HUMDINGER LITERARY E-ZINE MARCH 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Click on blue links to view. SUSPENSE SHORT STORY CONTEST FINALISTS, POETRY, COMIC FICTION, MAINSTREAM FICTION, POETRY AND , ROMANTIC COMEDY FINALISTS, ROMANTIC SONNET FINALISTS, HORROR POETRY
MAINSTREAM FICTION: CLICK HERE
REUNION
By M.W. Hamel
TO CUT A BREAST
By Chris Goebel
THE SELF AND A FEW TIRED METAPHORS
Thomas Saunders
A journal for Janie.
By Suzanne Cosquer
SUSPENSE SHORT STORY CONTEST FINALISTS
ANGEL OF DEATH
By David R. Caudell
LAST DAYS
By Jorge Solis
In Pursuit of Love
By Loraine R. Degraff
Marathon
By Michael Reitema
It Came with the Sun
By Ryan Crawford
Nick of Time
By Scott M. Sparling
Being Sam
By Chrissie Sparling
Saving the Girl
by Bryan Schingle
Library and Beer
By A. Sailboat
COMIC SHORT STORIES: CLICK HERE.
Dysfunction This–-Halloween
or
How I Recycled an Internet Joke
By Dennis T. Kotch
HARRY B.
By Les Combs ¬ Humdinger Award Winning Poet ¬
A Sorry Bus Story
By Tony Robles
HORROR POETRY CONTEST FINALISTS
The Face of Death
By Ana Trask
Confeitur
Dan I. Radakovich
Lament the Living, Loathe the Dead
Composed by Duriiel in the year of our Lord two-thousand and six
Nightmare
By Michael Reitema
Faster
By Sophya Vidal
Inner Linguist
By Scott M. Sparling
Progress
By A. Nan Emyss
Collection of Poems
By Bill Perryman
COLLECTION OF POEMS
BY EDUARDO PLASENCIA
The Gleaning
By Kaye Belcher
The Running Wall
By Patrick Norton
Frantic Searching
By Thomas Saunders
Collection of Poems
By Tony Robles
Romantic Comedy
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE ROMANTIC COMEDY SECTION.
Confessions of a Southern Hustler:
A Eulogy for Decorum and All Things Sacred
April 2005
BH Shepherd
Making of a Writer
By Tony Robles
Romantic Sonnets
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE ROMANTIC SONNETS PAGE.
VII: Sonnet: Emerald Rain. (To Melanie M.)
By Kalae S. Anthony
Essaying the Romantic Sonnet (Italian)
Essaying the Romantic Sonnet II (English)
By Lukas Sherman
I figured Jill must have been around three years old, but I also knew that Joanne hadn’t wanted to meet with me because I was the father.
REUNION
By M.W. Hamel
I had to sit and wait. Joanne was always late and I hated being in one of these hellholes where a smile is a nod of the head. She hadn’t spoken to me in years. I was expecting a woman who had fucked me over so many times to try to do it again.
What the hell. She had moved on and so had I. As I asked the bartender for matches, the door closed loudly. I didn’t need to turn my head. Her heels reverberated before she took the seat next to me.
I wanted to turn and face her but I couldn’t do it. Her lipstick and mascara would bring back too many things I didn’t want. She ordered a drink and then touched my arm when it arrived. I finally turned and saw an unadorned and sad face. Only her voice was the same. “Jill died.”
I tried to recollect a mutual friend named Jill but couldn’t come up with anything. “Who’s Jill?”
“My daughter.”
She stared at me as she uttered those two words. I realized then that her eyes didn’t contain sadness. They held remorse. I figured Jill must have been around three years old, but I also knew that Joanne hadn’t wanted to meet with me because I was the father. “Why tell me this?”
She stared at her untouched drink for a long time. “You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted.”
Joanne had been screwed up and used by the system just like I had been. We had spent countless drunken evenings together talking about how fucked up everything was and that a person was only born to die.
“People don’t have problems, they have life,” I said, in the hope of making all of this go somewhere.
“Jill’s dead.”
“How old was she?” I asked.
“Three years, two months and eleven days.”
