Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 34

Holiday Special!

Just a reminder – it’s not too late to take advantage of this great deal. Buy either one of my books in paperback and I will send you the other book in eBook format, free of charge. Two books for the price of one!

In order to take advantage of this, all you have to do is email me with a screen shot from Amazon confirming your purchase and I will send you your copy of the other book.
cclarkfiction@gmail.com
The books can be purchased at the following links:
Borrowed Time
A Shade For Every Season

Issue #130

Harold Flinminster looked at the computer screen, smiled, and carefully moved the mouse to click on “save & close”. The bottle of cognac was sitting on the desk next to him and his last sentence had been carefully timed so as to allow the sacred elixir to hit just the right temperature. He poured the celebratory drink into the heavy bottomed, Stueben glass and sat back. Switching over to his web builder, he put the finishing touches on his latest announcement.

Calling all those with passion for the prose. I am ecstatic to announce to you that my latest installment in the Pearls Of Pegasus series has been officially finished. Poseidon’s Promise will be available for your enjoyment in less than a month, set your calendars!

Harold posted the update and swiveled around in his leather chair to gaze upon the top row of his bookshelves, admiring the pristine spines of each of his books that graced the room. Several prints of his favorite covers were also on the wall in front of him and he looked over them, smiling as if re-connecting with old friends. Still, the words were still the most important of all, and that was what he had to remember to tend to the most.

He turned back to the screen and again reviewed the email from another young hopeful author, although he might be using that term generously, considering the reprehensible state of the person’s prose. Honestly, he couldn’t understand why some people bothered trying to insert themselves into such a sacred calling as this, without even the wits capable of completing a legendary sentence. Not even worth the electricity running through what was probably his pathetic excuse for a computer.

Still, he should probably respond. If nothing else, he didn’t want to come across as being cold or dismissive, uninvested in the minds and quills of tomorrow. He was a mentor and, as such, it was his sacred duty and responsibility to lead the young hopefuls along, like chicks looking to their mother for the food that they needed ever so much to live. The image brought a smile to his lip and a light chuckle as he imagined the faceless writers, struggling in a giant, human sized bird nest, straining to be fed by some great, benevolent, but unseen master. That master was him and oh, how generous he was with his time and abilities. It wasn’t enough for him to be a beacon of the pen and the prose, he also had to do whatever he could to help lift those out of the darkness of their inabilities. Often, there was little he could do, but he saved who he could and those he couldn’t, he could at least attempt to make them realize that maybe where they really belonged was in the dark.

He opened his email software and cracked his knuckles, trying to decide how best to approach this particular boondoggle.

Mr. Brett Campor

You recently inquired with me in reference to your writing, asking me if I could read some of it and provide you with feedback. I don’t generally have time to accommodate requests such as they are, but every now and then, I will take one on, in the hopes of providing what insight I have gained over the two decades I have persevered as a professional writer.

I read the sample you sent and, to be honest, I wish I could tell you that I enjoyed the piece or that I saw promise in your prose, but I’m afraid I cannot. Some may say that all writers need to be encouraged and supported, but I feel strongly on this issue, that if I give you an inaccurate picture of your own writing, I do a disservice to you as well as the industry as a whole. As authors, it is our responsibility to excel in our craft and be the best of the best. If I felt that your writing could be worked on, I would maybe take the time to give you some guidance but, unfortunately I don’t believe that it would do you any good. At some point, you have to accept that there is a certain amount of talent which you either have or don’t. Unfortunately, in your case, you fall into the category of “don’t have it”.

Writing is a noble endeavor, harking back to the bard himself. We, as a profession must seek and encourage only the best of the absolute best, the ones honored with the privilege of entertaining the masses, turning on the light for everyone else. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like you can be trusted with this unique responsibility. I find your verbiage pedestrian, your use of the passive voice hair-rending and your inability to maintain a consistent flow to your narrative is inexcusable. I’m sure that there are plenty of other, more blue collar type endeavors that would be suited for an intellect such as yours, but as it stands, I think the honor of being a writer is well outside the boundaries of your limited—

Harold pushed back from his computer, staring with some incredulity at the screen. The glass was starting to shimmer, as if it was melting in several, small spots, The glass started to flex outward, almost imperceptibly at first, but then a clear shape started to form before him. He watched as the imprint of a pixelated hand formed on the screen and began to push outward, out of the computer. From another universe, he felt his jaw dropping open as the hand emerged from the screen and began reaching for him, slowly. As the realization set in of what was about to happen, however, the hand opened, and took hold of his face, gripping it tightly before he could push back from the desk.

