Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 42

Baked Scribe Flashback : Road Rage

Already, the exact sequence of events was starting to blur in his mind. All he could really remember was the hulking rust pile of a Chevy Nova racing up on him. The car had pitched to the right and left, mere feet off his bumper as he tried to focus on the road ahead of him. This had gone on for several minutes before the Nova had pulled sharply to the left with a scream of tires and horsepower to race past him. He did remember that that was about when he had decided to give the guy the finger.

It was cathartic for about a second. As he lowered his hand, he saw the Nova swerve to the left, spraying dirt and gravel before pulling back onto the road. Through the tinted window, he thought he had seen the driver twist around in his seat to look back. His stomach eased somewhat as the Nova took the next off-ramp and exited the freeway. His relief quickly diminished, though, as he saw the Nova charging ahead, onto the on-ramp, and accelerating back towards the freeway. It was now clear that the guy had only exited so that Cliff would get ahead of him again and he could pull in behind.

He looked back ahead of him, to see the bright green overhead sign for the turnoff onto the tollway and decided to hang the expense. If nothing else, there would be more troopers on this road or, at least the gridlock would slow down the guy enough that maybe he would cool down and give up on whatever reprisal he was planning.

Cliff had never seen the tollway this empty.

There were a handful of cars around, but nothing like the usual cesspool of bumpers and car horns. Not even the cops, who liked to take up residence here, looking to catch speeders. Nothing to create any kind of protective buffer between him and the psycho back there.

A car horn erupted from behind him and he saw the Nova, again right off the bumper, swerving from side to side in an attempt to intimidate.

It was working.

Why couldn’t there be an old fashioned speed trap when you really needed one?

Cliff was knocked back against his seat as the car rocked forward and swerved. The guy had actually rammed him from behind. He saw the Nova in his mirror, now several car lengths back, but looking like it was readying for another charge.

“What the hell?” he screamed as the Nova sped up to run it’s shitty, rusty bumper into the back of Cliff’s car. He cursed himself for not taking the extra minute to walk back into the kitchen for his cell phone.

It was becoming clear as the Nova began to take a third charge, that there was no hope of outrunning the guy and, evidently no help to be expected out here. He began to consider just pulling over and confronting the guy but, for all he knew, he would just end up getting run down by a few tons of metal and rust.

The siren made him jump and practically melt into his seat from relief at the audible tones of his salvation. He promptly pulled over to the shoulder and watched his pursuer do the same. All of this would end up being worth it just to see that crazy getting dragged out of the car and thrown in cuffs as he was stuffed into the back of the police cruiser.

The cop raced past them without even slowing.

Cliff watched the car door of the Nova swing open and the hulking heap of a driver step out. Before he could come any closer, Cliff jumped out, slammed his door and raced around his car to the metal barrier along the side of the road. He scrambled over and made his way down the embankment that leveled out into a parking lot. The building that loomed over him looked like a low end apartment building but, at this point, he couldn’t really care less what it was, so long as he could make some distance. As he pulled open the back door, he could hear feet slapping pavement behind him as well as the sharp, ragged breath of Mr. Friendly.

He took the steps, two at a time and had gotten halfway up the second floor before he heard the door open below and the second set of footfalls on the stairs. The only thing he had going for him at this point was that the other guy looked completely out of shape. If he ever got those meat slabs around Cliff’s throat, it would be all over, but staying ahead of the guy seemed very possible.

There were six floors total. When he got to the fifth, he stopped long enough to kick the door open, hoping that the guy would hear it and think he had stopped there. Trying to keep his footfalls light, he ran up to the next floor and darted through the door. Apartments lined each side as he walked, and even though he imagined the walls to be paper thin, he couldn’t make out any sound as he walked. God forbid there be anyone up there that might help him.

Cliff got to the end of the hall and was looking up at the emergency exit, when the door behind him was thrown open and his new friend, who had not been fooled by his idiotic ruse, came stumbling into the hall. The two men stared at each other from their respective ends of the hallway, and all Cliff could see was the rage residing in those eyes. Cliff backed into the emergency exit, pushed it open and stepped out onto the balcony. The door closed behind him as he turned to try and take advantage of the few seconds he would have to make his decision.

The balcony stood perched alone, attached to the side of the building. There was one thin railing going all around, except for the right side, where Cliff guessed at one point there had been either stairs or a ladder. As of now, there was nothing connecting this balcony to the fifth floor below. Apparently, if there was actually a fire, residents of the sixth floor were supposed to float away, or just not be home.

Cliff was thrown against the railing as the door pushed open, one linebacker-sized, pissed off driver coming at him from the other side. His time to contemplate was done. Cliff took two steps back, ran forward and jumped. He watched the balcony of the next floor rush up at him as he kicked his legs through open air. Somehow, he managed to land squarely in the middle of the balcony, his momentum causing him to bounce, skid across and nearly over the edge. He was able to put a leg out just in time to brace himself against the railing and he winced at the screaming of straining metal.

Cliff stood and raced down, gripping the rail and taking the steps four or five at a time until he passed the fourth floor and was at the third floor balcony, then the second and finally back down to the ground. He took a moment to look back up at the sixth floor where he had started. The guy was still standing up there, glaring down and looking like he knew the chase had been lost. Cliff gave the guy a mock salute and just for good measure, threw him the bird one last time before returning to his car.

Ten minutes later, he was racing down the tollway and back into the kind of traffic he was more accustomed to. He flicked his headlights on and off as he cruised, just off the bumper of the car in front of him who refused to drive just a little faster. Cliff swore under his breath and swerved over to pass the guy, not understanding how some idiots were able to get drivers licenses. Some people actually had to get to work on time. He passed the car and just as their bumpers cleared, he swerved hard, back into the original lane, causing the other driver to swerve in surprise from the near collision.