I ordered another drink. “What happened?”
“I didn’t take her to the doctor. I could’ve saved her if I took her to the doctor.”
I stared at the bar mirror in front of me. None of this was right. I had always hated the world but at that moment, I wanted to do something about it.
I looked at Joanne and felt the void. I felt the terrible sickness that comes with knowing the world is a painful and ugly place to be. But why is it that way when we can feel the passion and beauty inside us? “Who was Jill’s father?”
Joanne looked at me as though my words were the only ones she had ever heard. “He’s gone,” she said. “The same thing that killed my baby.”
She looked so beautiful when she said that. Joanne started to cry and I cried along with her, but not because I felt her pain. I wanted to be where Jill and her father were. I wanted to be away from all the shit and problems and circumstances.
I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I do believe there’s something better than what the gods have cursed us with.
Joanne finished her drink and looked at me as if there was something more to be said. Eventually she stood up to leave. “Jill wasn’t yours.”
She walked out of the bar as I ordered another drink.
“Fight with the missus?” the bartender said as he set down my drink.
“Just a fight with life.”
I walked back to my hotel knowing that life was endured and not lived. There are happy moments, and then there are moments like these.
© Copyright, M.W. Hamel
Elaine always won arguments. Maybe her sexual prowess won some of them for her; regardless, this was a fight she couldn’t win because she couldn’t dominate his will to live in the here and now.
TO CUT A BREAST
By Chris Goebel
Her gaze, one eyebrow half-lifted, impaled him, reminding Dirk of Family Guy’s Stewie’s proclamations of imprisonment in “estrogenical tyranny.” Yes, estrogen’s toxic spell ruled Elaine now, because she despised him as utterly as she’d devoured his contemptible flesh an hour before. The bed sat a few pleasing inches more distant from the wall, pillows askew; the faint remainder of musk compelled his negotiations.
“I can’t live it anymore, Elaine,” Dirk pleaded, “it’s not reality.” Dirk’s forest green breeches, thigh-high boots, black cape, and rooster feathered cap appeared ludicrous.
A dog barked outside and he stilled his eyes, desirous of rolling incredulity. No, if he belittled her, she’d disappear. “Look, it’s okay for a weekend, maybe a month, but we can’t live at the festival. We’ve got careers, rent—cars!”
Not even the dog barked now. Still, her eyes seethed with passionate rage. At least, her wench’s gown was as revealing as ever. “Come on, Elaine. Every once in a while, I crave electronics. The radio, TV, the damn cell phone. We’ve forgotten movies even.”
That irked her. He wondered if she’d respond in Queen’s English—Shakespeare’s queen that is. “You didn’t mention an electronic penchant before, Dirk. Yes, a month. A month of no complaining, no whining, just living. Now you want to return to zone-out land. How could I not know you crave mindless zoning out in TV la la—”
“Not mindless—”
“Oh please!”
An inspiring thought. “That must be it. Elaine’s pleasure, the center of the universe and I’m the flea, not the lover. I’m sucking your pleasure away.” Little did he know how much he blamed himself for her unhappiness.
Elaine’s pupils swelled with sadness and her voice deepened and sped along like well-rehearsed lines. “Don’t go there and insult Donne’s poetry when I loved you with it. Made love to you with it. Nothing’s sacred with anyone anymore, Dirk. It’s all just vaudeville, a boorish stage with frumped-up couch potato clowns.”
His response was slow. “Couch potato clowns?” Where’d she come up with this stuff? How could he convince her otherwise? She hated TV, contemporary living. Elaine always won arguments. Maybe her sexual prowess won some of them for her; regardless, this was a fight she couldn’t win because she couldn’t dominate his will to live in the here and now. He dreaded the ensuing conflict. Dirk didn’t relish losing his tranquility to her archaic ideas, as useless nowadays as dragons and unicorns. That’s where the argument had to go then. “Living the Renaissance life in the twenty-first century is like hunting for unicorns.”