The fingers felt abrasive at first and then, with a sickening smell of something burning, he felt like his face was on fire. Harold screamed, a scream that was mostly muffled by the hand. He grabbed at the thing, still tethered to the computer with its elongated, digital arm. He reached for the computer, thinking maybe if he turned it off, this thing might dissipate as well. When he couldn’t find the power switch, the resorted to slapping at his face, trying to knock the thing loose.

In an instant, the heat increased, and he was thrust into a moment of searing pain, more than he had ever even contemplated was possible. The fingers of the hand pressed in, and started to push through the flesh, down towards the bone. His anguished cry was cut off as he suddenly felt moisture dripping down his face and in his waning moments, wondered if that was his blood that he felt, or if it was his skin.

Once done, the hand pulled back from whatever was left, and retracted back into the screen, retreating through digital pathways and signals until it returned to its starting position, back to home. Brett Campor pulled his hand back out of his monitor, flexed it as he watched the digitized skin return to it’s normal, physical state, wincing at the pins and needles sensation as it did so. He looked at the screen and punched in a command to disconnect the link with that pompous writer’s computer, deleting the draft of the email that was going to be sent to him. He shook his head and stood up to walk back to the kitchen, speaking softly to himself as he did so.

“It’s called manners.”

Baked Scribe Flashback : White Lady

“Why are you slowing down?”

“You don’t know what that place is?”

“No, what?” Malcolm looked up at the skeletal remains of the structure, long since gone to ash.

Leo pointed. “That was the Worthwood treatment facility. The one that burned down, remember?”

Malcolm shook his head. “Before my time.”

“Yeah, no kidding. It was before both of our times, idiot. It happened about forty years ago. One of the patients broke into her doctor’s office and started a fire. Burned the joint down to the ground. Twenty seven people died.”

“Cool story.” Malcolm turned his attention back to the phone and the texting resumed. Leo smirked and turned back to the road. He blinked at the sudden glare from a street light and caught movement in the rear view mirror.

A woman was in the back seat.

He spun around to look, scrutinizing the empty seat for anyone that might be hiding in plain sight.

“What?” Malcolm asked.

Leo laughed, trying to not sound like an idiot and falling far short of the mark even to his own ears. “Nothing. Saw something on the shoulder back there.”

Malcolm went back to the phone without responding and Leo resumed driving in silence, trying to shake the image of the woman, staring at him blankly from behind dark curls of hair, the pale green hospital gown hanging off of her in tatters.

She was in the back seat again.

He saw her in the heartbeat of a moment before swiveling back to look again, this time swerving as he did so, causing Malcolm to bounce off his door grabbing for the phone that squirted out of his fingers.

“Christ, would you take it easy, what’s wrong with you?”

Leo was starting to breathe in sharp, ragged pulls. He had seen her. Seen the hospital gown. This time he had even spotted what looked like scorch marks along the edges of the fabric, the smell of sulfur in the air. Maybe it would be better to pull off the road and let Malcolm drive for a while.

The third time he saw her, she was standing in the center of the road, staring them down as they bore down on her.

Her mouth opened into a shriek that matched the volume of Leo’s scream as he reflexively pulled his hands back to cover his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Malcolm yelled as he reached for the wheel. Somehow, he still hadn’t seen the woman himself. He didn’t even seem to see her when she reappeared in the car and reached out to pull his hands from the wheel, returning the car to its collision course, through the guard rail, off the edge of the cliff and down to the jagged shoals far below.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Vila

The storm had caught them all unaware, as the workers scrambled around the farm, trying to secure everything before things really got started. So far, the wind was causing the fence to flex, dangerously close to the breaking point, the howl of the frigid wind nearly drowned out the crashes of thunder and lightning coming from just over the horizon.