A Soul Darker (prologue) by AM Yates

He licked his lips. They were dry. Too dry. “Where am I?”

The redhead was beautiful—curvy, pouty-lipped, green-eyes that seemed to glow. She gazed placidly at him from a folding table positioned in front of his cage.

That’s right, a damned cage, barely bigger than a dog run.

His knuckles were swollen and bruised from slamming his fists against the steel bars. His throat ached from screaming for hours after the first time he’d awoken, only to find himself trapped in a seemingly deserted warehouse—high ceiling with exposed steel beams, distant halogen lamps spreading faint halos of light on cold gray concrete. After a while, he’d passed out again, stinking of his own urine.

When he’d woken the second time, he’d found his wrists bound behind him and this woman watching him. The redhead.

Yet he couldn’t locate that burning rage anymore. In fact, he couldn’t feel much of anything.

Drugged, probably, he mused. The thought didn’t spark even the faintest flicker of emotion.

The redhead flipped open a folder. He’d seen dozens like them before. His eyes narrowed.

“You a cop?” he asked. And then, after taking in her slacks, silk blouse, and expensive leather flats, asked, “Lawyer?”

She ran her manicured nails over the top sheet in the folder, ignoring his questions. Definitely lawyer. He’d had dozens. None of them worth a damn. But if this was a holding cell, it wasn’t like any he’d seen. And he’d seen plenty. The rope cutting into his wrists wasn’t standard issue either. Suddenly, his pulse began to race. Sweat broke out over his face, running into the stubble that had been growing on his cheeks and down his neck. He shoved back into the corner of the cage.

“Where am I?” he asked again, cringing at the high-pitched strain in his voice.

Was that his voice? He didn’t panic. He never panicked.

Her gaze was on him again, fixed, unblinking. She interlaced her fingers on top of the papers.

After a moment, his heart-rate slowed. The needling claws of panic retracted. His breath evened out.

Had he been upset? He couldn’t quite recall.

“I have a couple of questions for you.” Her voice was soft and melodic. An angel’s. “Will you answer them?”

He nodded.

“Your name?”

“John.” His mouth seemed to move of its own accord, the words simply pouring out. “John Michael Olsen.”

She nodded, giving him a small smile. His body relaxed further, sinking against the bars. The cage wasn’t so bad. He’d been in worse places. Hell, he’d lived in worse places.

“John Olsen,” she said, those crimson-red lips curving upwards, friendly, sympathetic. She was on his side, he could tell—he just knew. “Have you ever hurt anyone?”

His head was nodding again. The dark-place part of him growled for him to shut up, but he didn’t have to listen to that voice anymore, or feel the things it wanted him to feel.

He smiled back at the pretty lawyer.

“Yes,” he said.

“Who have you hurt?” she asked.

“People,” he said. “Lots.”

She nodded encouragingly. “Tell me.”

He did. The petty thefts, the burglaries, the rapes.

And it felt good to confess to the green-eyed angel.

So good. Like cleansing his soul.

According to her latest random social media quiz results, A.M. is Yoda, Jean-Luc Picard, Jon Snow, Luna Lovegood, Michonne, and a liter of generic soda. She should actually live in Oregon or West Virginia or London, but she’s probably not-at-all British. She’s a Harmony-Seeking Idealist, who should be a writer. Hey, if the quiz says it, it must be true.

Summoners is her debut YA series.
Read the rest of A Soul Darker free at Wattpad

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Baked Scribe Flashback : Countdown

He let his body relax into the recliner, watching the cigarette burn down into a long, unkempt cylinder of ash. He had only taken one drag from it the entire time since lighting it, and the rest of the time had been spent gazing down at it, watching the paper dissolve into wafting pieces of spent carbon.The wind was picking up outside, making the two by fours he had nailed over the windows thunk softly against the siding. It was going to be another cold night, especially since the generator had run dry just that morning. At least there were enough blankets, and the canned food wasn’t going to be running out any time soon. Could be there was even enough juice left in the batteries to keep the flashlight going for a few more nights.

Despite the fact that all the windows were boarded over, the darkness outside still seemed to bleed into the house as the blackness around him swelled with its own life and intentions. It wouldn’t be long before he would hear them, shuffling around the house in their nocturnal wanderings. The moans were the worst, those disembodied lifeless vocalizations, so it was good that they would likely be drowned out tonight.

The last few nights, there had actually been entire packs of the things making their way past the house. He watched them from the upstairs as he peeked through a knothole in one of the boards. The herds were terrifying to watch but, it was the lone stragglers that scared him even more. At least with a herd, the things had something to follow. Alone, there was much more chance of wandering.

He reached down to the table and ran his finger around the mouth of the bottle of bourbon before reaching past and picking up the Smith & Wesson. The weight of the thing was reassuring, even though he knew, deep down, that it also would represent his ultimate demise. Better for it to happen at his own hand than from one of those mindless freaks out there.

For now, he still had a few rounds left, and could use it to protect himself, the last one being reserved for himself. He sat forward and pitched what was left of the cigarette into the fireplace and took a long drink from the whiskey. If any of those things got too close to the house, they would get what was rightly coming to them and he would be one spent bullet closer to oblivion.

Patricia Saves the Beauty Queen, by Samantha Bryant

This short story features Patricia O’Neill, who later became one of the main characters in Samantha’s upcoming novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel, released by Curiosity Quills on April 23, 2015. The book is now available for pre-order at: https://curiosityquills.com/kindle/change/
The image used below is the creation of Charles C. Dowd. Click here for some more of his great work!

