Hard Luck Stories

Foreword by Scott Lefebvre

The Winning by James S. Dorr

Haunted Love by Dusty Davis

Fourth Floor Walk-up by Michael McGlade

Gary by Michael Kanuckel

Hell and Back by Lucas Mangum

Good Samaritan by Joe Powers

Lady Luck by Mae March

Right, Wrong, or Indifferent by C. L. Quigley

Bigger Fish by Stephen Pope

Christina's World by Sean Douglas

FOREWORD
By Scott Lefebvre

This one was difficult to put together for a variety of

reasons.
This was supposed to be the second collection or
anthology I put out on my publishing label.
Collection or anthology. Pick your poison. Whichever
suits your fancy.
My preference changes day to day and depends on how
fancy I’m feeling.
It ended up being the third.
The second helped to cause the delay in putting
together the third as things that occur in consecutive order
which were intended to happen simultaneously often do.
Life also happened and continues to happen.
It was also difficult because of the quality of the stories
that were submitted.
I had some hard decisions to make and had to
disappoint some really nice people that submitted some
really solid stories, but once a theme started to emerge, as
the jury process evolved, I had to keep the central theme
in mind.
Thankfully most of the authors did as well.
Why “Hard Luck”?
Because sometimes hard luck is the only kind of luck
you’ve got.
Because you have to play your hand with the cards
you’re dealt and the house always wins.
Because of any number of clichés.
 I looked up the first “because” because I thought it was
a quote I heard once and instead I found “The only thing
that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”
Thanks, Harry Golden, whoever the fuck you were.
I hope you died screaming.
Because sometimes, no matter what you say or do,
things aren’t going to work out the way you planned.
I always say “Prepare for the worst and hope for the
best.” But what happens when things get even worse than
your worst case scenario?
My van died last October and I’ve been taking the bus
back and forth from work.
It’s April, and on every bus there’s someone sitting at
the front of the bus that runs into someone they know and
they always have to tell their friend everything about their
bad luck life.
They either don’t know or don’t care that everyone else
on the bus doesn’t want to know about their bullshit and
don’t have earlids they can shut to block out their banal
bullshit.
Sometimes the only way to get through those bus rides
is to pretend they’re avant-garde theater performers
workshopping new material for some absurdist modern
Brechtian theater of cruelty piece.
It makes it easier to endure if you make believe you’re
waiting for them to stand up at the end of the bus ride and
take a bow and hold out a hat for donations from the
other commuters involuntarily subjected to the drama of
their lives.
It’s always legal problems and just got out of prison and
in a halfway house and got kicked out of the halfway
house for being high and they’re living on the streets but
they know a guy that owes them some money so when
they see that guy they’d better have their money because
the mother of their kids won’t let them see their kids
because they’re behind on their child support payments so
the judge ordered that their wages be garnished and it’s
tough to find work when you’ve got a record and do you
have a cigarette to spare and a lighter to light it with and
maybe a couple bucks because if they can just put
together bus fare they can get to where there’s this other
guy that also owes them money and all of this is probably
true. At least some of it is.
Whenever someone asks me for something and I don’t
owe them anything I make them tell me a story.
Even if the story is a lie, it’s usually interesting.
You have to pay the monkey if you want to hear the
music.
When you’re down on your luck, sometimes the only
thing that makes you feel a bit better is hearing about
somebody who has it worse off than you do.
One time I was sitting outside a café and nursing a
coffee because it was easier than taking two buses each
way to spend six hours at my apartment just to get up and
come back for the next twelve hours and a guy wandered
over and asked me for some money.
I said I’d give him some money, but only if he told me
what he needed it for.
He told me he just got out of jail and that he was
arrested for walking around with a machete.
 “What did you need a machete for?” I asked.
“Because people were out to get me, naw mean?” he
answered.
I did know what he meant.
I gave him a dollar and thanked him for his time and
asked him not to spend it to get drunk or high. And I was
too lazy to go into the café with the guy and buy him food
so I’d know where my money went.
My dollar was his and he could do whatever he wanted
with it as far as I was concerned.
I’ve been homeless before.
Twice.
It’s not as bad as you might think, as long as you have a
vehicle to sleep in and a gym membership.
You can shit, shower, and shave without anyone calling
the cops and still show up to your job if you have one to go
to.
There’s a freedom in knowing that wherever you go you
are where you need to be.
To not have a series of interconnected boxes with all of
your precious possessions waiting for you to come home
and turn on the lights while you’re wasting your time
someplace you’d rather not be, doing something you’d
rather not be doing.
The only hard part was killing the time between work
shifts.
The long cold nights.
Usually parking in a shopping plaza under one of the tall
bright lights and reading a book until I fell asleep helped.
You’ve only got so much space for books so the ones
you decide to keep matter more than if you have a room
to keep them in.
There’s not a lot of sedans that come with bookcases as
optional interiors.
I’d mostly read Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr.
Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk.
Henry Rollins and T. S. Eliot. The Hagakure.
Books I could read a hundred times and still discover
something new I hadn’t noticed the last time I read them.
I’m probably going to be homeless when you read this and
it amuses me to think of myself as running what might be
the world’s first homeless publishing house from wherever
I find myself.
This time I don’t have a vehicle, because my last one
died, because of the hour commute I had to make back
and forth each day and the road construction that tore
apart the front end which made the cost of fixing the front
end more expensive than what I paid for my van in the
first place, but the mechanic I took it to said the wheels
could fly off at any time so taking it onto the highway
again would be suicide, so I junked it. They said they’d
give me three-hundred for it but when they showed up to
take it they offered me two-fifty or to go fuck myself. I
took the two-fifty because rent was due. Then my license
got suspended because of an unpaid parking ticket
because my job hasn’t been able to give me forty hours
regularly since I settled for it because the economy is bad
here and has only gotten worse since I moved back,
because I figured it was better to be where I was from,
near people that said they missed me being around, than
to stay in the town I moved to, so I could be with a girl that
couldn’t handle her alcohol, but I didn’t know that about
her until it was too late, so I had to let her go even though
she was the last good thing to happen to me, and I never
see the people that said they wished that I was here
because they have their own lives to lead and their own
problems to deal with.
Now I take the bus back and forth from work and
sometimes I make the rent on time and sometimes I don’t
and at the end of this month it won’t matter anymore.
I’ve got a broken tooth that I can’t afford to get pulled
that always aches, and a trick knuckle from a car crash due
to a slick road on a dark night when I was over-confident
and half asleep from working two jobs that almost put me
behind bars.
Thankfully I only totaled my car and made a couple ruts
in the lawn and didn’t crash through the side of the church
and the lawyer I paid to say “I think my client can speak for
himself.” was enough to convince the prosecutor to drop
the charges at what I think was my arraignment and that
and a court fee dropped the charges down from felony
“reckless driving” charge down to a “painted line
violation” misdemeanor and I was allowed to keep my
freedom and all it cost me was totaling a car I still owed
three years of car payments on and seven hundred dollars
for a lawyer that met with me twice and only ever uttered
a single sentence in my defense, a two hundred dollar
court fee for a fifteen minute arraignment, and a seven
year wait for the misdemeanor to slide off my driving
record.
 That was about ten or fifteen years ago and none of it
matters.
I still have a trick knuckle that I never bothered to try to
get reset that lets me know when there’s a heavy storm
coming from the west before the clouds come over the
horizon.
You have to play the cards you’re dealt, and the house
always wins.
If I can get a few people to buy this book then maybe I
can save up my share of the royalties and get my license
reinstated. Save up and buy a vehicle to live in. Pay the
sales tax and registration and car insurance like a decent
citizen. Get a gym membership. Save up for first last and
security and get a decent place to put myself between
work shifts. Nothing too fancy. Just someplace warm
when it’s cold out and dry when it’s wet out. Start to pay
off my student loans again and fix my credit rating. Meet a
nice girl, or considering my advancing age, a decent
woman, that will make me forget about the last one I had
to leave behind. Maybe buy a house someday. Two car
garage and a dog in the yard.
Maybe the economy will implode and people will kill
each other with smiling eyes and silent knives for trying to
cut in line while waiting for a cup of thin soup and two
slices of bread and all the salt and pepper you can stomach
if you don’t mind having to tear open the single serving
paper packets.
As I always say, “Plan for the worst. Hope for the best.”
Maybe nobody will notice or care that I wrote this
foreword or anything else I ever have or will write and it
will all be a waste of time and I’ll get picked up on a
vagrancy charge and finally get to see if jail is as bad as
everyone seems to think it is.
It should make for some interesting subject matter for
my next book.
I used to work with drug addicts and ex-convicts.
I’ve heard it all.
Go ahead. Try me.
Murder. Suicide. Prostitution. Armed robbery.
Burning bridges and rebuilding them just to burn them
again.
My favorite anecdote as related to me by one of my
clients was “You know the difference between a drunk and
a junkie? An alcoholic will steal your wallet. A junkie will
steal your wallet and help you look for it.”
You have to find a reason to laugh when people you came
to know and hoped the best for hang themselves from
shower rods because they lost the battle with the bottle
and couldn’t face themselves in the mirror the morning
after.
They usually made more on public assistance than I was
making as a counselor but they still killed themselves.
They said that jail’s not that bad as long as you mind your
own business and keep to yourself.
Supposedly there’s three meals a day which is more
than I can afford on the outside.
The food’s not great, but you always know your next meal
will be there.
There’s probably pen and paper and steady work to help
bide the time.
 I heard they pay minimum wage and that you can use
your wages at the prison commissary to buy what you
need to trade for what they don’t sell in the commissary
and what you don’t spend they save up for you and hand
you a check on your way out the gate.
You’re not allowed to have lighters, but they still find
ways to light cigarettes in prison.
When I get out there’s public assistance that can line me
up with a cheap place to live and a minimum wage job
which really isn’t so far away from where I’m at now.
I’m not there yet, but I can see it if I look over my shoulder
and squint.
The rent is always due, and the wolves are always at the
door.
Even if they’re not scratching on the outside and
nuzzling their muzzles into the corners, you can hear them
howling in the distance. I can hear them howling. Can
you?
If it’s true that “The only thing that overcomes hard luck
is hard work.”, then I hope you appreciate the hard work
that it took to put this together.
Not just my time and effort, which I gave with no regret,
but the time and effort of all of the authors that wrote
these stories.
Most of them did so alone, with little encouragement
from their family or friends and the only thing that they
want is for you to read their stories.
That is also all I ask of you if you’re reading this.
Even if you bought this as a favor for a friend, even if you
were given a copy for free, please read them all.
 The time and effort you’d spend doing so will surely be
less than the time and effort it took to write them. Time
they could have spent sleeping in or fucking off or playing
video games or getting drunk or getting high or watching
movies and living other people’s dreams.
Even if it doesn’t mean a lot to you and seems a simple
thing, it would probably mean the world to the authors
whose stories that follow.
Maybe if I sell enough copies of this book I can save up
and catch the last bus out of town because there’s a guy
on the other end that owes me some money and he’d
better have it on him when I find him.
So, now that you’ve heard my Hard Luck story, let’s hear
yours.
The Winning
By James Dorr