The frantic work slowed to a stop as one by one, the men spotted the woman walking towards them, down the hills high above the farm. She wore a simple white dress, but the fabric shimmered against the gray clouds like dazzling search lights. The light emanating from her was so bright, it obscured most of her facial features as she approached.

From somewhere off in the distance, they began to hear the tinny sound of music, carried to them from somewhere, on the wind from what sounded like an old transistor radio. As the woman approached the first of the laborers, she stepped forward into his arms and began to lead him in a slow, simple dance. They moved together in a tight circle and eventually she allowed him to take the lead as they moved. Their bodies pressed up against one another. She lifted her face and it looked like she was whispering in his ear, taking his earlobe between her lips for the briefest of seconds before breaking the embrace and moving on to the next man. As she approached him, she did the same as the first, allowing him to take a turn, wrapped up in her arms while the first man stood there in a daze. In this fashion, she made her way from man to man, dancing with each with the same intimate familiarity.

It wasn’t until the foreman began dancing with her that he noticed the workers starting to collapse to the ground, chests heaving, clawing at their necks, which were distended from the effort to find air that had been lost. He spun around in the woman’s grasp, unable to stop their movement. Dead and dying bodies stretched out in a line from them as they turned to the music. He was starting to panic but, bizarrely noticed that despite his spiking fear, he was also feeling the arousal of her touch, the feel of her skin pressed against his.

His chest began to grow tight as he looked down into her eyes and saw deep, empty black sockets that he hadn’t noticed before. Her arms wrapped tighter and pulled him in close. She rubbed up against him and as he struggled to breathe, he vaguely felt the power of his own climax, even while succumbing to darkness, all while wrapped inside of billowing flashes of dazzling white.

Issue #129

Less than an hour. She would walk right through those doors, the one, the queen bitch of them all. The one everyone was afraid of.

Everyone, except for Jordan. She didn’t have anything left to lose. She also couldn’t afford to be afraid of the Rage. She knew how important the task at hand was, but also because her own anger was still so potent.

The memory was still vivid in her mind, as time had failed to rub it completely from her consciousness. She remembered coming around the bend, feeling something sharp cut across her ankle, and then the sight of the floor rushing up at her. That was what it seemed like, not the experience of falling, but that the floor had actually taken wing and somehow attacked her. The void of darkness had been gradually dispelled, within the cocoon of a hospital bed with monitors and nurses all around her.

She didn’t know how the bitch had done it, just that it had been her.

Of course, it had been the Rage.

Rikki the Rage. The worst part was that the Rage didn’t even roll for a specific team, it was more like she toured the countryside, acting as a headhunter for her own best interests, winning happiness and satisfaction through the pain of others. She would move into town and attach herself to a local team that she wanted to hang with for a short period of time. Inevitably, there would come the time when her “teammates” would grow tired of her, and then it was off to try and find a new set of suckers to take a chance with her. Sometimes teams would bring her in just to sell tickets. Come on down and see what crazy shit the Rage was up to this time. Other times, the team just didn’t know any better. Regardless, the end result was generally the same. She wore a blood-red bandanna with the words, “The Rage” scrawled across in giant, purple letters.

Jordan had been in rehab for months. And part of her knew that there was no way that the Rage could have predicted that. She would have no way of knowing about the re-injury that would happen shortly after, or the mild addiction to the pain meds that had been over-prescribed, or the fact that Jordan would eventually lose her job from being in a constantly foul, and dismissive mood with everyone. She blamed the mood swings on the accident. None of this would have happened or been an issue, until she was knocked to the ground from behind. When that bitch took her out, and knocked her down.

There was no way she could really blame the Rage for what had happened, but she was going to do it anyway. And that bitch was going to pay for as many things as Jordan could stick her with.

Jordan had been unable to come back to play because of her ankle never fully recovering, but she had managed to get herself a position as team mascot/equipment manager/pity-party planner. As such, she was able to peek at the schedule and see who they had coming up, the team that the Rage just happened to be rolling with at the moment. And tonight was the night she would be walking out of that locker room and down this hall.

This would be the night she was made right again.