Patricia stared at the phone in her hand incredulously, then put it back to her ear. The muted TV mounted above the stonework gas fireplace in her living room showed the news camera images of the gunman pacing the catwalk at the mall’s main stage, pulling some teeny-bopper beauty queen along by her hair. The scrolling text at the bottom was screaming something about hostages and gunfire. Suzie had insisted she watch, and now was demanding that she do something about it. Patricia was exasperated. “Why the hell should I?”Suzie squawked on the other end, something about it being the right thing to do, people who can help should help, higher standards, moral duty. Blah, blah, blah. Someone’s mother was on screen now, all smeared mascara and clasped hands. Pathetic loser.

“Suzie, I’m not Peter Parker. I don’t buy the whole ‘great power comes with great responsibility’ racket. I didn’t ask for this and I don’t owe anyone anything.”

Patricia’s strange affliction had come on a few months ago, along with the hot flashes and hormonal bullshit. The Change, indeed. What she had at first mistaken for an especially bad patch of eczema, had developed into thick scales and had eventually spread over her entire body, rendering her very skin invulnerable to damage. Now, her reputation as an old battle-axe was more than just metaphorical.

Her intern Suzie, the eternal optimist and idealist, with the moral righteousness that only the very young can spout unselfconsciously, kept claiming that there was some greater meaning to it all, that “Everything happens for a reason.” She kept pushing Patricia to make some kind of use of her condition, to do something for the public good. Patricia didn’t see the point. What reason could there possibly be? She was a just a victim of some bad chemistry, an herbal remedy gone wrong. Suzie’s sweetness gagged her sometimes.

But Suzie was her boss’s niece as well as her intern, and Patricia needed her. Suzie kept Mr. Braun from noticing how often Patricia was working from home while they worked together on ways to control and disguise her condition. So, maybe Patricia did have to “do something” if only to keep Suzie on her side.

She sighed into the phone dramatically. “Okay, fine. I’ll go.”

#

It wasn’t that difficult to get around the police perimeter. Springfield was still very small town for all its recent growth, and the police were not accustomed to dealing with these kinds of situations. Patricia had driven around the outer ring of the mall and seen that all the cars were gathered near the central entrance, by the food court. There were officers milling around outside the mall, and probably more inside.

The side entrance, on the other hand, was watched only by a mall rent-a-cop, who probably hadn’t been informed about what was going on at the main entrance. Patricia’s half-brother had done this job for a while, back in Illinois. He was always complaining about what the higher-ups didn’t tell him.

This man was leaning against the car window of pretty blonde in what was probably her father’s sports car, chatting her up. He didn’t even notice when Patricia simply walked up, skirting the hedges to stay as far out of view as she could, opened the door and went inside.

She was surprised to see a boy standing behind the counter in the small coffee shop just inside the entrance. She walked in. He didn’t react, even when she tapped her fingers on the counter, until she reached across the counter and tugged on the strings of his headphones, popping one out of one of his ears.

“Sorry, lady. What can I get you?”

This idiot didn’t even know he was supposed to have evacuated the mall. Patricia didn’t enlighten him. “I want a raspberry mocha, soy milk, no whipped cream, with a dusting of dark chocolate on top. I have something to take care of. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Have it ready.” She left a five dollar bill on the counter.

Without waiting for his response, Patricia turned on her heel and went into the empty mall. The mall wasn’t bad with no people in it, she thought, pausing to read the mall map. The mainstage was outside the JCPenney on the first level. She was just around the corner from all the action. Maybe this would be fun after all.

Patricia took off her jacket and laid it on a bench. She took off the low-heeled slides she could still wear over her enlarged feet and slid them beneath. Then, she took a deep breath and stretched her arms in a wide circle around her. As she pushed out her breath through her nose, she flexed her arms and upper back and felt the spikes pop out. It didn’t hurt. Very little could hurt her these days, at least physically, but it felt strange, sort of like feeling the rumble of distant thunder through your feet or chest.

It was a vague sensation. If it weren’t for the additional weight the plates put on her frame, she might have thought she imagined the prickly sort of feeling as they sprang up.

It was stranger still when she rotated her head and felt the scales spread up her neck and onto her cheeks. Those she could feel. It was like they slipped out from secret compartments in her skull and slid into place, forming a protective mask. There was a rustling sound as they configured themselves under her hair and around her eyes and ears. She’d never get used to that.

Patricia checked the effect in the reflective glass of the darkened Bible bookstore. The creature she saw there was broad and fierce, covered in grey-green scales with spikes sticking out of the back and shoulders. Her white tank top was stretched to its maximum and now had holes up the back where the backs plates had sprouted bumps. The black yoga pants were similarly strained.

Even after all these months to adjust, it was always a jolt to see herself this way. The only thing that still looked like her to her was the shock of red hair she paid her stylist to maintain for her. It looked very red against the scales. Otherwise, she looked like some kind of alien, or maybe a bipedal dinosaur, one wearing yoga clothes from NorthFace.

She walked through the mall as quietly as she could, but her heavy footsteps seemed to echo against the glass storefronts. Some of the windows and pull-down security cages shook as she walked by. She hadn’t weighed herself yet fully armored, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t like the number.

When she turned the corner, she could see the scene. She wanted to laugh. How cliché! The gunman was a twenty year old white kid with black emo hair hanging in his face, wearing an army coat over a black teeshirt that said, she was sure, something hip and ironic, and holding a big black machine gun of some sort. Where did he think they were? Hollywood? It’s been done, little man. Did no one have any originality any more?

He was still standing on the stage, holding a skinny little blonde girl by her up-do, just like she’d seen him in the news footage. The girl’s strapless blue sparkly dress stayed, amazingly, perfectly in place. Beauty-queen duct tape, Patricia guessed. Imagine what she could have done with that kind of inventive mind, if applied to something that actually mattered.

