VBT – Mortal Foe

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MORTAL FOE by Marty Roppelt, SupernaturalThriller, 213 pp., $14.99 (paperback) $4.99 (Kindle)

 

Title: MORTAL FOE

Author: Marty Roppelt

Publisher: Dragon Breath Press

Pages: 213

Genre: Supernatural Thriller









A picture is worth a thousand words… But what if that image can only bee

seen through the lens of one camera? What is the snapshot can only be

seen by a select few? What if the photo has its origins in the pit of

Hell? What is that face belongs to an enemy bent on destruction? This is

Buddy Cullen’s fate when he first dreams of his grandfather’s death and

then inherits his grandfather’s antique camera and captures an image

that haunts him and seeks his death. Can Buddy survive the curse that he

sarcastically dubs “Popcorn”—a curse that no one wants to believe

exists and stalks the city of Cleveland, beginning with its baseball

team—a mortal foe?
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Excerpt:












My eyes snap open wide.

A shadow faces me from beyond the

foot of my bed. I shiver, holding my breath. The tall, bulky intruder seems

oblivious. My sleep-hazy mind tells me to lie still. I’ll make myself smaller

that way, so the invader won’t see me.
I’m making myself small…
My brain stirs slowly. A minute

passes, then a few more. My eyes take their time adjusting to the darkness.

Across the room, the sinister hulk takes the shape of my antique cherry-wood

armoire.
My girlfriend, Kelly, lies next to

me, undisturbed. She faces away. Her chest rises and falls with each breath,

her body radiating warmth.
I don’t move. Dread still freezes

me in place. A voice in my head, my own voice, whispers a warning to me. The

warning is so primal it would wear a bearskin if it had a life of its own.
Don’t show the darkness any

fear, any weakness.
A familiar neon green beacon, my

alarm clock, demands my attention. A quarter past midnight. The glow helps me shake off the drowsy

panic. My eyes scan familiar, dark shapes around me—the armoire, the

dresser, the doors to my closet and to the hallway, the rumpled down comforter

covering my girlfriend.
Despite the need for rest, my eyes

won’t stay closed. This irritates me. The frustration of not being able to

sleep keeps me awake even longer. I can deal with the frustration. But I can’t

shake this sense of dread.
A dream. Just a weird, stupid

dream.
The clock’s digits change without

remorse, mocking and exasperating me. Twelve

forty-seven, eight, nine… Tomorrow won’t be good. I risk coming off

like a yawning zombie. Twelve fifty-five… I consider pummeling my pillow. My

legs swing out of bed instead. The cold of the hardwood floor against my bare

feet chases away the last of my drowsiness.
I amble into the kitchen. Sitting

in silence in its cradle on the kitchen counter is my cordless phone. My eyes

lock on the handset. An urge brews up to call someone close to me, but who

should I call? My mom, my dad? Neither of them would answer at his hour, for

different reasons, and neither should, of course. Now I expect the phone cradle

to light up and ring, as my roused senses try to decipher the dream that woke

me, that somehow signaled to me something is wrong…
A dream has me waiting at a

ridiculous hour for a phone call from someone in my family.
I grumble to myself. “This is

nuts.”
The opened refrigerator bathes me

in a sudden glare. Unguided hands fumble past paper bags and Styrofoam

containers of restaurant leftovers. I finally find a bottle of beer. My fingers

close around the long neck, I twist off the cap, and take a swig. The light

cord of the ceiling fan dangles near my head. I ignore it. Something about the

darkness is important. Not comforting, but…
But what?
Raising a cigarette to my lips, I

open the window a few inches, then sit at the table. My old Zippo lighter’s top

pops open with a metallic clink, the flint makes a quick, scraping rasp, and

the flame whooshes to life. I cringe. Did the noises rouse my neighbors from

their own troubled sleep?
My gaze wanders past the flame.
Don’t show the darkness any

fear.
Darkness dominated the kitchen only

a moment ago. This flame, this puny, solitary sliver of light defeats the

darkness. My Zippo can’t signal ships at sea. My ‘fridge probably could. Both

lights can expose shadowy shapes, however, and the night cannot overcome either

light. The only thing that can extinguish the light is me.
Don’t show it any weakness.
I light my cigarette and kill the

glow of the Zippo.
“Join you?” A voice,

half-awake, issues from the doorway behind me. I hope I didn’t jump too high.
“Sure. Beer?”
“No. You can fire up a smoke

for me, though. Thanks.”
Kelly glides past. A wisp of

vanilla, musk and flowers, Chantilly, her favorite perfume, follows her. She

sits opposite me and takes the lit cigarette I offer. “Should I turn on

the light?”
“If you like.”
She keeps her seat, apparently

liking the darkness better.
I jerk my chin toward the open

window. “You want me to turn the heat up?”
“I’ve got my robe on.”
I chuckle. My own total nakedness

doesn’t concern me. Kelly, on the other hand, wears her gauzy emerald green

“robe” only, untied. She might as well be naked, too. I understand,

of course. The sheer silk garment’s function was never to keep the wearer warm,

but to light a fire in someone else.
Kelly toys with her cigarette,

rolling it between her thumb and fingers. “Worried about tomorrow?”
“About my department head?