She lowered her head and glared up at him. Those damning, gorgeous, dark-lined light eyes, that treacherous, full-lipped mouth, those beguiling cleavage heavy breasts! Her long, wavy hair could entice his desirous hands from across the room! But she wielded her words as well as a double-edged, twenty pound sword. If they fought with swords on a battlefield, Elaine would do whatever it took to win. Even cut off one breast, as a Viking woman once did to thwart a first-shocked-then-deceased opponent. Were all women this competitive? He’d beat her at her own game—cut his own breast and see if she could win then.
“You don’t hunt unicorns,” Elaine muttered.
“No, you’re wrong,” Dirk argued. “We have to hunt to survive. Even unicorns. We probably hunted them until they didn’t exist . . . because they couldn’t survive time’s change. It’s survival of the fittest, baby.” His last words sounded resolute.
“But—“
She wouldn’t cut him off this time! “You know what? You’ll never be happy in the present. I figured that out right now. Sure, Renaissance festivals are fun, but to live them? Get real! Know what else? You’re an accident, “ he said, unsheathing his sword, “You shouldn’t be in the 21st century.” Dirk lifted his sword for the plunge. “You shouldn’t be with me.” The cut now bled, his breast cleaved cleanly from his body.
Her eyes glazed, but Elaine lifted her chin a notch and smiled like Da Vinci’s lovely Mona Lisa—as hidden delights in her eyes plunged into unknown fathoms beneath a frozen ocean. Dirk waited for her to speak. No words came and the door closed like a turning page behind Elaine, in front of him.
He swooned. No bloodless battle ever severed a breast so mercilessly.
© Copyright 2006, Chris Goebel
No matter how many petty reasons society presents you with for not listening to that lovely voice inside of you, I tell you to ignore society instead of yourself. Society would rather you ignore the voices and have your pants fall down than to listen to them.
THE SELF AND A FEW TIRED METAPHORS
Thomas Saunders
Dear James,
I hear you've been sad lately. Novembers always do it to me too. Especially red Novembers that always come with a dark sky and when I am walking down the alley to the grocery store with that forward winter hunch and collar up; I don't want to even look at the sky. Instead, I watch my feet moving over the cracked cement and they seem to slow down because of the watching. Each step’s more difficult, more amazing; how many more steps until spring comes, until I can look up at the blue sky again not worrying about my feet and just watch? How many steps before walking becomes pleasant again?
When you feel this sadness, rejoice. When you feel this sadness you know there is a voice inside your head who wants to talk. Don't ignore it. Don't ask me who it is, I don't want to talk about the self and all its unknowable complexities. But you know the voice you hear. It often mutters to me for hours on end about what a crock this all is, what a joke, what a jailhouse this earth is for a bunch of beautiful insect souls. I don't know what it does in your head, maybe it sings out of tune choruses, maybe it reads poetry to you in binary code, maybe it repeats the word 'windchime' over and over. For a long time, I ignored them. So many methods to do so. Work, school, circumstances, etc. And I always got nervous of talking with them, afraid of what they might say...
After Balsen died, that voice got louder and others joined in and soon I couldn't do anything but look at my feet and agonize over the fact that they wouldn't go anywhere. It had been November. But how many years have passed. I've been so content here in New York with Margot. And the cat (picture attached). And please tell mom to stop asking when a grandchild is coming. Tell her I can be her grandchild. Better yet—tell her she already has plenty of them. Anyways, tell her I miss her too.
After Balsen's death I quit ignoring the voices, I let them speak even. They're my voices, and the ones you hear are yours; you won’t hear their secrets anywhere else. Only when you ignore them for a long time do they become unreasonable; only when you ignore them for a long time does the possibility of appeasing them without great conflict become zero.
Well, enough of the voice and self metaphor. I'm sick of being so good at tiring metaphors out. Never wake a metaphor during its afternoon nap and never ask it to do the dishes on Monday morning; I do it all the time with terrible results. Never make metaphors about your metaphors (I've made an exception for you).
I think I've been happy since I started wearing suspenders. You know the ones, they're my only pair. It started back at Sophie and Adam's wedding. Those gold clips clinging to the gray suit pants Grandma found at Penney's for me. Every once in a while, the clips would become unclipped and, when I was without a jacket, the brown elastic of the suspenders, previously stretched so tight, would fling up towards my face. Wearing suspenders is not so easy as it looks, especially when you have to embarassedly re-clip them to your pants every twenty minutes in front of a bunch of relatives who already don't think too much of you.