Surrounding them at a short distance, officers in riot gear stood behind ballistic shields or near barriers, keeping their guns trained on the pair. Patricia tapped one on the shoulder. “Who’s in charge here?” she asked, her voice strangely husky and thick. Yuck! Even her tongue felt scaly.

The boy blinked and gestured with his head–“Captain’s over there.”

“Thanks.” Patricia could feel it as all the officers in the room began to take notice of her. The boy on the stage kept pulling at the girl. He was ranting about something, but Patricia didn’t have the patience to try and work it out. It didn’t matter. He was just another attention-seeking lunatic. She didn’t care why he was doing it. She was there to make him stop. She felt a rush of pleasure at the thought that she could indeed stop it. It was powerful, knowing that this boy would not get to victimize that girl. Not on her watch.

Patricia approached the group of uniformed officers that had been pointed out to her, watching as they went silent one by one, their weapons falling to their sides, forgotten as they struggled to wrap their minds around what they were seeing. She suppressed a desire to laugh aloud. “Captain,” Patricia called out. A red-haired boy turned around. She supposed he might be twenty-five, but he looked twelve. He also looked frightened, whether at her or the general situation, she couldn’t tell. “You might want to get your men behind the barriers. If this jerk shoots me, I don’t want anyone catching the ricochet.” The boy-captain reached out and grabbed her bicep, like he intended to stop her. As if he could. Patricia shook off his hand forcefully and heard him hit the floor behind her as she strode back towards the stage. She hoped he would have the good sense to take her advice and get his men sheltered.

The gunman had loosened his grip on the girl, looking slack jawed at the creature approaching him. But he pulled her tight when Patricia got near. The girl squeaked, like some kind of mouse or rabbit. “Don’t come any closer!” The boy shouted, his voice cracking, “I’ll shoot.”

“Go ahead honey. If it makes you feel better,” Patricia said, stepping onto the stage. The struts groaned under her heavy steps, but it seemed like they would hold. She hoped so anyway. Her approach would lose some menace if she fell through the structure and got stuck. She took another step. The structure held. She smiled and flexed her facial muscles, causing the nictitating membrane to flicker across her eyes.

The boy gasped just as she had expected. Patricia could see the panic in his eyes, but he still brought the gun level. “I mean it!”

“I’m sure you do.” Patricia didn’t stop walking. The boy loosed his hold on the girl who fell like a dropped handkerchief at his feet. He gripped the weapon with both hands and opened fire. Patricia was sure that the bullets had hit her. How could he miss at this distance, after all? But she didn’t feel a thing.

She closed the remaining space between them in two steps, pulled the gun from his grip with one of her hands and slapped him with the other. His head snapped back and he fell like a scarecrow, boneless, out cold. Things like jaws didn’t hold up very well against her armored skin, even when she didn’t use much force. His was probably broken. She’d been feeling kind of cranky when she slapped him.

Patricia turned to the young woman, still laying there playing damsel in distress. “Girl,” she hissed, “Get out of here. Maybe this’ll teach you not to try to get by on just your looks.” The girl slid off the stage and ran sobbing toward the waiting police officers.

Patricia turned to the crowd, saluted with two fingers and bounded off the stage, stalking away with a confident stride, moving as quickly as her bulk allowed. She wasn’t interested in letting the authorities find out who she was just yet.

As she walked, she began her calming breathing, By the time the officers and the camera crew snapped out of their surprise and began calling for her to stop, she had ducked into an open clothing store, hidden herself inside a clothing rack, and settled down to wait for her spikes to retract.

It was a lot faster this time. Suzie had apparently been right about the yoga and meditation techniques. She was able to shift back to her normal appearance in the space of only a few minutes. Finding that the coast was clear, Patricia slipped out the door and walked back to the bench where she’d left her jacket and shoes. She was glad to have the jacket to cover the ruin of her tank top. There wasn’t much she could do about the pants, but that’s how it goes sometimes when you try and help people. She patted the jacket pockets and found her phone, keys and money clip all intact. She checked the messages and saw Suzie’s text, “I knew you could do it.” She had to admit that it had felt good, pushing back the bully. Maybe Suzie had something after all, about using what had happened to her to do some good in the world.

#

When she stopped by the coffee shop again, the place was still empty, but the kid was no longer entranced by his own tunes. He was watching the Breaking Story television coverage of the fight with wide eyes. Patricia tried to smile. “My coffee?” The boy pushed a cup towards her, only half looking at her. Patricia tried a sip and nearly spit it out. “What the hell is this?”

“Um, a cherry mocha with whipped cream?”

“One out of three, Sonny Boy. Here, you drink it.” She shoved the cup back at the boy and turned and left. Seriously. Why did she even bother?

Samantha Bryant believes in love, magic, and unexplainable connections between people. Her favorite things are lonely beaches, untamed cliff tops, sunlight through the leaves of trees, summer rains, and children’s laughter. She has lived in many places, including rural Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Vermont, England and Spain. She is fierce at heart, though she doesn’t look it.
She’s a fan of Charlotte Brontë, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Neil Gaiman, Nicole Perlman, and Joss Whedon, among many others. She would like to be Amy Tan when she grows up, but so far it doesn’t look like she’ll be growing up any time soon.
Samantha writes blogs, poems, essays, and novels. Mostly she writes about things that scare or worry her. It’s cheaper than therapy. Someday, she hopes to make her living solely as a writer. In the meantime, she also teaches middle school Spanish, which, admittedly, is an odd choice for money-earning, especially in North Carolina.
When she’s not writing or teaching, Samantha enjoys time with her family, watching old movies, baking, reading, and going places. Her favorite gift is tickets (to just about anything).
Explore the worlds of Samantha Bryant at the following links:
Amazon author page

Click to pre-order my book

Facebook author page

Goodreads author page

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CQ author page

Baked Scribe Flashback : Long Last Victory

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!”