He’s audited my classes before.”
“So, why the stress?”
“Im that transparent?”
Her laugh drips playful sarcasm.

“You light up every hour and a half when you’re awake. You only smoke more

at a bar, when you’re bored, or when you’re stressed. We’re not at a bar. And

when I do things right you’re definitely not bored.” She leans over the

table. Her lips pucker into her best Marilyn Monroe pout. “Didn’t I do

things right tonight?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Several hours ago, Kelly left her

Downtown Cleveland office after work to meet me at an upscale bistro on the

west bank of the Cuyahoga River. A glass each of Chianti Classico turned into a

whole bottle. She asked after glass three if I could spend the night with her.

I toyed with the idea. After a few minutes, though, I finally decided to beg

off.
But Kelly doesn’t often take long

to get what she wants from me. Tonight was no exception. The wine shot straight

to my head. The low lights hid the dainty foot that nudged and rubbed my calf

under the table. The aromas of Italian cooking mingled with Chantilly in an

irresistible wave of sensuality. We passed on dessert. Kelly promised something

much more stimulating at my apartment.
Now she sits back in triumph,

blowing two perfect smoke rings toward the ceiling. “So, this is

stress.”
“Yes and no,” I mumble.
“Nightmare?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“It’s just a dream. You’re a

bright college professor…”
“Journalism, not psychology.

Who said I put stock in that stuff, anyway? I woke up, that’s all.”
“What did you dream

about?”
“Funny. Now that I’m awake, I

don’t remember much.”
Why did I just lie to her?
The truth is I remember every

detail. The odd nightmare burned itself into my consciousness like a glowing

cattle brand.
In the nightmare, my grandfather,

photographer Jimmy Cullen, pulled a photo print off the wire that runs the

length of his basement darkroom. Grandpop—I’ve always called him that—held the

photo as far from his face as possible. His eyes widened. His ruddy complexion

drained of all color. His lips quivered. He acted as if he’d been handed a live

hand grenade.
“Grandpop?” My tongue

lolled in my mouth with Novocained sluggishness. “What is it?”
 A sudden wind blew. Dried fallen leaves

scraped across the pavement outside. Our heads snapped in unison toward the

sound. The basement’s bare cinderblock walls gave the place a fortress’s

ambiance, but they didn’t blot out the rattle of dead leaves. Grandpop stared

for a long moment. He froze as if expecting the walls to give way to the

leaves, or to worse. The still house seemed to invite the whispery sounds of

death inside and embrace them.
Grandpop spoke. But like a badly

dubbed foreign movie, the words his mouth formed didn’t match the words that

came out. “Alone tonight… Darn it, Maureen… doggone kids’ Halloween

dance…”
Grandpop plopped down on a tall

stool at his work table, exhausted by his outburst. A complaint? The words, the

whining and grousing, were out of character. I had no response for him, which

is also unlike me.
“No Grandma?” Invisible

marbles rolled around inside my mouth.
Grandpop blinked hard, jumping as

though he’d been electrically shocked. He jammed the print into a large manila

envelope that already bulged with something else inside. The package bore a

number written in green ink: nine-eight-five-nine.
Grandpop rose from his stool, a

barstool I recognized from my dad’s Downtown tavern. He strode toward the

walk-in closet at the back of the darkroom. He muttered at the envelope as he

passed me.
“Caught you again, didn’t

I?”
“Caught who?” My voice

changed. I sounded like a Munchkin from Oz.
Grandpop disappeared into the

closet, leaving me in the darkroom alone. I couldn’t bring myself to move. My

curiosity was the kind a child suffers when he’s told never, ever to do a

certain thing. The curious kid in me wanted to see what was going on. The adult

in me feared for life and limb. My fear rooted me to the spot.
A “pop” and loss of light

announced the death of one of the darkroom’s two light bulbs.
“I don’t spook so

easily,” Grandpop hollered.
A car cruised up the driveway. The

engine’s hum filtered through the fortress walls. The side door to the kitchen

creaked open and banged closed.
We were no longer alone.
My heart raced, my joints froze. I

wanted to run. My muscles fought against me. Stark terror turned my feet to

lead. Footsteps headed our way from the basement stairs.
“Jimmy?” my grandmother,

Maureen, called.
My heart slowed but I still

couldn’t move, despite my relief.
Grandpop met Grandma in the doorway

and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“How’s my Lass?”
“Missed you.” She

scrunched her face into a silly expression, a kind of mock pout,

uncharacteristic for her. “Atlanta? The Series?”
“Too much traffic. The Indians

lost. Missed you, too.”
They held each other, their embrace

a subtle dance. The surviving forty-watt bulb above us threw weird shadows into

the corners of the darkroom. The sounds of our breathing, and the scraping,

rustling leaves grew louder in the otherwise silent murk.
Grandma pulled away, cackling.