He cashed his tickets in at the window and stuffed

the money into his jeans. A lot of money. He smiled
at the cashier, a pretty woman perhaps in her early
thirties, then elbowed his way through the milling
crowd. He left the racetrack and thought for a
moment of taking a bus home. He thought of pulling
the bills from his pocket, peeling one off to give to the
driver, then decided he might as well walk.
He was used to walking.
He thought of stopping in at a restaurant, then
decided he wasn't hungry. Time enough to eat in his
apartment. He had to make plans.
He thought of the cashier, a curly-haired blonde
who had smiled back at him, a little like Betty. "You
take care," she'd told him. He'd nodded back.
He thought about Betty.
God he missed Betty. She'd died just a few years
after their marriage and that's when his life started to
go downhill. He started drinking. Lost his job. Other
jobs. He was over the drinking now, at least, but not
the bad luck that had dogged his footsteps. Until that
morning.
That's when he'd found the ten dollar bill crumpled
in the gutter. He picked it up, smoothed it out, and
thought, "Why not?"
He'd gone to the racetrack, an institution that, like
him, had seen better days. Factories had grown up
around it, then fallen into disuse. Slums had followed.
Tenement neighborhoods, scarcely better than the
one he lived in across the river even when they were
new. But he had become used to living in slums.
He'd started out small, he had only ten dollars,
placing his bets at the two dollar window. But one
had won for him. He graduated to ten dollar bets as
the afternoon wore on, then finally, in a fit of bravado,
chose a horse whose name he liked and put all he
had to win at a hundred dollar window.
The horse surprised him. It surprised everybody.
The odds were long. He hadn't realized how long
when he'd bet, but it came from behind in the final
turn and inched past the favorite to come in first.
He hadn't even counted the money after he
cashed in. He'd just nodded blankly as the blonde
lady shoved bills out toward him. He'd folded them
over, still not believing, putting a rubber band around
them and shoving them into his left pants pocket.
He'd glanced once behind him, and then he'd smiled.
"Thanks," he'd said.
"You take care, you hear?"
He still couldn't believe it.
All his life, except for the few brief years with Betty,
had been unlucky. He'd gone from one bad job to
another, from one fly-specked, roach-infested
apartment to another, as bad or worse. He realized
he hadn't exactly helped himself that much either, but
now things were going to be different. He had
enough money in his pocket to buy some new
clothes, to pay off his rent, to leave the city. To find a
new place where people were hiring, he wasn’t so old
that he couldn’t still work, and make a new start.
He glanced behind him. Dusk was falling, but the
streetlights were coming on and the evening was
bright. He saw two men walking in his direction,
maybe half a block behind him. Just sort of strolling,
conversing quietly. Too quiet to hear them.
But hadn't he seen them somewhere before?
When he'd glanced behind him at the track window?
He shrugged. Probably not. All he'd seen then
was a racetrack crowd. All sorts of people. Most at
the hundred dollar window, better dressed than either
him or the men behind him. Still, he began to walk a
bit faster.
He began to become more conscious of his
surroundings. Night had completely fallen by now
and, while there were some lights, there were few
people out in the street. This far from the track there
was little action. Ahead, where the street sloped
down toward the river, it seemed even dimmer,
except for the bridge which had its own lights and the
bank across it.
The bank where he lived had its own kind of
lighting. Bars. All-night diners. Neon and harshness,
a tough kind of lighting, but one he was used to. He
hunched up his collar. The night was still warm, but a
breeze was beginning to come from the river. A
breeze that, as the city cooled in the night's darkness,
blew out to the ocean.
He started to smell the smells of the river. Salt
and mud. Dead fish and violence. Not many people
lived by the river except for the poor. People like him.
People who lived by the river by choice, because
nobody asked questions.
He felt the heaviness in his pocket.
He looked behind him.
It was the same two men. It must be the same
two. A half block behind him. Now that he'd stopped,
they'd stopped as well, one taking a cigarette out of
his pocket. The other lit it.
He saw, he was sure it was one of the people he'd
seen at the racetrack, a face pocked with acne. Not a
young face, though. He saw, as the match flared out,
a sneer.
He shivered despite the fact it was still warm. He
strode, quickly now, another half block, a full block
beyond that, on toward the river. He heard, behind
him, the clack, clack, clack of footsteps following on
the pavement. He stopped again, whirled to confront
his pursuers, still half a block behind him. He saw
they had stopped too.
"What do you want?" he demanded. He stood and
waited, his hands on his hips, one hand protecting the
bulge in his pocket.
The men were in shadow. One pretended to look
in a window, making no sign that they'd even heard
him. The other began to whistle a soft tune. They
were the same men he'd seen at the track, that much
he was sure of. Who'd seen him put the bills in his
pocket. Who'd followed him this far, but never
approached him. As if they were waiting.
He backed off slowly. The men made no move
until he'd turned again, then he was sure he could
once again hear their following footsteps. He thought
about how, if he reached the bridge, if he crossed the
river, if he reached his walk-up apartment, he'd lock
the door and hide the money. He'd stay awake and
guard it that night and, the next morning, he'd find a
bank and deposit it there.
He'd open up a checking account and write a
check to buy decent clothes. He'd buy a bus ticket,
maybe a plane ticket, maybe look up his sister down
south. He'd find a place to stay for a while, away from
the city. To make a new life.
He thought about Betty, the victim of sharks that
lived by the river. The ones that lived by the river by
choice. He remembered the evening he'd had to work
late. His foreman calling him to the phone. The trip
to the morgue, his wife laid out, her chest ripped
open. The big cop putting his hand on his shoulder.
He turned again. The bridge was only a block
away now. He saw only shadows. No. Something
was moving. A half block behind him. Two men in
the darkness, trying to be still, yet subtly moving.
"Is it the money?" he demanded.
He heard no answer.
He thought about running. The bridge, with its
lights, was just one block away. But he was no longer
that young a man if they wanted to chase him. He
turned again and just kept walking, the wad of bills
chafing against his thigh. The hesitant at first, then
steady clack, clack, clack of footsteps behind him.
He reached the abutment, then started up the
sharply ramped footpath, the breeze, now that he was
on the river, blowing up into a miniature gale. He
crossed under the first of the bridge's lights, the first of
several as he approached its center span. As soon
as he got home.
He heard a booming as his pursuers mounted the
bridge too, their hollow footsteps amplified by the
wind and the water.
If he got home with his money safely, he'd leave
the city the very next day. But sharks lived on both
sides of the river.
The ones on his side had murdered his wife for
nothing more than her shopping money.
And he had lots more.
He stopped again, under a light beneath the
bridge's high central arch, and confronted his
followers one final time. He knew they had friends on
the other side, friends who would stop him as soon as
he crossed. Just as they stopped too, under their
own light, their hats pulled low to hide their faces,
standing, watching him. Watching and waiting.
"Is it the money?" he asked again, again hearing
no answer. He pulled the folded bills from his pocket.
He rolled off the rubber band that was around
them. He thought about winning.
He thought about finding a ten dollar bill.
About being lucky.
He looked down below him -- the oily river. Behind
him, two shadows, already gliding out of the pool of
light that was around them, moving now, ever so
slowly, closer.
Ahead, more shapes moving. Now he could see
them.
"Here!" he shouted. He threw the money as hard
as he could, up, into the air. Watched as the bills
peeled off, catching the light as the river wind took
them, whirlwinding higher.
He thought of the river. Of water and death. Of
shadows melting back into the darkness.
Of flecks of paper, one or two caught in the
bridge's cables, the rest of them blowing out to the
ocean, ever upward, until he could no longer tell them
apart from the distant stars.
About the Author

Indiana writer James Dorr’s latest book, The Tears

Of Isis, is a Bram Stoker Award® Fiction Collection
finalist. Previous collections include Strange
Mistresses:Tales of Wonder And Romance; Darker
Loves: Tales Of Mystery And Regret; and his all-
poetry Vamps (A Retrospective).
For more information including single publications,
Dorr invites readers to visit his blog at
http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com
Haunted Love
By Dusty Davis

Chris Price jammed his foot down on the

accelerator, mashing it to the floor of his pickup truck.
Dirt and gravel flung behind him as the tires struggled
to grip the asphalt before shooting him out of his
driveway. Glancing into the rear view mirror he saw
the sprawling Victorian that he had called his home
for years and Ashley running out the front door
wearing only a pink robe.
He jumped on the brake sending the pickup truck
skidding across the road. He came to a stop
diagonally across the street and glanced behind him.
Ashley had stopped at the beginning of the drive and
was waiting for him with her hands on her hips. Chris
balled up his fist and pounded the steering wheel until
his hand hurt.
Without looking back at Ashley, Chris jerked the
truck into drive and sped out of the driveway leaving
his wife and past in the dust. He drove past a row of
dilapidated Victorian’s that like their owners had seen
better days. All the leaves had blown from the trees
and now covered the street like an autumnal blanket.
He sped through the neighborhood faster than he
should have but he wanted to put as much distance
between himself and his cheating wife as he could.
He started to slow down as he reached an
intersection and then hung a right. He pulled the car
to the curb and buried his face in his hands. Not able
to fight back the tears that had welled up since he
walked in on Ashley with that guy, Chris let the tears
out.
Regaining control of himself, he wiped his face
with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and checked his face
in the mirror. He barely recognized the man that
stared back at him. His eyes were bloodshot and
underlined with dark circles. He turned away, but as
he did he thought he saw something else in the
mirror. He grabbed the rear view mirror and aimed it
down at him. Only his haggard face stared back at
him.
Chris adjusted the mirror and longed to go back to
Ashley. With a sigh he put the pickup into drive and
slowly pulled away from the curb. He fought his
desire and drove aimlessly through town not sure of
where to go.
He was following the setting sun when he got a
whiff of something. It smelled sweet like the rose
scented perfume that Ashley wore. He turned his
head searching for the source of the smell and didn’t
see the girl in front of the truck. He plowed into her
and felt the tires smash the body under them.
Chris slammed on the brakes and jumped out of
the truck. He ran around the back and saw the young
girl lying face down on the pavement. Rushing over
to her, he pulled her blond hair back and saw her
face. Chris jumped back away from the body, as his
head began to spin and a sense of dizziness
overcame him. He fell to the ground backwards
smacking his head on the cement.
 When he woke up, the sun had finished its lazy
descent into the horizon, leaving behind a full moon.
Chris crawled to his hands and knees and fought his
way back to his feet. His head spun and his knees
trembled threatening to topple him to the ground
again. He stood his ground until the dizziness passed
and he remembered Ashley’s face buried in the
pavement. Her vacant blue eyes stared up at him,
lifeless.
He rushed to the truck and found it where he had
left it but Ashley’s body wasn’t there. There wasn’t
any blood on the ground. Another wave of dizziness
took him but he refused to go down. With a shake of
his head, he circled the truck and examined the front
where the body had hit. Not a mark was on it.
Scratching his head, he looked around the
neighborhood. Lights glared from most of the homes
on the street but nobody was watching from their
windows as far as he could tell. He felt like he was
the last person alive.
Chris climbed back in his truck and cranked the
heater all the way up. A chill had settled in his bones
that refused to go away even in the stifling heat of the
pickup. After putting the truck into gear, he swung
around and headed back the way he had come. He
had to go home and check on Ashley.

***
 The blue and white Victorian came into view and
Chris was never so happy to see it. He just wanted to
be home. He could forgive Ashley for what she had
done and they could work through it if they tried.
He parked the truck in the drive and jumped out,
slamming the door shut behind him. He ran up the
steps to the porch and found the door locked. With a
shaking hand he tried to stick his key into the lock.
After the third attempt, he finally got it in but it
wouldn’t turn. He jiggled it and tried to turn the knob
but it wouldn’t budge.
Giving up on the key, Chris began to pound on the
door with his fist. “Ashley, it’s me. Open the door,” he
yelled between knocks. Silence was the only thing
that greeted him. He walked across the porch with
the boards creaking underneath him, to the window at
the end of the porch. A thick coat of dirt and grime
covered the pane that he could have sworn wasn’t
there earlier in the day before he left. With the sleeve
of his sweatshirt he wiped off the glass and stuck his
head to the pane. Darkness was the only thing he
could see on the inside.
Screaming erupted from the bowels of the house
making Chris’ heart race like a marathon runner.
Frantically he searched the porch for something to
use to break the window. He found a large rock and
tossed it at the glass. It shattered into a million pieces.
With the back of his arm he pushed the remaining
glass from the frame and climbed inside slicing his
thigh on a shard.
 He could feel a trickle of blood crawl down his leg
as he ventured further into the house. Something
wasn’t right inside. He could feel it in his bones. The
furniture was caked with a layer of dust. As he
walked, he could see his footprints behind him on the
hardwood floor.
Another scream sounded somewhere in the
house. He raced to the stairs and took them two at a
time. The hallway landing was deserted. As Chris
was about to turn left, movement from the corner of
his eye drew his attention that way. A black shadow
darted into the furthest bedroom.
Chris stalked the shadow and entered the
bedroom of Ashley’s late Grandmother. He hadn’t
entered that room in years since the old woman had
died in there. Goose bumps peppered his arms as a
chill ran up his spine and icy fingers lingered on his
neck urging him forward.
The room smelled like cheap perfume and dirt. He
had to pause in the doorway to catch the breath that
was stolen from his lungs. He took in the room with
his eyes. Everything looked the same as he
remembered. A dark mahogany dresser was pressed
flat against the wall with a closet door next to it that
was cracked open. Chris crossed the room in a
couple of steps and pulled the door the rest of the
way open.
Dark shapes crawled up and down the wall behind
where clothes used to hang. Chris stared at the
shapes for what seemed like hours, hypnotized by the
darkness when all of a sudden he realized what the
shapes were. Cockroaches found their way to the
floor and climbed over the toes of his shoes. He
jumped back and slammed the closet door with a
thud, rattling the hinges.
He kicked his feet and wiped his arms down
making sure that none of the bugs had gotten on him.
Another scream filled the house and he turned and
ran back out into the hallway. Chris bolted to the next
room and pushed through the door. The bedroom
that he shared with Ashley for years stared back at
him, the bedroom where he caught her with another
man.
Anger filled his gut as he ventured further into the
room. Pictures of them on their wedding day hung on
the wall taunting him. With his balled up fist he
punched the picture shattering it. The frame dropped
to the ground with a clatter as blood spilled from his
knuckles.
He turned from the wall and his head began to
spin. He had to fight the urge to pass out again as
another scream filled the house. Defeating his
vertigo, Chris took off from the room and leapt down
the stairs back to the main parlor where he saw
Ashley on the floor bleeding from a hole in her
stomach. A man was cradling her head in his arms
and as Chris stepped closer to them he could see that
the man resembled him. A gun was beside them on
the floor smoking as his Doppelgänger looked up at
Chris with a tear streaked face.
The vertigo that Chris had felt upstairs returned full
force almost bringing him to his knees as the man that
looked like him kissed Ashley on the forehead and
laid her gently on the floor. He rose to his feet and
walked towards Chris. He wanted to take a step back
but couldn’t make his feet work.
The man grabbed Chris by his shirt collar and
pulled Chris into his body. With a jolt the
doppelgänger and Chris became one. The vertigo
was gone, along with all sound and feeling. Chris
couldn’t even hear his footsteps on the hardwood
floor as he stood over Ashley’s dead body and at the
gun by her side. The memory of what she did to him
flooded through what was left of his conscious as he
picked the gun up from the floor. He knew what he
had to do. He had already done it before.
With one quick motion he brought the gun up to his
mouth and pulled the trigger sending shards of brain
tissue flying out the back of his skull. His body
crumbled to the floor. Dead for the second time.
About the Author

Dusty Davis is a short story author and novelist

living in East Liverpool, Ohio. His work can be found
in The Story Teller Magazine, Ugly Babies Volume 1
Anthology, and Dark Fairy Tales Revisited Anthology.
When he is not frightening strangers with his
stories, Dusty can be found at home scaring his wife
and two children. For more information, visit Dusty on
Facebook at facebook.com/dustydavis21.
Fourth Floor Walk-Up
by Michael McGlade

They removed her handcuffs and the cloth hood.

