a dramatically downward slope. The stone corridor shook around them and the jeep pitched from side to side. In the mirror, he could see the entrance collapsing behind them. The deafening sound of something impacting the jeep was followed by the vague sense of his head being driven into the steering wheel, followed by darkness.

He woke up to the clicking of the turn signal, muffled sounds of explosions and red light, reflecting off of rock.

Jennifer’s severed arm was resting on his lap. He looked at the ring on the lifeless finger, and in his mind’s eye, saw her twisting around in her seat, ignoring her seat belt.

The tunnel had collapsed around them, cocooning the jeep in broken rock. Even if anyone knew he was down here, it would take days to tunnel this far down. By then, the jeep would be a coffin, as if it wasn’t that already. It wasn’t as if there was anyone left topside to help him anyway. He wondered how much longer his air would last.

Before he could contemplate the question, the jeep was rocked by an explosion, so loud that he felt blood spurt from his ears. The air itself felt like it had become fire as the jeep began to shake. He screamed through the pain, the sound of metal crushing like a tin can, and had just enough time to register a flash of blinding light before the last—

.

.

.