I didn't wear them again until Balsen's funeral and, hidden under that black suit (also from Penney's) which no grandma should ever have to buy, they clung valiantly as I knelt and cried. And for so many terrible moments they were not clinging to my pants but me to them. Someone had always been telling me to wear the suspenders after Sophie's wedding but I was scared to and I didn't listen. But this was a different voice I heard. I like to think it was Balsen telling me to wear them. I know it's an absurd myth to believe in but nonetheless, we're all entitled to a stupid belief or two. So I listened. And people think it weird; they only expect suspenders at weddings or musicals set in the twenties. And when worn with the wrong pants, they reveal how skinny I get sometimes. It takes experience to clip them in such a way that they don't become unclipped. It takes courage to face others who think you are just trying to be audacious. But all this becomes irrelevant when you finally really know how to wear them.
And now it seems so easy to do the little things my self requires of me. Those voices are a part of your self, James. No matter how many petty reasons society presents you with for not listening to that lovely voice inside of you, I tell you to ignore society instead of yourself. Society would rather you ignore the voices and have your pants fall down than to listen to them.
And I said I wouldn't talk about the self. And I said I was tired of tiring that metaphor. Lies, James. All lies. Some moments when I'm staring at the computer screen writing really late, veins full of coffee and lungs of smoke, I realize that all we've got is the self and a couple of tired metaphors. That's all we can talk about. Here I will use my coupon for one free haiku, redeemable in every letter sent to you:
self and metaphor
is all we can talk about
let us do it well.
I remember when you and Balsen were building that treehouse in the stand of trees that stood within the cornfield across the road from our house, and Mr. Bussiere found you there with saws and hammers in hand, sawing down the smaller trees and nailing their pieces among the bigger ones. You always built things so efficiently with so little around you. It was a remarkable architectural job for a twelve and nine year old, respectively, as my friends and I discovered when we used to sneak there to do elder teenage things.
But I remember that afternoon watching Mr. Bussiere escorting you and Balsen back to the house, both of you carrying an armload of assorted tools and a guilty look on your faces. And you were doing nothing wrong to deserve the punishment Mom and Dad gave you. You just weren't aware that because of money arbitrary lines are drawn everywhere, to indicate who can do what where, and you guys happened to be in violation of them.
What I'm getting at is why I used to call you Zarvox the Penitent; I had been reading a science fiction book with a character named Zarvox (you probably don't even remember the incident/ how many treehouses had you overseen the construction of... how little did this one matter...?) and I remember that face you held walking up to our front door with Mr. Bussiere beside you. It was guilty, and at the same time even more sorry, never wanting to do wrong again. That face could be the inspiration for a new religion, and it was that face you always gave all the time, even when you weren't bad. But that time it had been magnified by the degree of Mr. Bussiere's quiet anger, and I thought, My brother is Zarvox the Penitent!
Here I am talking over a memory of mine while you sit in some hospital bed. Do you remember me calling you that? Maybe you haven't forgotten this, I don't know. Is there a way to accurately measure forgetfulness? I’d venture to guess you have forgotten. I wrote this letter solely to remind you that you still are Zarvox the Penitent, and I hope that in so doing I can also help you remember what a noble title this is.
I remember the year before my wedding that you lived with me, and I cannot recall a better time for me in my relationship with you. It pains me that we've moved east and I cannot smoke cigarettes with you out the porch of 3417 42nd Ave; and I just hope someday you'll come here or we'll get bored of trying to fit in here and we can be close again. I think during that time you were very lonely having the semester previous been asked to leave St. Marks, and you were starting anew, as they say, in the big city at the university. I always saw it in your face, that sad look of anxiety over yourself. You had been listening to too much music in the minor key and you always never talked. I suppose you've always never talked but it seemed when you lived with me you didn't talk, although you had something very important and not so uplifting to say, whereas usually you didn't talk because you simply had nothing to say.