Old Stony Bridge by Joseph Rubas

I’ve worked for the National Park Service for over fifteen years, and in my time I’ve seen some pretty strange things, weird footprints, ghostly lights, things in the night sky, Satanic altars hidden away in dark corners of the forest. None, however, top Old Stony Bridge.When I first started with the service, I was living and working in Oregon, south of Portland. A year later, however, I was given the opportunity to move east; there was a shortage of rangers in the nineties, and they were desperately needed in Virginia, West Virginia, and New York. I put in for a transfer to Upstate New York, but, unbeknownst to me, that position had already been filled. Within a week, I was offered a spot at Virginia’s George Washington National Forest.

I initially passed, but, after talking to my parents, I decided to accept. In June 1999, I drove all my worldly possessions across the country in a rented U-Haul and moved into a tiny one-bedroom house in the rural highlands north of Harrisonburg; my nearest neighbors were three miles down the road, and they were a part of a large Mennonite community. The outskirts of Harrisonburg rose out of the pastureland less than ten miles away, but, sitting on my front porch that first night, exhausted from unpacking, I felt as though I were living on the frontier in the 1840s. Perhaps ten cars passed by on a busy day, and at night it was so quiet all you could hear were crickets and banjos.

My first day on the job, however, more than made up for it; I’ve always been an outdoorsman, and the GW Forest was my paradise. Lush and green, the forest covers roughly 1.8 million acres across three states, with over a million of those acres completely undeveloped. A number of roads and trails, including part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, crisscrossed the woodland, but, for the most part, it was pure and unspoiled.

My boss, Ted Houser, a plump man in his mid-fifties, made it a point to show me every square inch of land I’d have jurisdiction over, which amounted to nearly fifty thousand acres. It took us a while, but, in a topless Forestry jeep, we covered it all.

There were signs of humanity here and there, of course, but they were few and far between; a dilapidated cabin here, an abandoned road there, that sort of thing. On the last day of the tour, deep in the heart of the forest, “Ten miles from civilization,” as Ted put it, we came across a cracked blacktop highway overgrown with weeds.

“Old logging road,” Ted told me as we turned onto it and followed it, the treetops so close together overhead that hardly any sunlight filtered through. “Closed down back in 1946. No one uses it anymore. A lot of people get kinda spooked out here.”

“Why?” I asked.

Ted shrugged. “Kind of a spooky place, I guess. And Old Stony Bridge don’t help none.”

“Old Stony Bridge?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

Less than five minutes later, Ted took a little dirt road sloping off of the main track, and we followed that for about ten minutes, pressing deeper into the heart of the forest, before coming out on a wide, rocky flat that, I surmised, had once been a river.

Ted killed the engine and looked at me. “I don’t believe in ghosts or curses or anything like that, okay? But Stony Bridge…man, I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

Ted turned in his seat and pointed east, up the riverbank. There, obscured by overgrowth, was a stone bridge, perhaps a hundred-and-fifty feet high. “Watch.”

I did. Two, three minutes ticked sluggishly by, and then, something fell from the bridge, turning end over end, before splattering on the rocks below.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“That was an animal,” he said, “I don’t know what kind yet, but it’s an animal, and it killed itself.

I must have looked like as incredulous as I felt, because Ted got slightly defensive. “It happens all the time. I don’t know why. Animals just…jump off of it.”

“Like…suicide?”

Ted nodded. “Strangest thing too. I saw a fox do it once. Got up on the parapet and leapt. It hit the bottom but didn’t die. Got right back up, dragged his shattered body up the hill, and did it again.”

“Really?”

“I swear to God. I’m not playing.”

I didn’t think he was.

“Why?” I asked. “Why do they do it?”

“No one knows. Some scientists were out here back in the eighties and said it could be some kind of scent drawing them, but why in the name of God would they jump off the bridge when they can go around? You know?”

I looked up at the bridge. “How many?”

“I don’t know. It’s a lot. I usually come out here two, three times a month and carry the bodies off. I’d say at least twenty, thirty a month. All kinds, too. Foxes, dogs, mice, even, deer, a few bears…weird stuff.”

Maybe it was Ted’s story, but, suddenly, I could see why people shunned this place; the air was too cold, the light too dim, the atmosphere too dark.

“Has a person ever jumped off?”

Ted didn’t answer. He started up the Jeep. Neither of us spoke on the ride back. I almost asked again, but didn’t press the issue; his silence was answer enough.

Over the next couple years, I never thought of the bridge until I had to go there and clean up all the bodies. Ted wasn’t lying. Thirty or thirty-five a month, never more than thirty-six and never less than twenty-eight. I hated those thrice-monthly excursions; not only was it hard work, but the place felt…evil, that’s the closest I can get. There was a thickness in the air. And every time I found myself out there, I felt like I was being watched by some creature in the brush. And every time, as I drove off, I felt stupid. I was acting like a superstitious peasant. There was a rational explanation. That might sound like a cliché, but it’s true. The unexplainable is only unexplainable until it is explained.

Anyway, it was 2005. I did my body detail on the first, thirteenth, and twenty-fifth of every month. On the first of September, I came to work, grabbed the keys from the pegboard in the office, and went to take the Jeep, but Ted stopped me, calling out from his office, “Hey, Tim!”

I backtracked and stuck my head in the door. “What’s up?”

Ted’s office was cramped and disorganized. On any given day, it looked like a bomb had gone off in there. Today, he was hunched over his desk and furiously writing something, most likely an incident report, as a hiker had gone missing the previous day, spending ten hours lost in the woods before we found him.

“If you give me a minute,” he said without looking up, “I’ll come with.”

“Alright.”