Elizabeth wore a low cut evening dress, glossy as a
new peeled egg, and her eyes were green as nettle
stings.
Two men stood before her, in their early thirties,
and around the same age as Elizabeth. The men
wore matching suits the color of cemetery clay. One
man was five feet four inches tall. Elizabeth in
stilettos was a couple of inches taller. The other man
was six-four and two hundred and fifty pounds of
piano-wire-tense muscle.
Elizabeth had been gagged with duct tape and the
smaller of the two men tore the tape away and she
winced.
“It’ll save you a salon visit,” Small Guy said.
Elizabeth’s wrists had discolored from the
handcuffs. She bruised easily. Not used to the hard
life. She sobbed, racked with shudders. Tears
boiled.
Uncomfortable, both men glanced away from her.
“Quit it. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
She ceased weeping and stroked a ribbon of
chestnut hair behind a shoulder with her trembling
hand.
Elizabeth was at one end of a large unfurnished
room with plastic sheeting on the floor: bare plaster
walls, wet cardboard smell, conveniences, seen to be
appreciated. The men blocked the path to the only
exit. There were two more doors: the kitchen and
bedroom. Outside the living room window was a fire
escape but the wooden window frame had been
scabbed shut with paint.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said.
The two men studied her, still as statues.
Elizabeth wondered if she threw them a quarter would
they move.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“You don’t know us?” Small Guy asked.
“Why should I?”
“Because of what we’ve achieved.”
“Which is what? Kidnapping a helpless lady?”
“Oh, come now, Elizabeth, we both know you’re
not a lady.”
She studied Small Guy’s face, which was almost
colorless like melted paraffin.
“You do know us,” he said. “I am sure of it. For
example, you asked what we did, well, we did
Hernandez and Martinez and Mitchell and Flores…”
Elizabeth glanced at the plastic sheeting laid
across most of the floor.
“This is what happened to them?” she said.
“Tough men. But they all talked. Every last one of
them…before the end.”
“That’s how we got to you,” Big Guy said.
Her stilettos had embroidered a trail in the plastic
sheeting like ants marching toward the only exit
behind these two men. Trapped. No way out. Staring
at the ground, she noticed Small Guy’s over-polished
bluchers.
“You ever consider wearing lifts?” she asked.
 “Stacked heels? Wouldn’t they diminish my
stature?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“That’s the spirit,” he chuckled.
“You obviously want to talk, to bargain,” she said.
“Otherwise, I’d be dead… You need what I have.”
Small Guy checked his wristwatch.
“You don’t want to kill me,” she stammered. “You
want to control my operation. But you can’t do what I
do, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking. How about I
give you what you really want? A partnership.”
The two men exchanged oblique glances. Big Guy
was about to speak but Small Guy said “We’re
already in a partnership. No more partners required.”
“Think about it,” she said. “You get what you want,
all my connections and logistical network, and I get
what I want, a chauffeur-driven limo out of this dump,
and a flea bath.”
“What would Hector think?”
“Hector’s not my partner. He works for me. That’s
all. I’m in charge.”
“You would be willing to make us equal-stakes
partners?”
“Yes.”
“What guarantee do you offer?”
“My word.”
“Not enough.”
“What do you need?”
“More.”
“I can give you Hector’s whereabouts,” she said.
“It’s his shoes you’ll need to fill.”
 “You would turn on your partner?”
“Hector is not my partner. He provides protection.
And as of right now I notice Hector is rather lacking in
his responsibility… If you want a partnership with me,
I expect you to square things with Hector.”
“You don’t like losing,” Big Guy said.
“I don’t like employees who shirk their duties.”
“You can provide us with details that will lead to
Hector’s death?”
“Yes.”
Big Guy entered the kitchen and a moment later
Small Guy reluctantly followed but remained in the
threshold of the doorway so he could monitor
Elizabeth.
“Carter, we should take the deal,” the Big Guy
whispered.
“That’s not how this works, Parker. She’s fishing,
that’s all.”
“She’s giving us Hector. And her contacts.”
“Parker, I don’t like this. We stick to the plan.”
“Your plan.”
“Don’t do this. Not now. If we’re not together on
this… The plan is we kill her, cripple Hector’s supply
chain, and do our own thing. We have our own
contacts.”
“But we don’t have hers,” Parker seethed. “We’re
chump change.”
“Stick to the plan.”
“Her way,” Parker said, “we get Hector and if this
woman doesn’t prove true to her word, we kill her
anyway. No loss. We get Hector without him
expecting it, which we won’t be able to do alone. His
guard is up because we killed eight of his captains,
but she’s giving him to us. I don’t think we could
torture her into doing what she just offered.”
Carter studied Parker’s face for a long time, then
returned to the living room and Parker followed. They
stood before her and waited.
“Carter and Parker,” she said. “Who came up with
the rhyming scheme?”
“You promise the moon on a stick,” Carter said.
“I keep my promises and never fail to deliver.”
Her eyes were sharp as knapped flint.
“You’ve overreached yourself.” Carter checked his
wristwatch.
“Why do you keep checking your watch?” she
asked.
“We’re a smidgeon ahead of schedule,” he said to
Parker.
“How early?” she asked.
“Five minutes.”
Silence ensued.
“I could sure go for a cup of Joe,” Carter said.
“I guess I have the time,” she said.
Neither man moved.
“There is no coffee here, is there?”
“Just making chitchat.”
“Is he always this much fun?” she asked Parker.
“He’s not usually as chatty. I think he likes you.”
“I’m a sucker for great conversationalists,” she
said.
Her words hung in the air. The men watched her.
 “What happens in five minutes?”
“Four minutes,” Carter interrupted.
“What happens in four minutes?”
Carter unbuttoned his jacket and removed a
Beretta M9 pistol from his shoulder holster and
crossed hands in front of his lap with the barrel of the
pistol pointing downwards.
“You’re just like every other man,” she said.
“How so?” Carter asked.
“You’re intimidated by what I do. You don’t like a
woman being in charge.”
“This isn’t about you being a woman. This is about
you believing you are in charge when, clearly, I am in
charge.”
She had no response.
Time ticked away.
Less than three minutes remained.
“You’ve done well for yourself…so far,” she said.
“But what you’re planning to do by killing me, it’s the
end of the line. There’s no good outcome from this.
You won’t get anything if you kill me. You need my
contacts. You need me … if you want to expand.”
Carter’s head tilted to the side like a fox terrier
sighting prey.
“I lied earlier,” she said. “I know who you both are.
You’ve been killing Hector’s men for the past month.
The two men in brown suits, I’ve heard the reports. I
didn’t know your names or what you looked like, but
I’ve seen the work you’ve both done. You’ve seized
Bed-Stuy, Park Slope, Queens and most of
downtown. It’s an impressive resume. Anyone who
can take the fight to Hector is worth talking to. Worth
dealing with.”
Parker chewed the inside of his cheek.
“If we’re here to talk, let’s talk,” she said. “Don’t
make this the end of the line. Make this the jumping
off point.”
The muscles in Carter’s jaw flinched. He then
checked his wristwatch.
Exasperated, Elizabeth threw her hands in the air,
gave her back to both men and walked to the window
where she caught sight of her paleness in the glass
pane and outside there was a slush of snow and an
elevated train track that ran alongside this brownstone
rowhouse, near close enough to touch.
“Inwood?” she said.
“Nagle Avenue,” Parker said.
“When’s the next train due?”
“At precisely ten-forty-three,” Carter said. “The
noise will be too loud for the neighbors to hear the
gunshot.”
Two minutes remained.
“A fourth floor walkup,” she yucked. “This is where
you want to kill me? A fourth floor Inwood walkup? It’s
scandalous. I deserve better.”
“Inwood’s not a bad place to die,” Carter said.
“Hills and rivers. Barely feels like Manhattan.”
“You live around here? Where’s good to eat?”
Carter chuckled, couldn’t believe her false
confidence.
“Toni’s Pizza, corner of Broadway and Dychman,
makes a great margarita,” he said.
 “I prefer a calzone,” she said.
“All that passata, too much like blood?”
“I like things neat and tidy. There’s less disruption.”
“Me, I like to see the sauce.”
The room trembled and a locomotive wheezed
past the fourth floor walkup.
Carter raised the pistol and trained the sights on
Elizabeth.
“I’ll give you Hector, all my contacts, the whole
network, whatever you want, I’ll give you everything,
I’llgiveyoueverything,
everythingeverythingeverything.”
Her legs gave way and she stumbled backwards
toward the bare plaster wall which caught her back
like a kiss and words jabbered out of her mouth and
she squeezed her eyes shut and begged and wept.
The room quieted. Slow somnambulant hum of
traffic four floors below.
Carter kept the pistol aimed at Elizabeth.
“The next train arrives in five minutes,” he said.
“You have until then to convince me of the sincerity of
your offer, otherwise I can torture you, make you call
Hector and force him to come after you, maybe make
a demand for ransom money and have him come to
the drop point alone, but the drop point is wired with
explosives…”
“Hector would never do that,” she said. “He’d send
someone else. He’d never go alone. Your plan is
flawed. It will never work.”
“You’re too valuable to him to lose.”
 “Hector isn’t smart enough to realize how valuable
I am. He’d let me die before putting himself at risk.
Which is why I am offering you what I am offering. I
will give you Hector, where you can kill him easiest,
and you get me with my contacts and logistics.”
Carter pondered the statement for a long time and
then checked his wristwatch.
“Two minutes,” he said.
“Accept my offer or don’t,” she said. “I’ve done all
the talking I can.”
“Indeed,” Carter said, “you’ve talked a great deal.
You’ve offered to betray your partner, Hector.”
“I use him for protection. Nothing more. It’s my
business. If you can do what Hector can do, better
than him, then replace him. If you can do what I can
do, why are we still talking?”
She had the keen stare of a game-hen.
Parker laid his hand on Carter’s pistol and lowered
the barrel until it no longer pointed toward Elizabeth.
Carter seethed, jabbed the pistol into his shoulder
holster.
Elizabeth took a deep breath and smiled, teeth
more perfect than fairytale pearls.
“You’ll not regret it,” she said to Parker. “I knew
you’d make the right choice.”
She approached both men, moved between them,
and draped an arm around each of their shoulders.
“Let’s talk shop,” she said. “Hector has a
weakness for…”
A train sped past and the rush drowned out her
words. Carter felt the sting too late. His head drooped
like a sunflower. Limbs flopped like a puppet with cut
strings. Elizabeth had taken his pistol and shot him
and he collapsed to the ground. Parker snatched the
weapon from Elizabeth’s hand and pointed the barrel
in her face.
“Parker, don’t do anything rash.”
“You killed him. You killed him, youkilledhim—”
“Listen to me,” she interrupted. “You need to hear
what I say.”
He took a step closer to her, a fist balled to strike
and then he hesitated, resisting the urge to beat her.
“It was Carter’s plan to use me to get to Hector,
wasn't it?” she said.
“Yes.”
“It would never have succeeded. It was the wrong
play. I can’t work with someone that shortsighted.
But you…you have potential. Someone like you, I
can depend on to do the right thing.”
“Carter’s my partner.”
“He told you what to do. You weren’t partners.
You were his goon. You did all the grunt work, didn’t
you?”
“His plan led us to you.”
“It was the wrong plan. You said so in the kitchen.
But he didn’t listen. He never listened to you—”
“Shut up,” Parker said. “I have to kill you.”
“No, you don’t. You’re still alive for a reason. I
could’ve killed you, too, but I didn’t. You’re alive
because I don’t want to work with Hector anymore. I
need someone like you. Someone who isn’t afraid to
carve out new territories for my organization.”
 Parker didn’t speak.
“It’s your choice,” she said. “I’m giving you what
you want, fifty-fifty, but you need to decide whose play
is better, mine or your dead partner Carter’s.”
Parker scrutinized the corpse of his friend and
partner. It was too late for Carter, too late to change
direction.
“He never listened to me,” Parker said. “I must
have saved his life a dozen times.”
Parker lowered the pistol and Elizabeth took it from
him and glanced at Carter’s mess. The plastic
sheeting on the floor pooled claret, which she
sidestepped to avoid spoiling her stilettoes.
“I’m sure a big guy like you can make short work of
that body.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“Consider this your job interview.”
Parker removed his jacket, folded it and carried it
like a loaf of bread to the corner of the room and set it
on the rough-sawed wooden floorboards, and took
hold of a corner of the clear plastic sheeting and
folded it over his dead partner like a calzone.
“What now?” he asked.
Elizabeth moved next to the window and perched
on the ledge, the pistol resting on her lap like a
favored house pet. She studied Parker for a long
time, then checked her wristwatch.
“What’s the rush? The next train isn’t for twelve
minutes.”
About the Author

Michael McGlade grew up in an Irish farmhouse

where the leaky roof didn’t bother him as much as the
fear of electrocution from the nightly scramble for
prime position beneath the chicken lamp, the only
source of heating in the house – a large infrared heat
lamp more commonly used for poultry. His seminal
influences were Darwin’s Survival Of The Fattest and
a morbid belief that “undying love” meant you had a
soft-spot for zombies. Never allowing these
misapprehensions to hold him back from success, he
understood that nothing is as clear as the illegible
comprehensibility of the modern world. His short
fiction has been published in Green Door, J Journal,
Grain, Spinetingler, Downstate Story, and other
journals. He holds a master’s degree in English from
Queen’s University, Ireland.
You can find out the latest news and views from
him on www.McGladeWriting.com.
Gary
By Michael Kanuckel