It seems that during that time you stopped being the penitent little child I knew for so long, the guilty one who was always guilty of being so perfectly childlike and you became just plain guilty of what you were and always will be all about. There's a difference between the guilt you always showed as a child for being yourself— it was such an innocent guilt, if that isn't too much of a contradiction, and a pure sorrow you carried yourself with for the time you lived with me. It seemed as if after you were asked to leave St. Marks, you were seriously guilty for something you had done consciously and had been really responsible for, whereas Zarvox the Penitent was always guilty of and penitent for something he wasn't really guilty of.
I remember an afternoon when you were no older than eight and Balsen was with you as always. It was a particularly windy day on 11147 Panama Ave. S. and I had nothing better to do than to hang out with the Sweasy girls down at the end of the cul-de-sac. We were playing with Barbie Dolls or some other horrible thing that girls are supposed to do and I was walking home because I was bored and there, from the end of the cul-de-sac I see you bending over the front of some little red wagon with the handle in hand, steering the sailing vessel toward me while you barked commands at Balsen to hold the sail in better ways to catch the wind. Some blanket from the basement had been liberated for your purposes of sailing a wagon down the street. Balsen held the checkered quilt (which I still actually have and my cat sleeps on it every night) in some position which you dictated and which also caught the wind in such a way as to send the wagon-ship towards me at seemingly unsafe speeds. This and other episodes of your childhood are not uncommon to my memory and it was always you and little Balsen, such a perfect Tonto, in such extravagant little adventures. I am sure, too, (my sureness was confirmed by rare instances in your residence with me) that you have always been extremely guilty of being such an irresponsible leader of spontaneity (however redundant that is) and that you will always be as such.
But enough has been said upon Zarvox the Penitent I want you to be sorry for the world because it can't handle or understand whatever you happen to be doing. That's how you acted as a child and that's what I've loved about you. And I want you to stop being guilty for whatever you've done, because that guilt for what you've done is really detrimental–
It can lead to neuroses, it can lead to anxiety. It can lead to lying in the hallway next to mom and dad's bedroom in the early morning, with shaking legs. And it can lead to the hospital. It can lead to convincing oneself that one can't walk-
James set the letter down on his lap. It was cool outside. Although the leaves had all blown somewhere, and winter was forecasted to come soon, James sat comfortably in his wheelchair outside the back door of South Grove Community Medical. He wondered how many pages Arden thought to be obligatory to a brother in a wheelchair. Arden the Successful. James lit a cigarette. Ardox the Long Letter Writer. Balsen the Dead.
James wondered, as he watched his cigarette ash fall on the cement beneath him, whether he had simply convinced himself he couldn't walk. James flicked his cigarette butt into the skeleton twigs of a nearby lilac. He hoisted his body with his arms, like a gymnast on some wheelchairesque contraption, and his feet dangled inches from the ground. He tried to make himself feel penitent instead of guilty. James listened to the voice telling him he could walk, swung his left leg forward; for a moment between the first and second step James believed, and everything Arden had told him about himself was right.
His body collapsed onto the cement. Unhurt, unworried, and still unable to walk, James felt comfortable lying on the ground. He still had his cigarettes, and the letter lay next to him. He could finish it. He could read the part where Arden would say James you can walk, you just have to believe. And he could wait for someone to come and put him back into the wheelchair.
© Copyright, Thomas Saunders
Most in America would say that Charlie, if ever caught, deserved the death penalty. But Charlie didn’t see it that way at all.
ANGEL OF DEATH
By David R. Caudell
It seems like cold coffee is a metaphor in Charlie’s life. That metaphor being that everything with a good, warm feeling eventually decreases, and goes cold. Across the street, the XXX-Theater neon sign flashes off and on, making a disappearing and reappearing silhouette on the side of the joint. The waitress comes over and fills hot coffee into Charlie’s cup.
“Would you like the house special pie this evening?” she says.
“No, thank you,” he says.
He could feel the waitress stare at him. Not just her stares, but everyone else in the joint’s, too. He knew they all stared at his forehead with the huge scar. Charlie didn’t care if they stared. He welcomed it.