She could hear the sound of the music system in the hallway, distorted and tinny as it made its way in through the walls. She was crouched in between a set of lockers and the wall, and she looked up at the sound of the locker door and at the bitch as she strolled past, not bothering to pay attention to anything around her. Why would she? It wasn’t like there was anyone else out there to concern herself with. Just another hallway in another faceless building, leading, more than likely, to another bloodbath at her own hands. She didn’t bother herself with other people because, as far as she concerned, they were all just lining up to be her next victim. The tiger didn’t concern herself that much with the food, she just ate it.

Tonight would be different. Tonight, Jordan would get to know what it felt like to be the hunter.

* * *

The Rage laced up her boots and sat there, waiting for the rest of her team to start heading for the track. She couldn’t stand being associated with the likes of them, and part of her wished that she could be going out there to hurt them. One day, she could come back here as a part of another team and she would do just that. In the meantime, she would go through the motions and get what satisfaction there was to be had for her.

When the sound of the flock of idiots faded away, she  peeked out through the door and saw that the hall was empty. Reaching up, she pulled the knot on her bandanna as tight as she could get it, kicked the door open, and stepped out and into the hall.

Before she was halfway to the entrance to the ramp, she detected the feel and sound of glass crunching under her feet. She stopped and glared down at the floor, shocked that places like this were able to keep their doors open. She would have some choice words for the owner of this dump. Or maybe she’d take the liberty to wreak the locker room, or lob some flaming comments from a safe distance away, via social media.

She was still engrossed in the glass scattered across the hallway and didn’t hear the sound of the wheels rolling up on her.until the crunching of more glass made her jump. The Rage looked up in time to see the vending machine, almost on top of her. She yelled as she jumped out of the way, feet sliding on the glass, causing her to fall against the wall, feet extended awkwardly out in each direction. The machine missed one foot and rolled over the other. She heard the dry snapping from her leg before her head filled with the intensity of her own scream. Light exploded around her and she felt her awareness slide, as her jaw clamped down, teeth biting into and through her tongue. Her foot lolled lifelessly at the end of her leg, now stuck at a sickeningly unnatural angle.

The Rage fell back onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling as her breathing started to go shallow. She heard footsteps, as someone walked up and leaned over her. Her hopes of help from a stranger rapidly dwindled at the familiar face that loomed in, one of many pathetic faces she had sent on their way to an emergency room.

“Please…” she tried to talk, but the sentence soon collapsed into a volley of heaving coughs and her mouth began to fill with blood.

“No,” the girl said as she hobbled closer on that bad ankle. “I don’t think so.”

“You can’t…get—”

“I think I can. You see…” She reached behind her and produced a long, thin baton and waved it over her. “Here’s what just happened. You came after me with this. I barely got away in time. It was just my luck that that vending machine broke loose and came rolling down here, just as I was trying to run away.”

The Rage shook her head, biting her lip to try and focus. “…didn’t … happen.”

The girl laughed at her. “I think I did. I think that’s what happened because that’s what I say happened. And they’re all going to back me up.”

She nodded over her shoulder and this time, The Rage saw the others, surely this crazy bitch’s teammates, lined up and glaring at her, nodding their agreement. The girl smiled again, an unhinged smile that made The Rage shudder all the way down to what was left of her heart. The girl’s hands tightened on the baton, held it out and, before The Rage could fully comprehend what was happening, she began to strike herself in the face, shattering her nose and lacerating her cheeks. It was at least six strikes before she stopped, stooped over and placed the baton in The Rage’s open palm. She bent down over the Rage and smiled at her through bloodied and broken teeth. “Now they’ll have to believe my story. No sane person would ever do something like this to themselves. They’ll be here any minute and they’ll find us here like this,” she said as she stood up, giggling hysterically. Her laughing cut off as the sound of the doors at the end of the hall came to them and the Rage heard two of the officials, shouting out to find out what was going on. Before they got close enough to hear her, the girl grinned one last time as she looked down at the Rage and spoke in a sarcastic, mocking voice, “Wait, I need to practice for them before they get here.”

She cleared her throat and put on an expression of an exaggerated parody of fear and spoke, barely above a whisper.

“Please help me, I think she was trying to kill me!”

Baked Scribe Flashback : Umibozu

Barry looked up from putting the bait on the line. “What did you just say?”

Otis shrugged as he fiddled with his pole and reached into the cooler for another beer. “I don’t know, it’s something my mother used to say all the time. Umi-something. I don’t even know if I said it right.”