Gary is a man at his happiest when others are at

their most miserable.
He relishes people’s misery the way a person of
high society might appreciate a fine wine. He is the
type of person who has a police band radio, and
listens to it the way other people watch television. Try
to picture him, in the dark in a room of modest
furnishing, listening to officers talking with their
dispatchers and each other, discussing rapes, and
burglaries, and domestic violence. Domestics are
Gary’s favorites.
Perhaps you’ve never met a man like Gary, a man
whose every conversation dealt with people being
arrested, people involved in traffic accidents, people
losing their houses or loved ones. Maybe you think
he only exists in movies and fiction. But he’s out
there, a dark and malignant cell thriving on the fringe
of society, working under the table, boasting to those
who will listen of a thousand different things.
On one day he might tell you he’d been tried and
convicted for murder by a top secret military tribunal,
that he’d killed a civilian in Vietnam and been sent for
hard time at Leavenworth.
On another day he might regale you with tales
from his days as a bouncer.
He is a master of a dozen different martial arts,
despite his doughy body. He will boast the number of
times he’s been hauled to jail, and of all the times he
almost killed his ex-wife, who was a crazy drunk who
tried to have him killed.
He’ll tell you with pride that his daughter, now
fifteen, has pretty much raised herself since she was
four, and he’ll tell anyone around him that he doesn’t
need to work at all because he’s worth millions. He
has a jet and a dozen cars. He used to be a cop, and
that’s why he never gets into any real trouble for all
the incredible things he’s done. He still has
connections on a handful of police forces and in the
military. He deals guns.
You may think there can be no such person, or, if
there is, nothing he says is true. You may picture him
sitting there in the dark with his radio, and tell yourself
that’s all there is to him. A sad little creature,
desperate for attention and spinning yarns like a child
on a playground who might grow up to be a writer.
But Gary possesses very little imagination. He is
more like a parrot, repeating what he hears on his
police radio or the television.
He does exist.
And whatever else is truth and whatever else is
fiction, he does have quite a collection of guns and
explosives. He can talk all over the country on his
radios, the antenna of which protrudes from the roof
of his shabby little house like skeletal fingers, and he
has connections with several militia groups. And he
does sell guns. It was only a matter of time before
someone came for his blood, but all that came out of
it was another little slice of misfortune for him to
relish.
 Mister Emmit is a man the likes of which you
surely do know. He is a small man, not thin or fat but
that in-between of most American men of the early
twenty-first century. If lost in the wilderness, he would
die of exposure or from trying to eat roots and berries
that are quite poisonous. He is as far removed from
the hunter-gatherer as a man can be, a tidy little
person who slouches over a computer screen all day,
wears rimless spectacles, and thinks himself very
important as he climbs the ladder of middle-
management. Mister Emmit lives in a spacious house
in a friendly suburb of the Big City. He mows his lawn
and washes his car and his wife’s SUV on the
weekend, a baseball game playing on the radio in his
highly organized garage.
All of this should illustrate that a man like Mister
Emmit and a man like Gary should never be
connected, but they are- in a very intimate way.
Mister and Missus Emmit had a son, who would be
fifteen now, but he’s dead. Killed. A friend of his,
who went to school with the all but abandoned
daughter of a certain shadowy character, bought a
gun and brought it over to the house. He only brought
it to show it off, so Emmit Junior would believe he
really had it. But teenage boys are dangerous
animals. Tempers can flare easily, and for no real
reason. At his trial, the boy said he shot Emmit Junior
because he made fun of his favorite wrestler. He also
told the prosecutor where he got the gun in the first
place.
Did anything come of it?
 No.
Maybe Gary really did have connections. Maybe
he struck some kind of deal. Whatever happened,
there was no justice for Mister Emmit. He did not
blame the boy who had shot his only son, and was
going to show up at his very first parole hearing and
ask for his release even if it meant a divorce from his
wife of twenty years. What Mister Emmit wanted was
Gary. He wanted to look into the man’s lazy,
apathetic eyes. He wanted to see them sharpen with
fear, when he had to look down the black bore of a
gun himself.
But Mister Emmit was practical. He was a desk
man. A shirt and tie man except for on the weekend,
when he would don his athletic department T-shirt
and sweat pants and do nothing more active than lay
in front of the television. What could he do? He could
do what men of his standing always did- use his
money. Emmit Junior’s college savings were just
sitting there now, after all.
Mister Emmit hired a detective named Mister
Wednesday to find out all about Gary. Mister
Wednesday was to follow him everywhere he went.
Learn his habits. See the people he saw on a daily
basis. Find out what he did with his days and nights.
And when Mister Emmit was satisfied with Mister
Wednesday’s findings, he would slip Mister
Wednesday a considerable amount of money if he
could point him in the direction of some men who
made their living hurting people. Some time later,
Mister Wednesday produced his findings. He brought
out notebooks in which he’d recorded Gary’s daily
routine. He brought out pictures of Gary, and of his
daughter, and of other people who looked quite a bit
like Gary. He had pictures of Gary’s house, of his
cars, of the places he frequented. He did not have
any phone records. Gary didn’t have a phone; he
talked to people on his radios. He had pictures from a
place Gary worked, a place where he collected real
pay stubs so no one could wonder where his money
came from.
Mister Emmit, being satisfied with Mister
Wednesday’s work, gave him an envelope full of
hundred dollar bills and asked after the sort of men
who might not be adverse to hurting someone for
money. Mister Wednesday, who certainly didn’t mind
receiving extra money for nothing, pointed him in the
right direction.
“I want this man killed,” Mister Emmit said to the
men when he met them. “I understand you do this
sort of thing.”
“Oh yes,” one of the men said. They were both
big. They both wore black leather coats and
sunglasses, and had shaved heads. They looked
exactly the same, and had no names. That was fine
with Mister Emmit, who didn’t give them his either.
“You understand correctly, my friend.”
“I don’t want any messing around,” Mister Emmit
said. “Just go up to him and blow his head off.”
“And where do we find this man?”
Mister Emmit had thought very long and very hard
about this. It had been a grim subject to dwell on, but
he had to do it. The first option was to have them kill
Gary at his home, but Mister Emmit had quickly ruled
that out. The girl might be there. He didn’t want a
child to see this. He had no quarrel with the girl.
They could fall on him outside the coffee shop he
frequented, but that was too risky. There would be
people everywhere. At last Mister Emmit had been
left with only one option.
“You can find him here,” he said, and handed one
of the men a picture of a building on the outskirts of
town. “It’s a warehouse where he works. The night
shift.”
“You want us to do him at work?” one of the men
said. “No way.”
“There’s only five people on the third shift,” Mister
Emmit explained. “They all work alone, in different
parts of the building. No one will even know you’re
there. No cameras, no security. You go in, you shoot
him, and you leave. All anyone will know is that he’s
dead. He has a lot of enemies.”
The two men were satisfied. “Ten thousand,” the
first one said. Mister Emmit was agreeable. Emmit
Junior would have had a fine education, had he lived.
“Now what’s this guy look like?”
None of the pictures of Gary had turned out very
well. They were all grainy. But Mister Emmit knew all
the major details that would make him stand out from
the other workers at the warehouse. “He’s a big guy,”
Mister Emmit said. “Not tall, but broad. He wears his
hair in a ponytail. He has a big tattoo on his right
forearm, and always wears jeans and short-sleeved
shirts, even in the winter.”
The two men nodded at each other. “Soon as we
have the money in our account,” the first one said,
“your man’s dead.”
Mister Emmit nodded. “Very good.”
A black sedan, fancy-looking but hard to describe,
pulled into the gravel lot behind the warehouse where
Gary worked. Two big shadows got out of the car,
and went into the low building by a side door. Inside,
the place was dark and all but empty. There were
rows and rows of shelves, most of them bare. Stacks
of pallets sat everywhere. The lighting was provided
by naked bulbs cased in wire, high up in the steel
rafters. The two big men moved quickly, silently.
They passed an old man with kinky white hair,
dressed in black slacks and a white shirt. He didn’t
notice them.
Down another row they came within inches of a tall
black man with headphones on, singing along with
Smoky Robinson and popping his fingers. A dark
bottle wrapped in brown paper stuck out of his jacket
pocket.
Around a corner, down another narrow way they
went, two shadows moving through the shadows.
The first shadow tapped the second on the shoulder,
and pointed to a figure kneeling on the floor a few feet
away from them. His back was to them. It was a
broad back. A long brown ponytail hung down
between his shoulder blades. He wore old blue jeans
and work boots, and a short sleeved flannel shirt.
The two shadows looked at each other for a second.
They had to wait for one last sign. There were plenty
of men in the world with ponytails after all, who
dressed in jeans and ragged old shirts. Plenty of men
working in places like this warehouse. They had to be
sure. The man was fixing a pallet, replacing one of the
boards that had gone rotten and splintered. When he
was done he tossed it onto the pile before him. He
had a big tattoo on his right forearm. The two
shadows nodded at each other, and drew out
automatic handguns with long silencers. Without
ceremony, they both emptied their clips into the man’s
back and head. He shuddered and jerked. He fell.
And so Mister Emmit had his justice. He went
back to his normal life, feeling at peace. He had an
eye for an eye, a life for a life. Now he went back to
his desk and his sweatpants weekends. Once a year
he and Missus Emmit went and laid flowers on Emmit
Junior’s grave. Life went on.
But there were things Mister Emmit didn’t know.
He didn’t know, for instance, that on the night the
men in black went to the warehouse to kill Gary there
had been a cataclysmic accident on one of the city’s
major highways. A tanker full of petrol had jackknifed
across all four lanes after hitting a slick spot. Before
the truck had even come to a sliding stop it was hit by
a man driving an SUV who had been talking on his
cell phone and trying to light a cigarette at the same
time. There was an explosion. There were deaths. If
Mister Emmit had listened to the emergency police
bands, he would have known about the accident.
Gary certainly knew about it. He blew off work to go
and watch the rescue crews peel the dead off the
highway.
Another thing Mister Emmit didn’t know was that
Gary was Cherokee, or at least claimed to be. He
couldn’t grow a beard. Had he known this, he could
have added this important feature to the list he’d
given the men in black. Then, armed with that
knowledge, they could have waited for the man with
the ponytail and the tattoo to turn enough for them to
see his face. Had they done that, they would have
seen that the man they shot had a long brown beard.
Another thing Mister Emmit did not know was that
a new man had just joined the night crew at the
warehouse. He was a big man, not tall but broad. He
wore a long ponytail, and dressed in jeans and short-
sleeved shirts, even in the winter. He had a big tattoo
on his forearm. But, where Gary had a homemade
peace sign, this man had a poem written in Celtic
runes. It had meant a lot to him, but not as much as
his young wife and two sons, who were waiting for
him to come home at six-thirty the next morning. For
them, the wait would never end.
Mister Emmit was hitting the snooze button on his
alarm for the third time when the family of this young
man found out he was dead, shot down at his job for
unknown reasons by unknown assailants. Mister
Emmit was washing his pasty body in a marble tiled
shower when the young widow identified her
husband’s body. And Mister Emmit was flipping the
bird to a woman who cut him off on the way to work
while a mother told her sons that their daddy was
never coming home.
Justice?
What is justice?
And what did Gary think of all this? Why, it was
the most exciting thing he had ever heard! Imagine,
someone being shot down in cold blood, gangster
style, at his job! Of all the luck, that he missed it to
watch a lousy traffic accident. He talked about it for
years afterward, expounding on all sorts of theories
as to who might have wanted the new guy on his crew
dead. He never could stop talking about it. Gary is,
after all, a man at his happiest when misfortune
strikes. It is what gets him off. It is his liquor, his
drug, his orgasm. Of all the luck, that he missed it!
Of all the luck.
About the Author

Michael Kanuckel lives in a small rural town in the

middle of Ohio with his two sons. He has been writing
since he was in kindergarten, and always knew that
he wanted to be an author. He has published short
stories in various science fiction and fantasy
magazines. Winter's Heart is his first novel.
Hell And Back
By Lucas Mangum

Hell for me was a studio apartment in the bad part

of town where outside my window sirens wailed and
inside my thoughts were dominated by the wife that
left me and the congregation that no longer saw me fit
to be their pastor. It was where I started drinking
again and stopped talking to God. I kept the curtains
drawn and slept on the floor.
Inheriting the Deep Well Tavern from my father
was my redemption. I started to make my way back
from that dark place. I told myself that Hell was a
state of mind. I told myself that adversity would
come, but I’d face it on my own terms.
That was all before that night when Danny Carlyle
walked into my bar with ghosts in his eyes and a shirt
drenched in blood.
Danny was a soft-spoken accountant and a regular
at the Deep Well. He was also the only one from my
old congregation that still spoke to me. I knew there
was something wrong the moment he walked in by
the look in his eyes and the way he clutched his
jacket to his body. He sat down in front of me, facing
his lap where his hands trembled. I put a coaster
down and asked if he wanted the usual. He barely
seemed to notice. I said his name and he looked up at
me. Up close, the haunted look was even more
pronounced.
“Better make it a strong one, Wally,” he said.
 I gave him my best sympathetic bartender look
and made him a gin and tonic. I used just a splash of
tonic, told myself that if he got out of control I’d flag
him, and set the glass on top of the coaster.
Being a bartender was a lot like being a pastor.
People confide in you. People expect you to have
some cosmos-shifting wisdom to impart, even if deep
down you’re just as lost as they are.
“Want me to run a tab, Danny?”
He frowned, then reached into his pocket and set a
twenty on the bar. “Just take it out of this.”
“Hey,” I said. “Are you all right?”
He drained his glass and shoved it towards me.
“Can you set me up again? Stronger this time,
please.”
I took the glass but didn’t refill it. Instead I stared
hard at him and asked what the hell was going on.
“I killed her.”
Without him going into detail, I knew who he
meant. Shelly was his junkie girlfriend who’d been in
and out of rehab. Prone to violent outbursts, she
often pushed their confrontations into the physical. I
dumped the ice from his glass and called Carrie-Anne
over.
“Can you watch the bar for a bit? I need to talk to
Danny in the back.”
“Sure, Wally.”
It was a busy night and I hoped that the noises
from the other conversations had drowned out
Danny’s confession. I stepped around the other side
of the bar and took him by the elbow. We walked
through the kitchen and into my office.
“Have a seat,” I said.
He collapsed into the chair, folded his hands, and
looked up at me. Those haunted eyes reminded me
that I hadn’t misheard him. Danny Carlyle, man of
faith, soft-spoken accountant and regular at my bar,
was a murderer.
“Now,” I said, “I want you to start from the
beginning. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I came home tonight. She’d been clean for a
while.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket
pocket. I didn’t remember him being a smoker and I
almost told him not to smoke in my office, but
considering what he was going through, I let him
pass. “I actually caught her stealing something from
me so she could go out and get a fix. We started
fighting. I tried to restrain her and she took a knife
from the kitchen. I tried to disarm her, but in the
struggle…God…”
He sucked on the cigarette and blew smoke
around the room. He unzipped his jacket and
revealed his blood-soaked shirt. So far, I’d tried to
keep cool, but I gasped at the sight of the bloody
garment. Danny stood up and opened his jacket all
the way.
“My God, Wally, I killed the woman I love.” He got
on his knees before me, tears falling from his haunted
eyes, and took my hand into an iron grip. It was like
the old days, when I made the altar call and folks
came up to accept Christ and ask for forgiveness.
Sometimes they meant it; other times I knew they
were full of shit. “Wally, I don’t know what to do, man.
You gotta help me.”
His plea resonated deep within me. I said, “Why
not try the police? Why’d you have to come here?”
“The police? They’d… they’d…”
“If it was self-defense…”
“It was! But this would ruin me. I’d lose my job.
I’d lose everything even if my name was cleared.”
He was right. He was a good man, but the public
wouldn’t see it that way. His employer wouldn’t. His
ex-wife wouldn’t, and she’d make sure he never saw
his kids again. All they’d see was a man who kept
company with drug addicts half his age. I pried his
hands off of mine, then placed my hands on his
shoulders.
“Take me to her,” I said.