Most of these people in the diner you could tell made their living doing night jobs. The place was filled with factory work shirts, trucker chain wallets, and guitar cases from the street musicians. The diner resembled any other waffle house within the Louisville-metro area: urine smells, ugly brown-plaid wallpaper, dim lighting, and a jukebox in the corner blasting out old country songs. Charlie never really gave the atmosphere of the place much thought.
The only thing Charlie focuses on is the Russian SV-98 sniper rifle buried beneath some bed sheets in the back of his van. The same sheets he and his wife had lain together in, side by side for ten years. In fact, she is the one to blame for everything. In Charlie’s mind, she started the snowball effect that led to this moment. Not even the truckers, drunks, and creatures of the night that shared the same air in this little diner could take Charlie’s mind off the sensation of his life’s miseries.
Charlie Styles was a serial killer, no doubt about it. Within less than a year, he has killed dozens people, most done execution style. Charlie’s favorite thing to do was to shoot them in the back of their heads, with wrists and feet bound by rope. When the police and detectives found his victims’ bodies, not only where they lying down in a pool of blood, but most of the time, Charlie cut the eyes out of their sockets, too.
Most in America would say that Charlie, if ever caught, deserved the death penalty. But Charlie didn’t see it that way at all. Charlie revered himself as an angel.
An angel of death.
To look at him, one wouldn’t think he was up to no good, besides the huge scar on the side of his head. He looked like a normal forty-year-old man, with fair height, built body, and a receding brown hairline.
As he sipped his coffee, Charlie thought back to last year, when his “rebirth” as he likes to call it, occurred. The events which led to this moment rewinded in his head, like a VHS tape. He remembered what it felt like to lose his wife, kids, and job. The pain and suffering that it caused him. But most of all, he remembered the bullet he blasted inside his skull, and how it felt almost like a baptism.
His thoughts raced back to that day.
As he sat inside his car on the brown leather seats, he reached for the glove box. Deep down, he knew this was the answer. Inside was his father’s Smith & Wesson pistol he gave to him before he died. Charlie took the gun out of the glove box. Between his fingers, he felt the plastic with rubber overmold. Gently he stuck the gun up to his head, and pulled the trigger.
That was last year, and it seemed like a decade ago.
So, there he was, drinking shitty coffee, in a shitty little diner. Thoughts raced through his head, as his chest moved up and down from breathing. Sure he was breathing air, but he was still dead.
His hand rested against his cheek, and in every insignificant move he made with his fingers, he felt the brush of his five o’clock shadow. He tried to remember how many bullets he had left in the Russian. Was it three, or five? No matter, he still had his stolen five-inch Smith & Wesson tucked safely inside his jacket pocket, whose chambers were loaded with maximum power.
On his way out, for no apparent reason, he took the revolver to the waitress’ head and blew out her skull. The blood splattered the desert case behind the counter. The drunks and creatures of the night screamed in horror, as they watched this patron saint of the food service take her last order, forever.
© Copyright, David R. Caudell
Nick Garrett knew deep down inside he was going to die that very night.
LAST DAYS
By Jorge Solis
Chapter 1: Awakening
The cold rain was pouring down from the black sky, pounding loudly onto the rooftops of the parked vehicles. The tall, lone figure strolled clumsily across the wet sidewalk. Nick Garrett knew deep down inside he was going to die that very night.
The brown trench coat kept him slightly warm. His short black hair was a mess, as if he hadn’t combed his hair in a week. He kept his hands on his collar, keeping the trench coat closed.
Up ahead was a tall black streetlight, a pole he could lean on. The glowing white bulb flickered. A young man running across the street held a gray newspaper above his head. He wore a black leather jacket and black jeans, ripped at the ankles.
He bumped into Nick rudely, jamming his elbow accidentally into the bullet wound. The sheer pain alone caused Nick to clench his teeth tightly.
The stranger barked at Nick, “Get out of my way!”
Nick nodded slowly. He opened his coat slightly. Blood was still gushing out of the bullet wound in his stomach.
Nick asked himself: What are you doing here?
Chapter 2: The Job
The old man said, “What are you doing here?”