Barry shook his head and turned his attention back to the line. “And you just blurt it out at random times? What’s the point of—”

“I don’t know, what’s the point of you owning every romantic comedy that’s ever been made over the past ten years?”

Barry pursed his lips to cut off the retort. There wasn’t any point in constantly upping the nastiness, regardless of how much of an idiot Otis was being.

“Do you…” Barry glanced over his shoulder at the sound from the starboard side. Otis looked as well, and they both rose slowly to the their feet at the sight of the figure climbing up out of the water and into the boat.

“What the hell?” Barry muttered.

The person stood slightly taller than the both of them. It wore a long black robe with a hood that obscured most of its face, reminding Barry of the clothes a priest or monk might wear.

He sensed that Otis was stepping forward, as if he was going to welcome the thing aboard. What else could you call it? It wasn’t like anyone could have swum out this far, in the middle of open waters like this.

The thing moved so quickly, it was like it had simply vanished and reappeared right in front of them. A freezing cold hand was placed against his chest, and shoved him across the boat where he fell, feeling a sharp blow to the back of his head.

Some indeterminate time later, Barry rose up, out of the darkness to see the thing holding Otis’ head, submerged in the water and melted ice of the cooler. He watched as his friend’s legs twitched once, twice and then were still.

The intruder stood up slowly, turning towards Barry with a face still shrouded. There was sudden movement, and the boat started to shift from left to right. Barry tried to grip the side of the ship as the rocking grew more severe, but in a moment, he was on his back, rolling down towards the intruder. He was lifted up into the air as the boat capsized and splashed down into the cold water. The arms that wrapped around him felt dead to the touch, the sensation spreading into his limbs as his own arms and legs grew numb and non-responsive. He tried to tread water, but his arms only floated uselessly alongside him. His head was shoved down, and held just under the surface of the water. He could feel the cool breeze of life-saving air kissing the back of his neck as his vision began to blur and fade into nothing.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Tiddy

Figuring out how to put an end to the project upriver was the only way she could save the town. The offense that had been perpetuated by the foreign investors had to be corrected. Otherwise, each and every one of them could end up dead because, once the creature had exacted its revenge, it would almost certainly turn on the town itself. The problem was actually being able to convince the company.

News had made its way down the river about the problems that had already plagued the work site. The weather would turn on them in a moment, heavy fog rolling in to overtake them. When the fog finally lifted, they would find equipment wrecked and often, injured workmen. A few people had gone missing, and others had reported seeing something darting around the site, short as a small child and wearing rags for clothes.

The creature had been a part of the town for longer than anyone could remember. Even the children who had originally given it the nickname “Tiddy” were now themselves senior citizens. The people of the town had made peace with it long ago but, if this offense was allowed to continue, none of that would matter. The thing would rip its way through as many people as it required in order to regain the water it so desperately needed.

She knew that this had all started when the company had diverted the river, denying the creature its access to the water that it loved more than life itself. The water was its life and now that it was gone, the benevolence, which they had grown to expect from the local creature, turned into rage, and a thirst for vengeance.

She would have to convince them to stop the project altogether. The only way to lift this curse would be to cease any work and return the river to its original course. Nothing else would suffice. It was the only way that Tiddy would be satisfied.

Chances were likely that the investors would just laugh her out of the room, assuming they even agreed to meet with her. There was little or no chance that they would give in to any suggestion, not if it meant losing their all-sacred dollars. Hunger and greed demanded satisfaction, unaware of the perils that they were putting everyone into. She knew her chances were slim. That was why she had brought the backup plan.

She had to protect what mattered.

Running a hand once more into her bag, she felt the outline of the explosives that she could only pray she wouldn’t have to use.

Issue #128

Davis slammed an open palm down onto the table, causing the laptop to hop up into the air and the coffee to do a little tilt-a-whirl inside the mug. Locked up again. No matter how many times he installed the patches and updates that IT provided, nothing ever seemed to make any difference. He couldn’t get anything done, but of course the ass-hats in the offices upstairs never seemed aware of any problems relating to hardware. They expected the same results at the same time, every week. What did they care about whether or not what they were asking for was possible? All they cared about was the shortest possible route between them and their private jets and yachts.