“Cup of hot chocolate and a ghost story for you?”
I almost laughed out loud at her

bizarre behavior.
“Nah,” Grandpop said.
“I’m going to bed.”
Grandpop answered in a

melodramatic, fearful tone. “Just a couple more things to do. Then we’ll

be together again.”
His stony expression was the

lawyer’s before a murder trial, or the soldier’s on his way to deadly combat.

His demeanor only made his words to Grandma more jarring, more frightful to me.
They kissed. Grandma wheeled and

left the darkroom. We heard the groan of well-worn wooden stairs, first to the

kitchen, then further above to the bedroom of their old colonial-style home.

Grandpop settled again on his stool. He reached across his work table for his

Kodak Medalist 620, the camera he used since his enlistment in the Navy two

generations ago.
Every once in a while, a dream

becomes so surreal that, despite still being asleep, some distant part of the

brain announces “This is a dream!” I remember the exact moment, a

sort of “out-of-body” experience. I became Grandpop. I sat on his

stool and held his camera, but I was still an observer, too, watching myself

play his part. I gripped the antique as if shaking a frail old friend’s hand. This

friend accompanied me—him—through everything from the best of times to the most

harrowing hell.
No more experiences would be shared

and captured on film. A hot, sharp pain ripped up my left arm. A giant fist

squeezed my chest and I gasped in vain for breath. My mind raced away from the

Medalist 620 to my grandmother lying in bed, likely dozing while trying to read

a book. She would wake, sensing Grandpop was still in the house, and yet gone.

She would find him here later. Sadness engulfed me.
I’m sorry, Lass…
I slumped to the work table. As

Grandpop, I wanted my last thoughts on earth to be of Grandma, to take the

memory of my gentle, devoted wife’s face with me on my way to meet God. But my

last glance caught a shadow that was not Grandma’s, moving toward me from beyond

the darkroom doorway.
Then I woke to the strange shadow

at the foot of my bed…
“Yeah, I’ve had that happen

before. It’s so frustrating.”
Kelly’s voice, from behind the

glowing cigarette tip, jars me back to the waking present. I shake the

nightmare out of my head.
“Had what happen?”
“Dreamed something and then

forgotten it only a couple of minutes after waking up. Frustrating.”
“Yeah.”
Kelly takes a drag from the

cigarette and stabs the ash tray with it. She shoves her chair aside, composes

herself, and glides back around the table, tracing her finger up my bare arm.

Her nail scratches a light reddish trail on my skin.
“Know the best way to get rid

of frustration, Buddy Cullen?”
“Tell me.”
“Showing’s better than

telling.”
I crush my own cigarette out and

glance at the phone. Nothing happens, of course. The phone’s not going to ring

tonight. Not for this. I rise and lay foolish superstition aside. A colleague

at Case Western Reserve University, a science professor, once assured me that

to attach meaning to dreams is unscientific, a bogus exercise. Dreams, he

theorized, might be nothing more than a mash of random thoughts and memories.
Kelly breezes ahead of me, tugging

me by my hand. Her urgency mounts. My gaze consumes her. The wispy robe

caresses her perfect form. Her cat-graceful step entrances me. She pirouettes,

sits on the edge of the bed, and leans back, pulling me down toward her.
Ghosts and demons and other

unexplainable things lose their fascination. I lie far less gracefully beside

Kelly. Her lips explore the base of my neck, but I still keep one ear cocked

toward the phone. She nips lightly at my ear lobe, with a deep-throated

chuckle. In a few short moments, she commands my full attention…
The phone rings. I gasp, irritated

by the interruption. I’m dismayed, too. I know what the call is about.
“I have to get that.”
“No, you don’t.” Kelly

tangles her fingers in my hair and pulls my face back down toward hers.

“That’s why God gave us answering machines.”
I’m conflicted, keyed up but

powerless, able to break free but unwilling to try. The machine answers the

call, the phone stops ringing. I feel Kelly’s smile in the darkness as her lips

brush against mine. I lose myself in her, lose every part of myself.
Every part, that is, except the

faraway corner of my mind that wonders if Grandma just woke from the same

nightmare, and found Grandpop dead in his darkroom.

 

 

 

 

 

Marty Roppelt was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His original

profession was acting on stage, in local commercials and training films

and in film. This means that he has experienced life through a wide

variety of day and night jobs, from barista to waiter and bartender to

security guard, amongst many others. He lives in Illinois with his wife,

Becky, and their eccentric cat, Fritz.

Mortal Foe is his debut novel.

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