“I have to leave, Carrie-Anne,” I said. With my

hand on the small of Danny’s back, I guided him
towards the exit. “Do you mind closing up?”
“Is he okay?” She pointed to Danny.
“Look, I’ll explain later, but I have to go.”
“Sure thing, Wally. You take care of Danny,
okay?”
I gave her a tight smile and nodded before pushing
open the exit door and rushing out into the night.

Shelley was lying on the floor of Danny’s house,

cold lifeless eyes looking at me as I stood in the
doorway. The handle of the knife jutted out of her
chest. Blood pooled in the carpet around her. He’d
got her in the heart. Sickness rose within me at the
sight of her and I held my hand to my mouth and
gagged. Danny went to the couch and picked up a
cell phone. A grim expression crossed his face and
he appeared more angry than scared. He set the
phone back down and looked at me.
Something was wrong. I knew right away that
there was more to this than he was telling me.
“Close the door, please,” he said.
I shut the door behind me. As I stood in his living
room, I wondered over and over why I’d agreed to
come with him.
“I thought we might, uh, roll her up in that carpet.”
He sniffed. “My back seats go down. We could dump
her somewhere.”
I fought the urge to turn and run out the door. To
rat out my friend. I reminded myself that he needed
my help, that this was the only real option. Even if
there was more to this, he’d seen fit to forgive me. It
was only right that I offered him the same absolution.
I swallowed.
“Let’s get this over with. Do you have a box
cutter? We have to get this carpet up.”
He nodded and went to the other room. I knelt
beside Shelly’s head and looked deep into her dead
eyes. It’s all right, I told myself. From what I knew
about her, no one would come looking.
Danny only had one box cutter, so I cut the carpet
for him. I sent him to the kitchen to make himself a
drink. God knew he needed it. I had to stay sharp,
sober, if I was going to get my friend out of this. I felt
bad for him and wanted to make sure I did everything
I could to help. Besides, now if I fucked up, it was my
ass too. I was about to turn a corner with the blade
when the phone on the couch rang again. Danny
jumped out of his seat, looked at the screen, and
silenced the ringing.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Nobody.”
“Is that her phone? We can’t have someone come
looking for her, man.”
“I said it was nobody.”
I grimaced and resumed cutting the carpet. The
tearing sound soothed me, so I focused on it, tried to
tell myself that we’d be done soon. The phone rang
again and I looked up at Danny. He trembled and
silenced it. I glared at him, but he ignored me.
Before I resumed cutting, the phone beeped twice, a
text message. Danny looked at it.
“Shit,” he said. “Can’t you go any faster?”
I stood up. This had gone far enough. “Danny,
what the hell aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, we just…”
“Who keeps calling?”
“Wally…”
I snatched the phone from his hand. The text was
from someone named Ryan.
“What’s going on,” it read, “why aren’t you
answering your phone?”
“Who’s Ryan?”
“Just forget it, Wally. We have to finish this.”
“You’re asking me to be an accessory to murder.
I’d suggest giving me as much information as
possible.”
The phone went off again and I looked down at it:
“I’m coming over.”
I showed Danny the message.
“Ryan’s her other boyfriend,” Danny said. “He gets
her drugs. She gives him her body.” He paused and
dropped his eyes. “She was gonna leave me for him.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said. He didn’t have to say
anything else. He’d lied. He hadn’t killed Shelley in
self-defense. It was a crime of passion. I threw the
box cutter to the ground. “You handle this. I can’t be
a part…”
“But you already are. Your fingerprints are all over
everything. You were seen leaving the bar with me.
Listen, when they caught you hand in the collection
plate, and your wife left you, and the elders fired you,
I stuck by you. I stuck by you because I knew you
were just like me.”
The bastard was right.
“Now,” he said, “let’s get this done before Ryan
gets here.”
I was fuming, but I got back on my knees. I
couldn’t cut fast enough. The entire time I couldn’t
shake the notion that I was fucked. Part of me
wanted to take the box cutter and ram it into Danny’s
throat.
I finished cutting and retracted the blade. “Back up
your car, Danny.”
He nodded and got to his feet. I cursed as he
passed by. My blood boiled in my veins as I knelt
looking into Shelley’s eyes. They hypnotized me,
sending my thoughts to the dark place.
I remembered the day I got the news. The elders
in my congregation sat me down in the office I’d
called my own and told me that because my wife had
left me for another man, I was unfit to lead a
congregation. If I couldn’t manage a family, they’d
said, how could I attend to the spiritual needs of a
community? My thoughts then, as I sat alone in my
dark apartment had been black as pitch. There were
nights that the feelings of betrayal were so strong, I
wanted to kill my ex-wife for ruining me. Recalling
this, I recognized the kindred spirit I had in Danny.
We both had this darkness within us. Danny was my
brother. I could forgive him, even if no one would
forgive me.
I heard him start the car and silently urged him to
hurry.
After he backed the car up to the front door, I
came outside and opened the trunk. He was putting
the back seats down. He finished and I gave him a
nod. We went back inside and began rolling her up in
the carpet. First I had him pull the knife out. He tried
to do it slowly, which resulted in a squishy sound. It
took all I had not to vomit as blood bubbled from the
wound. Once the knife was removed, I took one side
of the carpet and covered her with it. Danny folded
the other end over.
“You have duct tape?”
He nodded and started to get up.
“I’ll get it. You hold her together. Where is it?”
 He pointed towards a drawer in the kitchen and I
went. I opened every drawer until I found it, then
went back to the living room. My pulse pounded as
time ran out. What would the wage of our sin be?
“Lift her,” I said, pulling a length of tape free.
He did and I wrapped one end of her body tightly
in tape. I did the same around the opposite end and
put several pieces of tape across the middle. Our
eyes met and I nodded. We each took an end, I
counted to three, and we lifted. My muscles strained.
Death had a way of making a body heavy. We came
out into the night and I prayed that the darkness
would be sufficient to cover our deed. In the distance,
I heard the whine of an approaching engine. I met
eyes with Danny and his expression matched what I
felt.
“We have to hurry.”
I quickened my pace as we approached the trunk.
When we reached it, I rested her head and shoulders
on the edge of the car. We repositioned ourselves to
the sides of her body like we were carrying a coffin.
In a way, I guess we were. As we loaded her in, the
whine of the engine got closer. I had to go around
and get her over a bump near the seats. I pulled and
heard the car turn onto Danny’s street.
“Shit,” I heard Danny say. “Shit, shit, shit!”
She was in all the way.
“Danny, shut the trunk!”
The car’s brakes screeched to a halt in front of
Danny’s house. Danny shut the trunk and I closed
the back door. We exchanged glances. His eyes
were full of panic. Whoever was driving the car got
out, and I turned to face him.
Ryan looked like a punk kid. He wore a sports
jersey and baggy jeans. The brim of a baseball cap
partially hid his youthful features. He was mostly skin
and bone, but the baggy clothes made him look
bigger. He approached us with his chest stuck out,
ready for a fight.
“What the fuck is this?” he said. He lifted his shirt
to reveal the grip of a Glock. “Where’s Shelley?”
He came closer.
“You’re Ryan?” Danny stepped forward, probably
not seeing the gun. “You just mind your damn
business, you little…”
“Wait,” I stepped in Danny’s way, “let’s just all…”
“What the fuck? Is that blood?” Ryan pointed at
Danny’s shirt.
I followed the gesture and saw the mess of red
splattered on Danny’s chest. Ryan pulled the gun.
“Where’s Shelley?” He shifted his aim from Danny
to me. “What the hell did you guys do to her?”
I heard a door open. We were waking the
neighbors.
“What did you guys do to Shelley?”
I froze. This was out of control and as the second
person got out of their home to investigate the
commotion, I realized just how deep in this I was.
Whether Ryan shot me or not, I was fucked. No two
ways about it. More people came outside as Ryan
kept screaming at us. He pointed the gun back and
forth.
 “You sons of bitches, what have you done? What
have you done?” There were tears in his eyes. For
all I knew, he and Shelley had planned on getting
clean and leaving town. He said, “What have you…”
“You shut the fuck up!” Danny came forward,
pointing a finger at Ryan as if he too had a gun. “One
thing I’m not gonna do is be scared by some two-bit
drug dealer with a gun.”
“Danny…” I said.
“You stay where you are, old man!” Ryan kept the
gun trained on Danny.
Danny didn’t stop coming forward. “I’ll choke the
miserable life out of you, little punk. I…”
Ryan fired and chunks of brain sprayed from the
back of Danny’s head. It happened that fast and
Danny fell dead. Ryan stared at the weapon in his
hand and threw it down as if it were dirty. He took his
hat off and stared across the lawn at me. Someone
had called the police and their sirens wailed in the
night. Ryan paced while I remained where I was. We
both knew what was coming. Neither of us was
getting out of this. Too many people had seen us and
our cars. Some had gone back to their houses, but
watched from behind their windows. Ryan threw his
hands up and got back in his car. He fired up the
engine and sped away. I watched his tail lights
disappear into the night.
They’d catch him; it was the cold truth. Poor kid.
Before this he’d been a fuck up, not a killer. I went
back into the house, the acceptance of my arrest
coming easier than I thought it would. I found a
blanket and went back outside to cover Danny with it.
I wanted to give the poor bastard some dignity.
As the first of the police cars pulled onto the street,
I stepped off the lawn and onto the pavement.
Spotlighted in their red and blue lights, I put my hands
on my head and got down on my knees to beg for
mercy.
About the Author

Lucas Mangum writes horror, crime and fantasy

fiction, sometimes horrific crime fantasies. His work
has appeared on the websites Shotgun Honey and
MicroHorror as well as the anthologies Strange World,
crappy shorts-deuces wild, and Bones. His novel,
Flesh and Fire, is due out in 2015 as part of
Journalstone Publishing's Double Down Series. He is
the co-writer of the sci-fi/horror film Epigenesis
(Honors Zombie Films) and has appeared in the
independent sci-fi thriller Apocalypse Kiss (Potent
Media). His influences include childhood,
psychological disorders, industrial music, nightmares,
exploitation movies, and cats. He is on Twitter
@LMangumFiction, Facebook at
facebook.com/lucas.mangum, Tumblr and Instagram.
His website, the Dark Dimensions is at
http://www.lucasmangumauthor.com
Good Samaritan
By Joe Powers

The buzzer shattered the silence at ten past eight

on a Tuesday morning. The sun was barely up, the
day’s first rays just peeking over the top of the tall
fence surrounding the dusty yard, and already the
temperature was approaching the low eighties.
Somewhere from deep within the bowels of the
building, as if on cue, a buzzer signaled the time.
Ten minutes earlier the same tedious alarm had
droned and on each cell block a pair of guards had
taken the morning count. Through the large double
doors off to the left, down a wide set of stairs and
twenty paces or so across the parking lot, the old grey
bus idled roughly, its driver tapping out an impatient
tune on the steering wheel and glancing periodically
at his watch.
On the other side of the doors, equally impatient,
prisoner number 98M451, Charles Augustus Milano,
aka Charlie the Chopper, stood near the receiving
and discharge area of Blanchard State Penitentiary.
He wore faded jeans, a loose-fitting sweater, and the
same stoic mask he’d sported almost continually
since the day he’d walked through the front gate.
Whatever emotions had come crashing through
him, regardless of the situation or the circumstances,
he’d steadily maintained that aura of cold indifference.
Without a single altercation or test of supremacy,
Charlie had been given a wide berth by every other
inmate during his entire stay based on his reputation
on the outside. He was, as one former cellmate had
been fond of saying, “one mean son of a bitch” and
made no bones about it.
The last time he’d been allowed this close to the
doors had been three years and eight months earlier
when he’d been one of sixteen men herded through
on day one of their various bids. He decided the walk
back through to the other side today would be the last
time anywhere near these guards, these gates, that
God-forsaken buzzer and these miserable, slate-grey
walls.
Behind the counter at the discharge window one of
the guards, a grey-haired black man named Roger,
handed him a clipboard with a form for him to sign.
Charlie scrawled his name across the line on the
bottom and passed it back. “Be a good boy out there,
Chopper,” said the guard, without a trace of malice or
sarcasm. Charlie locked eyes with him briefly, then
with a barely perceptible nod he picked up the bulky
envelope containing his personal effects and, without
a backward glance, stepped outside into the most
beautifully unblemished sunny day he could
remember.