He clenched his fists, closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing. Nothing was going to be fixed or accomplished if he let himself go down another rage spiral like this. He needed to get it together, and just deal with the problem. So the computer was going to throw up roadblocks, he would just have to deal with it until he heard from IT. What other choice did he have?

Davis jumped at the sound of his phone ringing, pausing to clench his eyes shut at the embarrassing shout that had nearly escaped his lips. It was just so rare for his phone to ring in the first place, let alone at this time of night when he was pretty sure that the only other people in the building were the janitorial staff. He picked it up, half expecting something to crawl out at him from the device.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Rankin, this is Shelly down in IT, I just wanted to let you know that we think we have resolved your issue, and I just sent up a file for you to install on your system.”

Again, he found himself looking around, as if someone was putting him on, with an overly-elaborate prank. He looked up at the clock again. “Kind of late for you guys, isn’t it?”

There was a chuckle on the other end. “Sometimes it ends up that way sir. When you get the flash drive, just insert it into your primary USB drive. The patch will auto-install and you should have no more issues.”

It was hard to not respond with sarcasm.

“Yeah, you guys have told me that before.”

“Sorry for the frustration, sir. Sometimes the gremlins in the machine are a little more of a challenge than we would like.”

Davis was scrolling through his memory, trying to recall if he had ever had someone from IT actually call him. He smiled a little at the thought of how all those socially inept tech-nerds were likely dealing with actually having a woman working with them when he realized that the line on the other end had gone dead. Shelly, apparently, was not much for small talk.

There was a light tapping on the door and Davis ambled over, opening the door slowly and peeking out, half hoping that he was going to be able to put a face to the voice on the other end of that phone. As he pulled the door open, however, he saw that there was no one there. He looked out into the hall, but it was empty. The thought started to form that he had imagined it, when he caught a glimpse at something on the ground and bent over to pick it up.

It was a flash drive, slightly smaller than a dime. He wondered why the kid who brought it up had just left something this small, waiting to be stepped on or sucked up into the vacuum cleaners. Probably didn’t matter much to IT, just one more from what was probably a shoe box full of these things. He closed his office door, settled back down at his desk and pushed the drive into the port.

Immediately, his system interface opened up a DOS control window, something he hadn’t seen since he was in junior high school. He stared at the prompt, waiting for a command to auto-fill, when the screen scrambled into a wild pix-elated mess, froze for several seconds and blinked off and on, back to normal. It was so quick he almost didn’t notice but then, after a minute it did it again, and again. He stared at the screen for several seconds, blinking, again, and again until, in a sudden moment of realization, it occurred to him that he wasn’t trying to blink his eyes. They snapped shut, out of his control like some kind of essential tremor.

Davis shook his head. He had been going on without sleep for way too long and was clearly feeling the effects. If he didn’t get some rest, something more serious was likely to happen than a few random eye blinkings.

Before he finished articulating that thought in his head, his hand lifted up off the table, raised up to the level of his head, and was brought crashing down, palm first onto the table, causing his plastic cup of pens to jump up into the air and spill its contents everywhere. The silence in the room felt like it had physical weight, as he tried to get his breath. It was like something had picked his own hand up, lifted it up and slammed it back down and at no point did he have control over any of it.

The computer chimed softly and he looked at the screen.

30% installed

This went beyond mere fatigue, this wasn’t normal. He had never heard of anything like this and there was no way that it was somehow—

This time, both of his arms lifted up, took hold of his head and turned it from side to side, wrenching his neck before releasing and slamming both palms down on the desk. He felt stinging pain, and saw that there were streaks of blood, criss-crossing across his hands and wrists.

75% installed

Davis groaned as his feet were lifted up off the floor and pushed off of the wall, causing his chair to move back, spinning at the same time. His arms spun back to try and catch his balance and during all of this, he was just a spectator, increasingly trapped inside of himself. Whenever he tried to do something, he would feel blinding pain pushing out from the inside of his head. His eyes were blinking more rapidly now, as he fumbled around on the inside of his mind, trying to figure out how this had happened, how it was possible.