It was more like five minutes, but that was okay. I stood in the dayroom, drinking coffee and eating doughnut holes until he was ready.

Finally all set, we climbed into the Jeep and took off. It was hot that day, somewhere on the wrong side of one hundred, and by the time we got to the bridge, we were both baked alive.

Lucky for us, there weren’t as many animals this time around; six, I think, though it could have been seven.

“I’ve never seen this few,” Ted said, getting out of the Jeep.“Hey, I’m not complaining,” I replied. “Less work for me. Maybe…”

Before I could finish, my eyes were drawn almost magnetically to the bridge. There, standing on the parapet, was a woman with long black hair and a white dress, her feet bare and, from what I could see, covered in mud.

Ted saw it too, for he started. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, taking an involuntary step forward.

We looked at each other, neither one knowing what to do. Finally, Ted looked back to the woman and cupped his mouth with his hands. “Hey!” he shouted, “what are you doing? Get down from there!”

Her arms now raised as her sides, the woman jumped.

“No!” Ted screamed.

Splat!

“Jesus!” I screamed, and raced Ted to her side.

Surprisingly, she was still alive. She’d fallen head over heels and landed on her back, no doubt breaking it. Blood pooled beneath her. Her eyes were wide and mesmerized, her lips slowly moving, forming unknowable words, and her nose gushed.

Ted knelt down beside her, reached out to touch her, but yanked his hands back. “We have to do something!” he screamed. “We have to call someone! Load her in the Jeep…”

“We can’t do that,” I moaned. “You can’t move someone with a neck or back injury.”

Ted looked up. “You’re right. Go back to the office and call 911. I’ll stay here.”

“Ted, that’s…”

“Do it!” Ted barked.

I looked down at the woman, shattered on the rocks, and nodded. “Okay.”

It seemed like it took me forever, but I made it back to the station and called 911. At first they were going to send a helicopter, but I convinced them that the forest was too dense there. I told them to send an ambulance to Old Stony Road, which winds from the bridge to Freemason Drive. Done, I raced over to the Gate 18, and waited for the ambulance. When it showed up, I led it down Old Stony Road, over the bridge, and down the little dirt tract.

When I pulled up, I killed the engine and threw open the door. I was half way to the girl’s broken form before I realized that Ted was no longer hunched over her. In fact, he was nowhere at all.

“Ted!” I cried, my voice refusing to echo. “Ted?”

I just happened to glance up at the bridge, and there he was, mechanically climbing the parapet.

“Ted! No!” I screamed.

He stood for a dazed moment, and then jumped.

Splat!

At the precise moment he hit, a frigid breeze ran through the forest, rustling the treetops and knocking my hat off. It sounded not like wind, but voices, a thousand voices babbling in unison.

And there, high upon the bridge, I saw something, something I’ve refused to talk about to this very day, something that prompted me to drop everything and move back to Oregon.

It was a man, an Indian in full regalia, as far as I could tell. But where its head should have been was a skull with burning red eyes and teeth as sharp as a cat’s.

It spoke to me. It told me to come, to join my ancestors in glory. Gazing deeply into its eyes, falling, falling, falling, I almost went. If it hadn’t been for the paramedics shaking me awake, I would have went. God help me, I would have went and I would have jumped…

Baked Scribe Flashback : Sealed, Delivered

The only reason he had come to the house was to deliver the pizza. But from the moment he buzzed, and the door opened, he knew that he was in for a lot more. Whatever the argument that the woman had just finished with the boyfriend or the husband or the girlfriend or whomever, the result was her standing here on the threshold wearing the moist tracks of tears, and barely more than a suggestive smile.Timmy had immediately averted his gaze, suddenly fascinated by the crown molding and the color of the drapes. She was asking him something about accepting special gratuities. He tried to focus on what it would feel like to have a knife driven into him at Jenna’s hands if she ever heard about this incident.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not without a warrant!”

Sweet Relaxation by Blaze McRob

a href=”https://bakedscribe.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/cover.png”>

“So, Bob,” the shrink says, “you need to relax. Your stress level is way too high.”

Rolling my eyes around, counting the tiles in the ceiling, and annoyed by the very fact that I’m even listening to this Bozo, I say, “And just how am I to accomplish this?”

Doc Reynolds knows I hate his guts and the only reason I even see him is because of work related mandates, so he sneers at me before saying, “You have a lot of options. Yoga would be good for one thing.”

I sneer back. “Yeah, right. Like I can sit still for that long or try to become a damn pretzel. That’s not an option.

“You’re making this difficult for me.”

“No pity party from me. Earn your over-inflated salary. Give me a decent solution.”

Now the good doctor looks like he could use some stress reduction.

“You know that my recommendation comes pretty high as to whether you keep your job or not, Bob.”

Now I’m pissed. “Well, doc, it’s like this: you don’t scare me at all. I know I’m the best at what I do, stress or not. So go bark up another tree. What other solutions do you have?”?

Seething, he tries to remain calm. “I know. Relaxation tapes. They’re perfect. Put one in your disk player, or whatever you have, when you go to bed, and the good vibes will be with you while you sleep.”

“Not those stinking flute playing tunes that go on for ever and become annoying within moments?”

“It doesn’t have to be. What about nature sounds? Flowing water from a brook rushing down a mountain stream maybe.”

“I’d probably have to get up in the middle of the night and take a piss.”

“You’re annoying me, Bob.”

“We’re still on the company’s dime, whether you’re annoyed or not. I tell you what: I’m tired of you not doing your job, so I’ll hunt through the stores tonight and find one on my own; one that I like. With the time I’ve saved you, you can grab that flask you keep in your top right draw and down some of your precious hooch.”

The look on his face says it all: how do I know?