The old man wore a long, red robe and he had dark blue slippers on his wrinkled feet. There was not a trace of hair on his head. His short mustache was pure white. He barged into the luxurious private room a moment ago swinging the two large doors wide open.
The thing that made the old man enter the room was the loud noise the bookshelf made when it hit the floor. Nick Garret had also spread hundreds of papers he had taken out from the desk all over the green rug. He knew the place had to look like it was robbed.
Nick Garret stood in front of the fireplace with the revolver aimed at the old man. Next to him, the vault in the wall was open. A briefcase full of green bills sat on top of the desk.
He replied, “I’m here to kill you, Mr. Blair.”
There was a look of shock on Mr. Blair’s face, as if his best friend betrayed him. “Why?”
Nick said, “Because your wife told me to.”
He pulled the trigger afterwards. There was nothing left of Mr. Blair’s teeth when the bullet hit his mouth.
Chapter 3: Marriage
Nick cried out in pain as he wrapped his bleeding stomach with his arms. His knees hit the pavement because they were too weak to stand on their own.
He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth wide. The pouring raindrops flooded the inside of his mouth. He hoped the rain would drown him.
Two nights ago, as usual, Sally Garrett stood naked in front of the bedroom mirror examining her round stomach. Nick was at the doorway staring at her.
Earlier, he was in a seedy motel room with Emily, Mr. Blair’s wife, ripping her clothes off. They both knew if Mr. Blair died suddenly, Emily would gain his fortune. Nick knew this because he was the lawyer who set up the will.
What attracted Nick to Emily? Was it her long, luscious blonde hair? Was it her bright green eyes?
The reason didn’t matter to Nick. He wanted her body. Not even the news of a baby on the way stopped the affair. Emily cried out his name in ecstasy as she dug her red nails into his back.
Sally turned her head to face Nick. She said, “What do you think we should call him?”
Nick shrugged, “I don’t know.”
Chapter 4: The Money
I don’t know if I can make it, he told himself. A red phone booth was at the corner of the sidewalk. Nick crawled on all fours across the dirty puddle.
He bit his lip hard, lifted himself up wildly, and stumbled toward the phone booth.
His nose was breathing hard and his heart was racing. Nick leaned against the booth and slid the doors open. The white light inside the phone booth beamed.
Suddenly, he started coughing up red blood onto the floor.
Their meeting spot was at an empty parking lot. Dark clouds gathered across the full moon. Emily got out of her red sedan when she saw Nick’s car approaching. A long black coat covered her slender body. She had black sunglasses on her face. The harsh wind blew her hair.
Nick parked his car next to hers. Soon he walked toward her with the briefcase. He saw himself in the reflection of the black frames from her glasses as he handed her the briefcase.
Nick told her, “He’s dead.”
She whispered, “Good.”
And then she took out her gun and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 5: Absolution
Nick cried, “Please forgive me!” as he yanked the phone from its cradle and shoved the quarter inside the slot.
He punched the keys with his thumb, dialing the number to his household.
Twenty minutes ago, he was lying on cold pavement bleeding. His body shook uncontrollably. Nick yelled out in pain while Emily fired two rounds at his tires.
Nick lifted his back up from the concrete, placed his hand inside his coat’s pocket, and slowly took out his revolver. He aimed the revolver crookedly at the back of Emily’s head as she got back into the red sedan.
He dropped the revolver when the sedan drove away. He lay back down on the floor. Suddenly it began to rain.
Twenty minutes later, Nick Garrett lay dead inside a phone booth. His teeth were smeared with red blood. The rain continued to beat on the glass of the booth. The phone hung next to his face.
The answering machine turned on. Sally’s voice said, “You’ve just reached the Garrett residence. We’re not home right now. Please leave a message.”
© Copyright, Jorge Solis
A sudden rustling penetrated the tranquility. The man’s eyes flew open and his body stiffened. Holding his breath, he listened keenly….
In Pursuit of Love
By Loraine R. Degraff
The old man looked back terrified. His eyes could not pierce the eerie darkness, but a strange sense urged him to leave the place at once. Some inner knowledge warned him that the thing had once again picked up his trail and would soon be upon him.