The five-hour bus ride home was largely

uneventful, giving him time to drift in and out of
restless sleep, pick absently at a bag of potato chips,
and sort through his meager belongings. He dumped
the contents of the envelope into his lap: two rings,
one gold with three small diamonds set in the center
and one stainless steel with the band shaped like
links of a chain; one pack of stale, unfiltered
cigarettes, with one missing; his gold-plated Zippo
with ‘Chopper’ flamboyantly etched on one side; and
his battered leather wallet, containing a few pieces of
identification, and four hundred and fifty two dollars in
cash. He smiled to himself at this last discovery.
He’d had no expectation of finding any money in the
bag when he got out, much less every cent he’d
placed in there. “I’ll be damned,” he thought.
“Common decency, even in that shithole.” He tucked
the cash back into his wallet and jammed it into his
hip pocket, slipped the rings onto the middle and ring
fingers of his right hand, and stepped squinting from
the prison bus onto the bus station platform. He
shook a smoke from the package and, snapping his
fingers against the igniter of his Zippo, lit it with a
flourish. He gazed around at his surroundings, smiled
his first real smile in months, and sauntered down the
street toward home.

Three days later, by the time twilight’s last

struggling rays had given way to the onset of night, he
strode down the dimly lit sidewalk feeling like himself
for the first time in nearly half a decade. He’d gone
through almost all the cash he had. He’d broken the
last twenty in his wallet an hour earlier to buy a pack
of smokes, but for the moment he was unconcerned
about money. He’d figure something out before long.
Clad in a silk-lined black leather waistcoat, faded blue
jeans, ornate cowboy boots and a pinstriped fedora
perched at a jaunty angle, he was back on his old
streets in style. The sights and sounds of the old
neighborhood flooded over him, stimulating his
senses and bringing a thousand memories sharply
into focus. He had grown up and spent his entire life
on those streets, and knew every nook and cranny
inside out. The corner stores and pawn shops; the
row houses and apartment buildings; the dark alleys
and side streets where the sex shops sat and the
hookers patrolled; this was Charlie’s world, and he
was right at home.
A couple of blocks east the docks began, running
parallel to the street he was on. This close to the
waterfront the faint smell of salty air mingled with a
hint of raw sewage assailing his nostrils. The
boardwalk area, where tourists milled around all
summer and the smells and sounds of middle class
vacationers drifted on the air, was a mile or so further
down the shoreline, situated well beyond the unsightly
shipyard area. Every detail of the old neighborhood
stirred old memories, most of them unpleasant. He
may have been right at home, but in truth he would
have been perfectly happy to leave the old bones of
his past lying in the dust behind him. The terms of his
parole specifically forbade him from associating with
any of the old crew. But word had gotten back to him
that he had been sent for, and lifelong friendship or
no, when Jimmy Boots asked to see you saying no
wasn’t an option.
Not that he wasn’t looking forward to seeing Jimmy
again. It had been just under four years since they’d
last seen each other. For twelve years prior to that
they had been as close as brothers. The first three
partnering in various robberies and petty crimes. The
next six as up-and-coming members of the Salvatore
crew. The last three as acting boss and top enforcer
of said crew, upon the “early retirement” of Vittorio
Salvatore and several of his closest friends at the
request of some federal agents. And then, of course,
they’d lost contact for the past four years as Charlie
joined Vittorio on vacation at luxurious Club Fed.
With his ten-year sentence reduced to four with
good behavior and some stringent parole conditions,
Charlie was a free man once more. Or as free as a
guy with an irritable and excessively suspicious parole
officer could be, anyway. Still, limited freedom on the
outside was so much better than the bullpen at
Blanchard that Charlie wasn’t complaining. Being told
that his old friend and boss wanted to have a chat
hadn’t really surprised him, even though he had been
turned loose not quite a week before. Knowing
Jimmy, odds were good he’d known about the early
release before Charlie himself had.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the strange
man stumbling toward him from the darkness of a
nearby alley. At the last second, too late, he heard
the stranger’s approach and took an instinctive step
backward. The man, undeterred, continued his
awkward approach. Staggering slightly and sporting
a wild look in his eyes, he wordlessly grabbed Charlie
by the lapels and pawed at his chest. “Unbelievable,”
thought Charlie. “Doesn’t this mook know who I am?
Less than four years in the can and just that quick
they forget, lose their fear of you. And here I am,
tryin’ to go straight, gettin’ mugged by some junkie in
the middle of my own backyard.”
Old habits die hard. Charlie had the man by the
throat and had slugged him in the face twice, two
good solid shots, before he even realized what he
was doing. The stranger sagged to his knees and
flopped over on his side unconscious. That was way
too easy, he thought. He nudged the man with the
toe of his boot, but there was no reaction. His body
still tensed, he knelt beside his fallen attacker. The
man’s eyes were open, rolled back in his head, only
the whites showing. Certainly all of the fight had gone
out of him. In fact, he noted with some alarm, he
didn’t appear to be breathing.
“Aw hell, just what I needed,” Charlie moaned, his
head in his hands. “I’ve killed this stupid son of a
bitch. Didn’t even hit him all that hard. This is just
great. No way the cops’ll believe it was self defense.”
It was true. People like Charlie the Chopper, former
enforcer to James “Jimmy Boots” D’Antonio, were
walking targets. Jimmy was a mid-level wiseguy who
controlled most of the territory from just below the
middle class neighborhood of Oldham Heights all the
way down to the shipyard, and all known associates
of that particular family were considered bad news by
local authorities. Especially those high-ranking types
in his organization, and particularly those known for
having a penchant for violence. Charlie had been
Jimmy’s second in command, feared and respected
across town for his enforcement techniques, most
notably for his belief that actions spoke louder than
words. He doubted that the mandatory rehab
program at Blanchard, not even the nice letter of
praise from the prison shrink, was likely to convince
the boys in blue he was fully reformed.
Mild panic began to overtake him as he looked
around, trying to formulate a plan. Nothing was
coming to mind. He didn’t see anyone else around,
but that didn’t necessarily mean no witnesses. It only
meant no witnesses that he could see, who were
willing to make their presence known. Either way, he
knew that in a situation such as this time would
rapidly become a factor. As bad a neighborhood as
this was, the cops still patrolled from time to time,
especially down close to the water.
The water! Charlie remembered where he was,
and a common solution to such problems in that part
of town sprang to mind. Sliding his hands under the
dead man’s arms and glancing around nervously he
hoisted the body onto his shoulders with a grunt.
“He’s a big boy, this one,” he noted, sagging under
the weight of his burden. The fear of being caught,
accused of murder and thrown back into prison was a
powerful motivator. Spurred on by his fear and the
lingering adrenaline from the brief conflict, Charlie half
carried, half dragged the body through the darkest
alleys and quietest streets he could find. He paused
often, listening for any telltale sounds of having been
noticed. Luck was with him, and after most of an hour
had passed he had reached the high fence
surrounding the freight yard nearest the docks.
 It took nearly another hour to make his way around
the fence to a gap large enough to squeeze through.
By then the adrenaline had stopped pumping, and
exhaustion was starting to set in. Charlie dragged the
body the last hundred yards or so, to an underused
dock extending out over a deep water hole. He knew
for a fact several other such burdens had been
unloaded in this very spot, and very few of them ever
turned up anywhere near the area. With a final burst
of energy he heaved the body over the side and into
the water, where it landed with a hollow splash.
Charlie slumped on the ground in the tall grass
next to the old dock, exhausted. He felt terrible; not
for having killed the man, but for having put himself in
this position. “Killin’ a guy is one thing,” he thought,
“but hiding the body, that makes it a lot worse. So
much for goin’ straight.” He chuckled in spite of
himself, and started to gather himself up to get out of
there before someone spotted him. His muscles
ached as he stood and stretched, brushing the grass
and dirt from his clothes. Suddenly he froze, his eyes
growing wide. His hand darted to the inside pocket of
his jacket, where his wallet had been. It wasn’t there.
He scanned the ground, kicking at clumps of
grass, knowing it was hopeless. If it was here, no
way he’d ever see it in the dark anyway. But a small
voice at the back of his head kept repeating what his
first instinct had been: that mugger managed to grab
your wallet before you slugged him, it insisted. You
just threw it into the bay, genius. The hot minute he
turns up somewhere, the first thing they’re gonna find
is a wallet full of stuff with your name all over it.
Charlie wanted desperately to ignore the voice, to
come up with a logical argument that disproved its
theory. But he knew, deep down, that he had felt the
man’s hand in his pocket for a brief instant. And he
also knew, from experience, that a second was all it
took to pickpocket someone, especially someone who
was caught off guard. He looked forlornly at the
water, now still and calm once again, as if no corpse
had just been tossed in and everything was just fine.
But it wasn’t fine, Charlie knew. And he knew what
his single option was.
Wading into the swirling, frigid water, ignoring the
quick, sharp pain while trying to estimate where the
body would have gone, Charlie hoped against hope
that it hadn’t gone very far yet. “I didn’t have time to
weigh him down so he should float, or at least drift, for
a little while at least,” he thought, “so unless the
current took him away already, which it couldn’t have,
he should be right about… here.” He drew in a breath
and dove, his hands stretched out in front of him as
he descended into the inky water.
Forty five seconds passed, then sixty. He broke
the surface, gasping, then forced himself back under
again. A second time he surfaced after about a
minute, and once more he took a breath and
disappeared under the waves. Minutes passed with
no luck. Growing more tired by the minute, drained
by the extreme cold of the bay but driven by fear and
a new burst of adrenaline, he continued what was
starting to feel like a futile search. No way it could
have gone so far already, he felt sure of that. He
noted with mild surprise how far from shore he had
drifted, and turned to swim back in a bit closer. But
the current was stronger out further, and Charlie
found to his dismay he was unable to overcome it.
“I’ll just rest for a minute,” he reassured himself, “then
once I’ve got my strength back, I’ll get the hell out of
here. To hell with my wallet, I’ll deal with that if it ever
comes up.” With a shuddering sigh, Charlie closed
his eyes and relaxed. As the waves closed over his
head, he felt strangely calm.

“So, there were two of them?” asked the

detective. He stood talking with the uniformed officer
by the dock, steam rising from the styrofoam cup in
his hands. “What’s the story on this one?”
“Looks like he might have gone in to save the first
one,” said the officer. “Not sure what either of them
was doing down here in the first place. Kind of a
seedy area, you ask me. But the first one, Donald
Ambrose, according to his driver’s license, took a
heart attack and fell in, by the look of it. Second guy
must’ve happened by at just the right time, saw what
was goin’ on, went in after him and tried to pull him
out. Wasn’t as strong as he thought he was, maybe.
Got caught in the undertow and that’s all she wrote.”
“Heart attack, huh?” the detective threw a
skeptical glance toward the medical personnel
wheeling the stretcher up the embankment toward the
ambulance. “So he wasn’t killed and dumped then,
you’re pretty sure?”
 “Doesn’t look like it,” replied the officer. “T’was his
heart, accordin’ to the EMTs there. No connection to
the second guy either, that we can find, and neither of
‘em had any money to speak of on ‘em anywhere, so
a mugging doesn’t seem likely. I mean yeah, he’s a
little roughed up, but he’s been bangin’ around under
these docks half the night, too. Nah, just a case of a
good Samaritan with a stroke of bad luck.”
The detective nodded, satisfied with that
explanation. He was cold, and he hated the
dockyard. It always stank of rotting fish and seaweed,
and he just wanted to wrap things up and get himself
somewhere warmer. “You got a make on the
Samaritan?” he asked.
“Yep. Name o’ Charles Milano. Sounds kind of
familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The
name mean anything to you?” asked the officer.
A bemused look crossed the detective’s face.
“Charlie the Chopper? Sure, I know him,” he
answered. “Mean sumbitch. The Feds like him for a
whole lot of stuff nobody’s been able to pin on him. I
didn’t even know he was out of the joint. He got sent
up about four or five years ago. Yeah, he’s been out
of circulation a while, but every cop in four precincts,
the ones who’ve been out of the academy more’n five
minutes, anyway, has at least heard of him. He is, or
was, the main go-to guy for Jimmy Boots. Yeah,
Jimmy’s a name that means a little something to you,
I see.” He paused a moment, thinking. ”But you,
obviously, had never made Chopper’s acquaintance.
How’d you ID him, anyway? One of the other
uniforms recognize him?”
“Nope, neither of us had ever seen him around
here that we could recall. We almost didn’t make him,
as a matter of fact, but my partner noticed a hole in
his jacket pocket, and sure enough, his wallet had
gone through and slid down into the lining of his
jacket. Lucky break, with that current thrashing them
around down there he could’ve lost it pretty easy.”
About the Author

Joe Powers is a horror writer with a fondness for

literary sleight-of-hand. He loves the idea of
prompting a strong emotional reaction using no more
than words and his slightly off-center imagination, and
delights in taking the reader on journeys to previously
unexplored regions. He occasionally dabbles in
genres that follow safer, more conventional routes,
but the path he loves most is the twisted, winding one
that leads through those dark, shadowy corners of the
mind where unseen things creep and slither, and
nothing is ever entirely as it seems.
Joe hails from New Brunswick, where the harsh,
cruel Atlantic Canadian winters allow for ample time
at the keyboard. When he’s not spinning wicked yarns
of dark fiction he’s working the hockey beat, covering
his beloved New York Islanders
(http://www.islandersinsight.com/).
Near the bottom of the “to do” list is the sporadic
and irregular maintenance of a random thoughts and
occurrences blog (http://joe-sowhatelse.blogspot.ca/).
In addition to several forthcoming projects his work
can be found in such anthologies as Twisted Tails VII:
Irreverence (Double Dragon Publishing), Twisted
Tails VIII: Para-Abnormal (DDP) and Hard Luck
(Burnt Offerings Books).
Lady Luck
By Mae March