His body had slipped completely from his awareness and he had been reduced to mere consciousness, watching the world swirl around him. He thought he heard something that vaguely sounded like his own laughter. His hands came into view and reached into the corner to pick up one of the golf clubs from the bag he always kept at work, in case he needed to go on a sudden outing. He watched as the club was hefted in his own hands, as if evaluating its potential as a club. As he felt himself turning to walk out of the office, he caught a glimpse as the computer screen flashed one last time.

Installation complete.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Shadow People

The shadows were melting off of the walls.

Or at least, from the corner of his eye, that was what it looked like. The darkness slid down onto the floor like a thick sludge and coalesced. Even in the darkness of the corner of the room, he still thought he could make out the vague shape of a person standing there, staring at him.

He turned and looked directly into the corner. Of course he saw nothing. Just the dresser and the pile of random, dirty or near-dirty clothes. There was nobody standing there. He was the only one home.

Still, as he turned back to his tablet, he could see the tendrils of darkness reaching out for him, starting to take the solid shape of outstretched hands, of insubstantial darkness.

He shook his head and refused to give in to the urge to look, denied himself the tonic of turning, no matter how much his psyche begged for relief. It couldn’t be the shape of a person there in the shadows, shifting from side to side as if preparing to charge.

The cool air that had been blowing in through the open window began to ebb and then stopped completely. He turned to look, swiveling around in his chair to find that the darkness had swollen to fill the entire room. He sat there alone, wrapped in a cocoon of impenetrable blackness, lit only by the small lamp on his desk. He drew in a sharp breath and, as if breaking through some final barrier, the darkness flooded in to overtake him. The world around him vanished completely as he heard the light bulb shatter and his final breaths caught in his throat.

His consciousness began to drift away as multiple sets of hands reached out through the dark to clutch at him, and he blinked away into nothing, lost forever inside this place, under forever starless skies.

Baked Scribe Flashback : Roused

Clay had already found seven bodies.

They had all been left in various states of destructive disembodiment, sporting horrible wounds and bite marks. Whatever was down here, it was the worst thing he had ever seen.

He walked along the sewer, shining his light down into the murky water, wary of whatever might jump out at him. From the depths, he caught the occasional swirling trail left behind from some kind of aquatic life, just under the surface, but nothing had revealed itself.

In all of his years on the force, there had been plenty of deaths from animal attacks, but never down here. The worst thing that happened in the sewers was that once or twice a year, some kids would come wandering and get lost. Nothing like this. And these were no normal animal attacks, the result of something being spooked into a fight or flight mode. These had been brutal, showing a level of rage he would not have thought possible from an animal.

Still, no sign of anything unusual. He was wasting his time. It wasn’t like some snake that got flushed down some kid’s toilet was engaging in a revenge scheme against the whole town. The bodies had just been dumped down here. It was the only explanation that made sense.

The sound of more splashing, just outside the beam of his light and maybe the sound of something climbing up out of the water made him start to change his mind.

The clamor of claws scrambling out of the drain pipe to his left alerted him to the danger, but much too late. Something heavy flew from the drain and ran into him. All he felt was fur, claws and breath that was like steam off of boiling water. The thing felt like it had to be at least fifty pounds.

Clay grabbed it in a bear hug and threw it as far as he could manage. It hit the ground and skidded, rolling until it ran into the wall and turned back to face him. He saw it clearly in the flashlight beam and recoiled at the sight. It looked like your average rat, only more the size of a German Shepherd.

He stumbled back several steps as the thing charged, screaming and waddling from side to side as it ran, leaping up at him and knocking him back into the water. It bit into his wrist, down to the bone and Clay cried out, bringing his other fist down onto its flank. A long, heavy tree branch floated past and he grabbed it, beating the thing with it. The grip on his arm slackened and he was able to shove it, just far enough away for him to draw his pistol and fire four times into side of the thing’s bulky mass.

By the time the echo of the shots had faded, the body was already floating, lifeless in the water. Clay went to it, nudging it with the barrel of his gun just to be sure it was dead. He flexed his other hand and held his injured wrist to his side.

He was about to head back towards his car when two separate and distinct howls of rage erupted from behind him and he was knocked forward. Two shapes, even larger than the first one rushed past him and the gun flew from his grip to vanish into the water. He stood up to face the giant rats, carbon copies of the first one except much larger.

Mommy and Daddy were pissed.