“Don’t waste any gray matter thinking this over, doc. Number one, my nose is super sensitive. You smell like a gin mill. Number two, you didn’?t close the drawer all the way. I’m thinking you need to see some professional help about your drinking problem.”

Seeing no sense in staying any longer, I get up and leave. This is the best session I’ve had with Reynolds.

After returning to work, the rest of my day goes pretty good. I still wonder about the shrink mandates in the company. What do they really expect to achieve? Sure there’s stress on the job, but is that an entirely bad thing? Maybe it helps to propel some of us to the next level by firing up the spark of ingenuity and helping us to become better than the guy in the next office. Oh well, I’ll humor the idiot mental health “professional” and look for some tapes.

My search is not going well at all in my favorite purveyor of soothing music. Okay, so my store of choice just happens to have more rock and metal tunes than anything else, but they have to have something to soothe the savage beast.

Yes! In the back with the old cassettes I find what I’m looking for. Nature tunes of all kinds. I’m even remembering the days when these things were produced: the days of warped, fucking flower children trying to spread their bull-shit philosophy to normal people. It didn’t work on me then. Why should it work now?

One of these buggers is talking to me, telling me to pick it up. Whoah! I don’t need this shit. I see the shrink because my company says I have to, not because I need to.

Yet still, I remember something about this particular tape. I never listened to it then, but my thinking has changed. “This is the one,” I think.

I still have a cassette player at home, so I’m all set for my relaxation experience. I pay for this cassette and some Pink Floyd tunes, and out the door I go. This should prove to be an interesting night.

I’m already feeling fairly mellow by the time I go to bed, a few beers and some good music relaxing me. But, I’ll try the doctor’s idea and listen to the cassette while I sleep. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to be more difficult with him than usual.

The tape goes in and I fall asleep, listening to the sounds of the whales as they call out to one another. Over and over again they talk to each other, a strange sound distributed through the water. But . . . but is it as strange as it seems?

Morning comes, and with it a peace I have never felt before. My entire body is enveloped in a surreal feeling of contentment. Reynolds was right. This is what I needed

Two days later I’m back in the doctor’s office, my trusty cassette player and tape in hand.

“What do you have there, Bob?” he asks, not quite sure of what I’m up to.

“I took your advice, doc, and I found the perfect relaxation tape. I thought you might like to listen to it.”

Reynolds is confused, but he’s rather happy with himself, thinking that maybe we have reached some kind of common ground. “By all means, Bob. Play the tape.”

I slip the cassette in to the player and turn out the lights. “We don’t need the distraction, doc. Let’s imagine it’s evening and we’re going to sleep.”

There is no objection from the pride of the psychiatric profession. He is more than willing to listen to the sounds which have soothed me to the point where I am no longer a burr in his side. I can even detect a feeling of cockiness about him.

The whales talk to one another, the sounds producing a hypnotic effect on both of us, but for Doc Reynolds, the sounds are not the same as they are for me. I watch as he completely relaxes to the melodious tunes of nature, smiling, knowing what is to come from him. He is so enamored with the peaceful talk of the whales that he almost falls asleep, but the feeling does not last. A look of horror comes across his face as the impact of the tape manifests a different story

“Stop the tape!” he hollers. “I can’t take it any more!”

“But doctor, this was all your idea. I find this very relaxing. Give in to the moment. Let the tape talk to you.”

He puts his hands over his ears, trying to stop the sound from penetrating into his mind. But that is not going to happen. The peaceful sounds become higher pitched, tearing away at his eardrums, pushing him to the edge of insanity

The edge, the abyss, is reached, and he falls over the cliff.

I watch as he borders on a comatose state. Picking up my tape player, I turn it off. Obviously, the good doctor did not feel at peace with himself after listening to the tape.

Myself? I am one with the whales. They reside in the sea and I on land. But we are kin.

Now I know who I am. What I am. The whales and I are not from this planet.

I leave the doctor’s office and go to the nurses’ station. “There’s something wrong with Doctor Reynolds,” I say. “I believe he needs some medical attention.”

The nurse rushes in as I calmly leave. “Too bad for him he couldn’t take a bit of his own advice,” I think.

But then again, he’s not like me, is he?

Blaze McRob has penned many titles under different names. It is time for him to come out and play as Blaze.
In addition to inclusions in numerous anthologies, he has written many novels, short stories, flash fiction pieces, and even poetry. Most of his offerings are Dark. However dark they might be, there is always an underlying message contained within.
Join him as he explores the Dark side. You know you want to.
* * * *
Blaze had been published in a book nominated for the Bram Stoker Award this year in the non-fiction category. Horror 101: The Way Forward


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Baked Scribe Flashback : Hope

She looked down at the creased letter on her bureau. It had been sitting there for so long that dust and grime was starting to collect within the deep folds of the paper. Dozens of fading yellow rings were visible where she had set her mug down onto it as a makeshift coaster. She gazed down at the grease stains on the corners from when she had reached over while eating and picked it up to look at it, to maintain some kind of physical connection with it.Mariah had been over that night for her weekly dinner that turned into a crying session. She always expected Mariah to spot the letter. It wasn’t like she ever tried to hide it. But for some reason it always stayed there, unnoticed. Was that fate telling her that she was doing the right thing?

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

Her sister could still be alive somewhere.

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

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

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

Hope heals all.

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

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

Stratum by Dino Parenti

The following story was originally published in Cease, Cows in December of 2013. Click here to see the original posting.

If you missed it, don’t fret. From up here, the raised thumb of the Yucatan Peninsula passes beneath me sixteen times a day. Whenever possible, I finger-trace the submerged impact depression of the Chicxulub Crater through a portal. Stroke the big rock that ended the Cretaceous Era. When you can touch something that’s never been touched, it should be the final act of your life.