Derek Whittaker had spent the last seven days of

his life as a miserable human being.
His dark hair was all but dreadlocked from a week
of neglect. His clothes were rumpled and unwashed.
With as little as he’d showered and the depth of the
dark circles under his sleep deprived eyes it was a
wonder he hadn’t been picked up as a vagrant to be
deposited at the local shelter. Even the local
homeless population strayed away from him;
evidently deeming him too sad a case to be worth
solicitation, or perhaps just thinking him one of their
own.
Anyone who’d known him before last week would
have painted him very differently.
Derek had been a relatively happy guy. He had a
job that, while not fantastic, paid his bills with only
mild dissatisfaction. His girlfriend was cute as a
button and always knew where to find the best
marijuana; of which they both partook on a
reasonable yet regular basis. He was even on good
terms with his family, and once a week would spend
the day with a nephew he spoke so fondly of that his
friends often joked that he was actually the boy’s
father.
Now, however, that man sulking in the shadows of
a rainy back alley looked so sullen and soured that
any of his friends would be hard pressed to recognize
him.
 “Hey Slick, gotta light?” A bold whore evidently
desperate for her nicotine fix stepped back from the
curb Derek had been nearing.
For a moment, the figure hiding beneath the
oversized trench coat froze; praying the stringy
prostitute was talking to someone else. She wasn’t, of
course. That was just Derek’s luck.
Reluctantly, the dreary young man produced his
object of constant obsession; a gleaming gold lighter
with an enameled inlay of “Lady Luck”; and lit the
whore’s fag.
“Lady Luck.” Derek couldn’t help but scoff
internally every time he looked at the lousy bitch now.
The woman on the lighter had started out as an
ample-breasted pinup queen, dressed like a devil
perched on a stack of poker chips with one foot on a
loaded die, but she was steadily changing. Her horns
had started to look more solid a few days back; and at
some point she’d grown wings. Now she was full
blown, red-skinned demoness, taunting him with the
luck he knew he shouldn’t have.
“Nice lighter, Slick. Bet that cost a pretty penny.”
The corner whore shimmied another step closer, but
Derek shoved her aside. “Hey! No reason to get
shovey, Asshole!”
Derek saw no point in being nice to her; not
because of her profession or anything about her
directly, but simply because she’d be dead by
morning.
Practically on cue, a black limo pulled over to
summon the girl in, and her eyes lit up as though
she’d just won the lottery. Derek couldn’t begin to
guess who was in it, or what would happen to cause
her demise; but he knew without a doubt that it would
happen.
That was just what happened when he gave
someone a light now.
Someone would ask him to light something for
them, and he wouldn’t be able to refuse. Then, they
would die. Sometimes it was instantly; sometimes it
was after a few minutes; sometimes it even took
hours; but no matter how long, they always died. To
make things even more confusing, each death was
followed almost immediately by a lucky windfall out of
left field.
This had been the course of his life for the seven
hellish days that had passed since he’d met Adalaide
Baroux and Melliena Marks.
There hadn’t been anything particularly remarkable
about either of them last Saturday at the casino.
Looking back, it was probably the heartbroken glaze
in the wintery blue eyes of the blond that drew him in.
He’d just been dumped by his girlfriend of two years,
and misery did love company.
Derek remembered seeing them at the bar in the
middle of the acres of slot banks and tables and
nodding in their direction when the blond made eye
contact. At some point he must have sat down to talk
to them, because the next thing he remembered was
being at their table.
The blond, Adalaide, was colder than ice to him,
and seemed near tears every time she looked at
Melliena, the angry ginger. Cold or not, Adalaide at
least spoke to him intermittently, while the other one
ignored him completely until the very end.
They both smoked though. He remembered that
vividly; mostly because he couldn’t get the nearly
repulsive mingling of the two contradicting herbs out
of his nostrils.
Adalaide’s rolled, green leaf sage was as crisp and
clean as her simple mint colored tunic and white
leggings. Their sour smell even seemed to match her
despondent stare. In perfectly wretched contrast,
Melliena, with her odd layers of brown and black
playing off her haphazard red curls, perpetually puffed
on a long, black, clove cigarette. Its cloying spice
mixed with the sour of the sage in a way that left the
whole bar smelling like a hippie-fest from hell.
He’d offered Adalaide a light. That’s really when
everything went south. He offered her a light he didn’t
have. He thought he did have it, of course, or else he
wouldn’t have offered, but to his great dismay his
disposable plastic lighter was nowhere to be found.
Melliena had sighed and rolled her green eyes as
Derek fumbled through his pockets. Adalaide waited
patiently, her lips pursed around the roll of green
leaves. No matter how drunk he’d been, the horrible
screech of metal against glass when the redhead slid
the accursed lighter across the table top still echoed
in his mind.
Derek remembered thumbing the enamel inlay
picture of the woman on the lighter; hovering an extra
seconds over the pin-up’s tits. To his surprise, Derek
found himself at half-mast just from the thought of
breasts. Not the lighter girl’s, specifically, just,
breasts in general. His drunken state had apparently
reverted him to being twelve.
As he held the lighter up for Adalaide, his now
one-tracked mind centered his eyes on her pale lips
as they pressed together around the thin, leafy tube.
His adolescent-reminiscent mind was still caught on
the simplistic “tits” track, and as such, carried his eyes
in that same direction.
Just as his eyes had wandered down to the low
neckline of Adalaide’s tunic his thoughts had been
interrupted by a sudden huff from the redhead. Both
women stood simultaneously and joined hands.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t like it.”
Melliena had grumbled as she led Adalaide away.
“Fuckin’ bitches. What? Am I not good enough
for you, or do you just not like cock in the first place?”
Normally, it was not in Derek’s nature to be a mean
spirited drunk let alone a misogynist, but that night
had proven far from normal. “Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it?
Couple of cock-kickers sitting around here just waiting
to make fun of us poor saps down on our luck.” He
picked up Lady Luck and clumsily tossed it in their
direction. “Forgot your lighter. You know, you could
at least give a guy a heads up that you’re dykes
before you let him make an ass of himself all night.”
The redhead caught the lighter effortlessly.
Without taking her scorching stare off of Derek’s eyes,
she’d handed it to Adalaide, who kissed it and handed
it back.
“Keep it.” Melliena’s voice had barely been a hiss
as she whipped the tiny object directly at Derek’s
head. “Just, be sure to give a light to everyone who
asks. Every. Single. Person. Perhaps it will change
your luck.”
Hotel security had arrived at that point, but the girls
waved them off dismissively and vanished into the
crowd. Derek, pocketed the lighter as a trophy of the
night and headed back to the bar proper.
Desperately needing to get the smell of clove and
sage out of his nose, he spent half of his remaining
forty dollars on an expensive, imported cigar. With a
rub of his thumb over Lady Luck’s enamel body, he
flicked the lighter open and got his new cigar rolling
before he wandered over to an empty blackjack table.
Throughout the rest of the night, Derek had won
over four grand. He’d left the casino just after
midnight, already drunk passed his limit, with a
ridiculously hot little gold digger named Bonnie tucked
under his arm.
In an attempt to take her home, he’d managed to
maneuver his rust pile out of the casino’s parking
garage, but not a great deal further. Bonnie had
laughed as he’d somehow avoided several cars upon
running a red-light, but eagerly encouraged him to pull
into an abandoned parking lot to sober up.
The moment the car was in park, she’d crawled
into his lap and asked for a light.
It was at that moment that Derek realized exactly
how little power he had to refuse the request. He’d
wanted to make some crass comment about having
something else she could smoke, but without a
moment’s hesitation, his hand moved against his will
and sought out the lighter in his pocket, sparked it,
and lit her cigarette. The look of confusion on his face
drew another giggle from Bonnie, who picked on him
for being frightened of her.
With his manliness challenged, Derek had to prove
himself. It had taken him several minutes of pawing
and groping, and more than a little help from her, but
somehow he managed to rescue her pert little breasts
from the prison of her bra, and eventually got his half
hard pecker past her thong and into its warm and
welcoming target. All the while, the girl never stopped
smoking.
When she’d finished her cigarette, Bonnie hit the
button to roll down his window and pitched the butt
out into the empty lot. Without bothering to roll it back
up, she continued to rock her hips in steady gyration
and leaned in to bring her tits to his face. She even
started to moan a little after a few minutes.
Derek had been close to cumming when Bonnie’s
nipple was pulled abruptly from his mouth. Her entire
body spasmed as she started to whimper. When he
looked up, Derek was eye to eye with a grinning old
man leaning in his car window to hold a knife to
Bonnie’s throat. Between the beard dirt, raggedy
clothes, and overwhelming smell of unwashed human
filth it was obvious that the man was homeless.
“Pretty titties on your whore here.” The hobo
laughed, filling the car with his rancid breath. “How
bout you just gimmy whatever you’s gonna pay her,
and anything else on ya too, so’s I don’t need’a make
a mess outta these choice milk-spigots.”
“Give him the money, Baby.” Bonnie was yelping
as she groped for the winnings envelope Derek had
tossed into the cars center console. “Please... please
just give him the money.”
Without a second thought, Derek had complied
and handed over the envelope marked with the
casino’s logo.
“Looks like someone hit a lucky streak tonight.”
The filth covered grin persisted as the vagrant shook
his head. “Somethin’ about that just don’t sit right with
me. Seems awful unfair for you to get to keep any of
this.” With another laugh, the hobo drew back the
knife a few inches, then sheathed it fully in Bonnie’s
chest. “Sorry, friend.”
He proceeded to stab Derek’s screaming date six
additional times as Derek watched, frozen; dick still
buried inside her. By the time he was able to move
again she was already dead; their assailant long
gone.
A bystander had at least been nice enough to call
the cops. Awkward as it was, Derek was grateful for
their help in getting the dead woman out of his lap.
When they’d finally gotten him free and he’d calmed
down from the near nervous breakdown level anxiety
attack he’d been hit with post freeze, one of the cops
retrieved a muddied envelope with the casino’s logo
on it. The murderous hobo had apparently dropped
the very thing he’d killed Bonnie to get as he fled the
scene.
And Bonnie was just the first.
Every day was someone new, and each day the
pattern remained the same. Light. Death. Good
news.
Monday, after work, Todd from accounting asked
for a light on their way out. Derek watched Todd pull
his little Suzuki Sprint directly out in front of a semi
speeding through the intersection. The sirens hadn’t
even started yet after the accident when Derek got a
phone call from his boss telling him he’d received a
promotion he was vying for.
Tuesday, as he climbed the steps to his
apartment, Jodi from 2B flagged him down with the
request to light a couple candles. The next day she
was found dead of a massive heroin overdose. The
news of Jodi’s overdose came mere hours after
Derek’s landlord dropped by to offer him an apartment
three times the size of his own at no additional
monthly cost because he was tired of groups of
college students renting it just to leave it trashed.
Wednesday was family dinner at his mother’s. His
uncle was in from New York and had been working on
installing a new speaker in his car. All he needed was
a quick bit of heat to melt back the rubber coating on
the end of the one wire. The car caught fire and
exploded from the faulty wiring job as his uncle drove
home that night. Shortly after his mom had called to
tell him about the accident, his uncle’s life insurance
company called. Turns out the old bachelor had a
massive life insurance policy that no one knew about,
and Derek was the sole beneficiary.
Thursday was an old lady at the bus stop. Her
lighter was dead. This one didn’t even ask him
directly. She asked for a light. He complied, receiving
a one dollar scratch off lottery ticket as a reward.
Before he’d even put the lighter away the bus
rounded the corner a little too sharp and struck them
both. Derek was thrown backward, but the frail old
lady was dragged under the back tires and run over
with an agonizing slowness that left her screams and
gurgled final groans burned into his mind. That
scratch off ticket turned out to be the winner of a five
hundred dollar cash prize.
Then Friday; yesterday; he’d checked his
voicemail at lunch to find a message from Liv, the girl
who’d just smashed his heart to pieces the week
before; coincidentally, the very thing that landed him
in the casino that dreadful night. She missed him and
wanted to reconcile. Against his better judgment,
Derek had headed straight over. Everything in his
mind had wanted to scream, to cry out in objection
when she asked him to light the incense sticks and
spark the packed bong on the table for her, but he
couldn’t do anything except comply.
Her house burned down around them that night as
they slept. As the firemen pulled him from the
bedroom window, the roof caved in with Liv still
inside. He sat for hours and watched the firemen
trying to quell the flames, until Liv’s best friend Becca
showed up to comfort him and grieve together; which
in Becca terms meant lots, and lots, of grief sex.
 Every day someone asked for a light. Every time
they asked he was forced to give it. Every person he
“helped” died. Every new death brought a grimly
rewarding bit of luck. If he’d been a more selfish man
who could ignore the horrible nature of the deaths,
he’d probably have been in heaven this week, but as
it stood, Derek was more than a little hung up on the
quantity and violence of the deaths shadowing him.
Even now, as he watched the limo pull away with
the doomed hooker inside, two one-hundred dollar
bills blew out of the still open window of the limousine
and pinned themselves directly to his legs. Sighing to
himself, Derek reached for the bills and stuffed them
in his pocked, reminded suddenly of why he’d come
down here in the first place.
On the next corner was a little newsstand where
Derek used to stop daily for a pack of smokes back
before he quit. The death and gore was getting to be
more than he could take, and judging by the dwindling
flame decreased sloshing of the fluid, the lighter was
about empty. Something in the back of his mind told
him he’d meet a similarly violent end to that of the
others when it ran out, but he didn’t care. After the
last week, he was ready to be done with it, no matter
what that meant.
Smokes in hand, Derek headed home. Becca was
still in his apartment, but she was sound asleep in his
bed. It was better that way. At least that way,
whatever happened to him, someone would be
around to find him before his body got too bloated and
grotesque to be recognizable.
 Closing the door to the bathroom, Derek sat down
on the cool tile floor, and lit his first cigarette in seven
months. He shook his head as he stared at the
dwindling flame. To his dismay, it didn’t go out after
lighting the first cigarette. Cursing, he let the flame
keep flickering as he smoked the whole thing and lit
another, followed by another, and another. Each time
the flame sank lower, and lower, but never quite went
out.
“Lucky fuckin’ seven.” He mumbled to himself as
he lit the seventh cigarette in a row. “Seven months
without. Seven days since the bitchwitches. Seven
deaths. Fuckin’ seven.”
The flame finally went out.
Several minutes passed as Derek finished the
cigarette, but nothing happened. He’d hacked and
coughed a little, but this he chalked up to having just
chain smoked nearly half a pack after seven months
without. He even tried the lighter a few more times,
just to be certain it was empty, but the flame would
not return.
Unsure of what else to do with himself, he went to
bed.
The sun was shining brightly through his bedroom
window as the chirping of his cell phone yanked him
into reality. A text from his sister splayed out across
the screen, reminding him that he was supposed to
be at his nephew’s fifth birthday party within the hour,
but his mind wasn’t thinking about the phone.
Despite having left the golden lighter in the
bathroom the night before, it now sat beside his cell
on his nightstand; the once again beautiful pinup girl
staring at him with her impishly, smiling eyes.
“Good morning sleepy.” Becca’s chipper voice
nearly made him jump out of his skin. “Oh my god...
don’t tell me you forgot I was here... or... shit... I
shouldn’t be here, should I? I can... I can go.”
Her face held a look of despair as she began to
strip off what he now noticed to be one of his t-shirts
while searching for her clothes.
“No, no you’re fine. I just... yeah, like you said. I
forgot you were here.” He picked up the lighter and
held it up. “Did you set this here?”
Becca looked at him curiously for a moment, as
though it had been a trick question.
“Yeah... you left it on the floor in the bathroom
with your cigarettes, so I set them out here when I
went to take a shower. It is yours, isn’t it?”
Derek held the little object for a second, and then
shook it to hear the lack of contents fail to slosh
around. Flipping it open, he gave it a few quick flicks,
just to see if it would light, but the flint barely even
sparked. Laughing, he tossed it in his bedroom
trashcan and literally hopped out of bed.
“Nope!” He laughed before pulling her topless
figure against him to dance her around the room.
“Not anymore.” With one final twirl, Derek moved to
his closet to throw on whatever seemed clean. “Hey,
I gotta run, but, you can make yourself at home. I’ll
be back in a couple hours. There’s a spare key under
the door mat if you leave and need to get back in.”
For the first time in over a week, Derek smiled as
he left the house; even going so far as to kiss Becca
goodbye as he did. He didn’t even bother with the
bus; the weather was nice enough that he could walk.
The party was the typical lame family production
he’d been dreading, but he didn’t care. He was alive,
and his favorite person in the entire world was having
the time of his young life. His nephew, Gideon, had
been one of the brightest spots in his life since the
first time he laid eyes on the squirmy little pink thing
five years ago. All in all, it was the best day Derek
could remember having in a long time.
Until it came time for the cake.
“Uncle Derek!” Gideon came sprinting to his side
as Sherry, Gid’s mother, produced a large ice cream
cake from the cooler beside the table. “Mommy says
I’m supposed to ask you to light the candles. Are you
gonna? Huh? I can’t blow them out if you don’t light
them! Please Uncle Derek, Please!”
“I’m sorry, Buddy. I don’t have a lighter on me. I
quit smoking those nasty cigarettes so I can keep up
with you. You’re so damn fast I can hardly keep my
breath anymore.” Derek was expecting a rebuke from
his nephew for swearing as they moved closer to the
cake, but instead got a very puzzled look. “What is it,
Little Man? You’re looking at me like I’ve got two
heads?”
“You said you don’t have a lighter.”
“Yeah? And?”
“Then why’d you just pull a gold lighter out of your
pocket?”
"What?" Derek began to tremble as he looked
down at his own hand; staring in horror at the
wretched bit of metal in his hand. "No... no no no no!
This can't be happening. This can't be fucking
happening!"
His hand moved on its own, lighting each candle in
turn even as he screamed no. Everyone around him
stared as he screamed and shook, while his sister
Sherry began apologizing and yelled at him to shut
up.
"I'm sorry." He groaned out when the act was
done; tears beginning to run down his face. "I am so
sorry. I... I can't make it stop."
"You'd damn well better be sorry, Derek." His
sister hissed as she shoved him out of the crowd of
people. "What the hell was that all about? Jesus
Christ. I just asked you to light some candles, not
chop your arm off, asshole. You didn't have to make
a huge scene! Seriously, what is wrong with you?"
A morose thought passed through his mind that;
for all its disparaging repercussions; somehow offered
him peace: his sister had been the one to make the
request. Maybe, just maybe, it would be Sherry, not
Gideon. It wasn't much comfort, but somehow the
thought of grieving his sister’s death seemed less
painful than the loss of an innocent life of a child.
"Is Uncle Derek okay?" Gideon's voice brought
Derek back to the present.
"Sorry, Buddy. I'll... I'll be fine. You just go enjoy
your party. Soon as you eat your cake, we'll go throw
the frisbee around until present time." Already
forming a plan to keep Derek clear of his sister in
hopes that the curse would spare the kid, he moved
closer, and forced his way between the two. "Make a
wish, Bud."
The candles went out, one by one. Clapping and
cheers rose, and the crowd dispersed as they waited
for their slice to be passed.
Over the smell of cake and charcoal; potato salad
and barbecue chicken; a sickening hint of clove and
sage wafted to Derek's nostrils. A glimpse of blonde
hair flashed between the Jones' families, then a hint
of red from over Mark Canton's shoulder.
The bitchwitches were here.
Without a second though, Derek sprang from his
seat and shoved his way through the gasping crowd;
the sound of his sister shouting at him still following
him as he went. He followed the pair through the little
tree studded pavilion area, intent on begging their
forgiveness, or perhaps killing them; whatever it took
to end the curse.
But he couldn't find them. He could smell the
smoke; he could hear their taunting laughs; a glimpse
here, a flutter of clothing there; but never anything
within grasp.
"Why are you doing this to me?" He screamed into
the woods, but corrected himself immediately. "No...
no. I know why. And... and I'm sorry! I get it, okay? I
was an asshole; worse than an asshole. But these
people... none of them have deserved this! Please...
make it stop. Curse me some other way if you have
to... just please... don't let my curse hurt anyone else."
A giggle floated to him wrapped in the sour smell
of sage, followed by the soft sound of Adalaide’s
voice.
"Curse? You think we cursed you?"
"I know you did! And... and I understand. I don't
even fucking blame you, just, please... take it away."
Spinning around, Derek searched for the source of
the voice.
"No." Melliena’s voice was hard, tangible, and right
behind him.
"What?" Practically running into her, he spun back
around to face the witch, but she still wasn't there.
"Why?"
"Because, Mr. Whittaker, we can't." Her voice still
sounded like it was behind him no matter what way he
turned. "Funny thing about curses; they're all in your
head."
From the direction he'd just come, a deafening
explosion rang through the trees. No longer caring
about Melliena and Adalaide, Derek sprinted back to
the pavilion.
He wasn't surprised to find it smoldering when he
arrived. A few people still stood; disoriented, crying,
clothes and hair singed; as a police officer on a bike
pulled in and began asking if anyone knew what
happened. The officer called in the explosion,
sighting the grills propane tank as the cause, and
proceed to check the slew of bodies.
"God have mercy." Derek heard the officer quietly
yelp into the walkie on his vest. "There are kids
here... Looks like a birthday party. Christ... this one’s
not even in one piece."
 Derek didn't have to ask to know that the child in
question was Gideon. A mixture of insane laughter
and grievous screaming erupted from him. As he
stumbled forward.
"All in my head." He mumbled as the officer tried to
calm him down. "It's all in my head."
"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to step back. This
sure as shit ain't in your head, pal. This is..." the
officer stopped as Derek grabbed the gun from his
holster and raised it.
"No... it is in my head. The bitchwitches said so.
It's all in here." Raising the gun to his temple, Derek
laughed one more time. "The curse, I mean. It's in
my head. I have to stop it."
Crying, he ignored whatever cliché words he
officer spewed out to try to calm him. Without another
moment's hesitation, Derek Whittaker ended the
curse.
About the Author