Trembling, left the shelter of the brush, making the small, careless noises of a frightened man trying to be silent. Sweat poured from his heavily lined face and his hand shook uncontrollably as he wiped his burning brow. The night was still, but his heart thundered, knowing that somewhere in the blackness, the thing stalked not far behind.
The old man’s heart fluttered as, once more, the horrifying reality flashed through his mind. He had created that monster. In an attempt to defy the powers of the supernatural and redirect nature, he had brought to life a grotesque form of some unnatural being. What started out as a passive curiosity in his small genetic laboratory had grown into an insatiable passion. Life, and its inception, intrigued him. Experimenting with biological and genetic material became his life’s work. So much that he had become a guru in his field. The knowledge of his expertise sparked a fearless and unnatural desire within him. Could he himself create life?
The man shook his head to clear the frightening vision. What he had created was a monster and it was now tracking him down. He ran as fast as the tangled weeds and vines would permit. His heart hammered against his heaving chest and he stumbled wearily across the uneven ground in search of escape. Very quickly, his breathing became painful. The dull ache that radiated up and down his spine seemed to paralyze him. His feeble legs, no longer able to support the weight of his weary body, buckled underneath him. He crumbled to the ground. Painfully he gasped, trying to force new air into his nearly collapsed lungs.
The man lay still. A trickle of blood oozed from a gash on his forehead and tickled his face as it mingled with the dirt and sweat already accumulated there. Gradually, his feeble heart stopped racing and settled into a slow uneven rhythm. His rasping breath became a soft purr.
There was a suspended hush in the air. As the silence enveloped him, the man gazed up at the dark blanket high above him. A tiny light emerged from the blackness and winked at him. Another appeared. Another. And yet another. Soon the dark sky was covered with a sprinkling of twinkling lights. The man marveled at the majestic scene. His heart quickened as a new realization engulfed him. Was he trying to compete with the Great Creator–the Master Designer? His conscience smote him and he felt utterly ashamed. He was conscious of a strange force impressing itself upon him, and he willed himself to resist with all his might. The force persisted and seemed to squeeze out his very essence. Harder, stronger, the force permeated his being. The man felt himself breaking under the pressure of the force. Soon, he could no longer resist and something within him shattered. A great feeling of helplessness engulfed the man and he felt his entire being appealing to the mighty force, reaching out to embrace that which was so greatly impressing itself upon him. The force invaded his very being and without understanding how it happened, the man realized that he was now part of the force. The war within him ceased. A quiet peace prevailed. The man was oblivious to his surroundings. His eyes slowly began to close …
A sudden rustling penetrated the tranquility. The man’s eyes flew open and his body stiffened. Holding his breath, he listened keenly. There it was again. Closer. A rustling in the bush and a steady pop-pop-pop of snapping twigs. Once again, fear gripped his heart as he strained in the darkness to catch some glimpse of what might be there. He desperately prayed that it would not be what he thought. Then he saw it. A large dark shape, blacker than the night, tearing its way through the brambles and heading straight toward him.
With a scream of pure terror, the man struggled to his feet and forced his stiff legs into motion. Thorns tore at his face and hands as he made his way through the brush, but he felt nothing except the closeness of the horrible thing behind him. Once again, his heart thundered in his chest. Once again, his breathing became painful and he felt the sharp stabbing pains in his chest. He glanced back quickly to see how close the thing was and froze in fear. The thing was practically upon him, a deformed claw already stretching out toward him in the darkness. The mutilated head, too large for the distorted body, loomed above him like a drunken giant in dark. The old man screamed in anguish, clutched his chest and, once again, crumbled to the ground.
The creature stared at the lifeless form lying at its feet. With a loud cry of despair, it fell upon its knees. Madly, it tore at its chest. Lifting its head to the sky, it opened its mouth and emitted a blood-curdling wail that echoed through the bush. It had tried so hard to reach its master, and now that it had, they were farther apart than ever.
© Copyright, Loraine R. Degraff
Soon his naked hands were covered in bloody ice crystals, skinned raw from numerous impacts with the rough terrain and frozen hard by the unforgiving night.
Marathon
By Michael Reitema