Twenty years ago, as the tour-guide prattled on about diving-depth limits, this was on my mind. See, I hadn’t flown a thousand miles to Chicxulub to pearl-dive. Nor did I end up in outer space last week just to drop a few steel sepulchers into geo-synchronous orbit. But to straddle time, one requires staging.

—

One thing I did glom from that tour-guide in Mexico: human physiological limit with scuba gear is around two-hundred feet.

A five-millimeter layer of Neoprene, a quarter-inch of tank steel, and assorted plies of rubber and plastic keep you ticking. Beyond that, without specific air mixtures and a slow, careful ascent, you’re feeding tube worms.

Up here in the derelict International Space Station, it’s no different, really. A few centimeters of Kevlar-reinforced insulation swaddling mere millimeters of aluminum. That’s it. All that stands between me and the vacuum.

Between me and Perses, the other big rock on the way.

—

How I got here is, after the navy, I fell into designing high-end safes for wealthy VIPs. I innovated a self-locking spherical model composed of titanium, got wealthy, then got bored.

After Perses appeared, so did motivation. One day I cladded a sphere with a layer of tantalum to shield against ionizing radiation, and the prototype for the Remembrance Sphere was born.

When I was offered a small fortune to crank out a batch in short order, I deferred it. I had no idea how to monetize a thing that I saw as achievable by any number of other obsessives.

—

The Chicxulub asteroid I yearned to feel has no name other than for the region it hit. When asteroid 2072-ND13 was discovered eighteen months ago, it was designated Perses, after the Greek titan of destruction. An amateur stargazer in Idaho with a backyard telescope spotted a fourteen-kilometer-wide rock that none of our underfunded agencies could with their vastly larger arrays.

Once the number-crunching verified the worst-case-scenario, it was decided that cultural posterity should reside separately from where the only viable shelters were being covertly built under the Patagonian Andes, ironically not far from the ground-zero camp from which an ancient superbug killed millions not two generations back.

The funding source for these shelters remains vague, diffuse, unhampered by red tape. Then again, decision-making and forethought were never our species’ greatest strengths.

—

It’s been said that an opened Remembrance Sphere evokes a split locket, but they always remind me of the nautili and the oysters I swam past as I plunged deeper beneath the Gulf of Mexico, unspooling rope into a rapidly fading light

—

Water fills three-quarters of the world, ninety-nine percent of which is inaccessible without some manner of technology. The thinnest of sheets keep us alive. If the Earth were a Remembrance Sphere, the atmosphere would be the thickness of cellophane. All our bare flesh can hope to touch of the universe is a hair’s breadth. This has been my life’s quandary.

—

Five days after my dive, when I awoke from the coma, they said I’d nearly reached three-hundred feet before the boat hauled me back up. Even unconscious, they said I was smiling. The rapid decompression had caused all my joints and muscles to seize. The inverted half-domes stippling my body are the result of uneven pressure dispersal. My grandfather in Cuba was riddled with them. Pitted edema, it’s called. But to touch what’s never been touched often yields scars.

It took two men to pry the mud and rocks from my hands.

—

The thing to remember about maximizing your survival time in the vacuum of space is to not hold your breath. Unlike the compression from the bends, the gases in your lungs and digestive tract will expand rapidly from the sudden pressure loss, and while you’ll bloat some, you won’t explode like in the movies. Amazingly enough, your paper-thin layer of skin is enough to keep you whole.

—

Two-hundred-and-fifty. That’s how many Remembrance Spheres were ultimately commissioned, each to contain the works deemed by the selected lot of philosophers, artists, and statesmen as the epitome of humanity.

Personal mementos such as photos and journals were deemed optional, a most dangerous word, fraught with permissibility.

Once I completed the spheres, the issue of deployment jumped to the forefront. With dwindling time and resources, mankind’s executor would likely be facing a one-way mission. A volunteer was needed.

I’d found my fee.

—

So you won’t explode in space, but what will happen initially is the moisture in your eyes and mouth will instantly boil away. Wait about a minute, and you’ll start convulsing as hypoxia kicks in. Wait two minutes—the maximum survival threshold—and your blood will start to boil. Then your heart stops. But two minutes is enough. When I was pulled from the water, I had two minutes of air left, and I managed to graze singularity.

—

A week to kill and surrounded with this much knowledge and secrecy?

Yeah, I’d sworn an oath. Resisted permissibility. But to fail to touch such accessible greatness? Too much incongruity to defy.

Oh, I’ll fill them back up and deploy them as promised. All these broken, hinged orbs careening softly in three of the ISS modules sadden me too much to leave as is. Oysters gutted of their pearls. Yeah, the items may not match the makers in the end, but if in a millennia they’re retrieved and opened, the numbers will still add up to the same graceful uncertainty.

—

To graze singularity again, I’ll have to position the ISS perfectly. Only then will I open the airlock and, forgoing all tethers, fly unencumbered straight towards Perses. I should just catch its wake before it unzips the cirrocumulus blanketing the Iberian Peninsula. Only then will I shed my helmet, and for as long as my eyes continue to work, I’ll watch the east coast of Canada rise in an impossibly bright inverted conical that breaches the caul of the atmosphere, and all that was scooped from me will be replenished.

When not scribbling twisted musings into spiral notebooks, photographing the odd puddle or junk pile, or building classy furniture, Dino Parenti earns a little scratch drawing buildings. His work can be found in a several anthologies, as well as the following journals: Pantheon Magazine, Cease-Cows, Revolt Daily, and the Lascaux Review, where he won their first annual flash fiction contest. Check out the following links for some more examples of his work.
“Visitation Rights” appeared in The Lascaux Review

“Meat Sweats” appeared in Pantheon Magazine

“Mojito” appeared on Revolt Daily

“Umbilicus” appeared in Cease, Cows, 7/6/14