As a newcomer to the horror genre, Mae March

has only been producing works of fiction ranging from
the moderately morbid to the deeply deranged since
2012. Her work has appeared alongside best-selling
authors such as Jessica McHugh and Brady Allen in
the popular weekly horror podcast, The Wicked
Library. Having completed 2013’s NaNoWriMo,
March is also currently taking part in the “A Story A
Week” challenge of 2014, suggesting there will
definitely be much more to come from this eager
newbie. You can presently find Mae at
facebook.com/madmaemarch for more information
and updates on upcoming appearances.
Right, Wrong, or Indifferent
By C. L. Quigley

“When was the last time you heard from her?”

Buster stared at the text message, his phone
clutched in his right hand. The question made him
uneasy. Despite the fact that it was only Rory trying
to assess how concerned she should be. He was
afraid his answer would reveal a wrong choice on his
part, and that his choice may have cost someone
else’s life. He scratched absently at his day old
stubble with his left hand, taking a deep breath he
decided to tell the truth.
“A week ago, when she took the money back.
She hasn’t answered a single text or call since then.”
As it always was, the wait for her response was
intolerable. Buster lit a cigarette and paced back and
forth on the porch. His broad six foot frame shifted to
side with each step, the foot falls slightly lighter on his
left foot. He paused, exhaled a plume of smoke
languidly, and combed back his blonde hair with a
restless hand. He’d need a haircut soon. His phone
chirped a cheerful sound that didn’t seem to match his
size or the tension in his posture.
“That has been awhile, no Facebook or anything?”
It wasn’t what Buster had wanted to hear. Three
more chirps in rapid succession.
“She goes off grid when she’s using.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
“Only she can stop herself.”
His eyes lingered on the middle text. He shoved
his phone into his pocket and didn’t believe a single
character of it. He snubbed the cigarette out in his
roommate’s overflowing sports bar liberated ashtray,
and stomped inside the house. He paused in the
center of his room, his eyes resting on tired looking
but carefully framed picture hanging on the wall of his
younger self with sergeant stripes on his chest and
three even younger looking boys standing in front of a
tan plastered building wearing gray digitally
camouflaged uniforms that were distinctly dirty with
dust and ash of Baghdad mixed with their own sweat.
His eyes settled on the one to the left, of him in the
photo, John Quinn, a large boy who had “farm” written
into his posture, a throwback to Rockwell’s America.
Then like he always did when he thought at all about
the jovial face of John Quinn he pictured how Quinn
and the other two, Rogers and Pell, had died.
It wasn’t a dramatic Hollywood flash-back. Buster
knew where and when he was. But in his mind’s eye
he distinctly saw John Quinn in his last moments.
Quinn’s big southern boy body lay unmoving in the
back seat of a ruined Humvee which had just been hit
by a road side IED. Mandible gone, a jagged line
formed just below the nose, tinted ballistic glasses
resting undisturbed. Rogers lay on the floor of the
center console, whimpering, bloody. Pell slumped
forward, unconscious. It had been carnage in a way
that only someone who had seen it could understand
the true definition of the word.
The four of them had come up together in the
Army.
“They say that any help you think you’re giving her
only enables her. Hunter has to do this on her own.”
“If she dies? What then?”
“It’s out of our control.”
“Are you really ready to live with that?”
There was a long pause in the digital conversation.
Buster imagined satellites above the earth jockeying
for position, pinnacles of civilization created so Buster
and Rory could discuss Hunter mainlining despite
being three hundred miles apart. He grimaced as he
imagined some other astronomical object smashing
them all, cutting off the communication and the
responsibility that came with it. He had left the army
when he couldn’t stand the thought of seeing more
young men chopped up for no clear reason. He had
let his enlistment end and didn’t re-up.
“I came to terms with it while you were away, the
first three times she relapsed.”
The characters hit him like a jab. A part of Buster
doubted Rory meant it as an attack on him leaving for
the army. That was how he often felt about it. He
wondered how the pieces would have fallen if he
hadn’t left. Would he have ended up pursuing drugs
beyond recreational use like Hunter? He had
certainly been doing enough of them before he
enlisted. Long nights spent in some wretched band’s
practice space. Hunter’s pupils dilated from the
ecstasy as she grinned at the bowl she tried to pack.
Buster sitting Indian style behind her thinking about
how small her ears were while he gently rubbed her
shoulders. There were chemically enhanced
professions of platonic love at night, and long silent
cups of coffee in the mornings. It would be years
before Buster romantically loved Hunter, by then he
couldn’t say it. Rory disapproving in a gentle way on
Monday before she hurried off to theater club, her
straight black hair bouncing as she walked away.
The three of them had grown up together in
Providence.
Rory had gone to college and then Broadway.
Buster had found himself in a rut and he hadn’t liked
it. So he enlisted in the Army. The process took a
few months as the recruiter waited for Buster to be
able to pass a drug test. He left saying the briefest of
good byes. Hunter hadn’t stopped doing drugs, and
she never joined anything. She had never gotten out
of the North East for more than a week. College for
her became delayed for years.
Buster put the phone down and walked over to his
computer desk. He logged into Facebook, and as he
had multiple times before. He clicked over to Hunter’s
page. Her profile picture made him smile, a selfie of
her in a Slayer t-shirt making a fierce face and giving
the sign of the devil. Her dirty blonde hair spread on
the pillow around her like a grenade explosion. Her
features were androgynous. Her hazel eyes big filled
with the smile that her face would have been showing
if she hadn’t been trying to look “metal”. Her cover
photo was a picture of her one eyed cat meowing with
big friendly block letters above it, “Rescue an older
cat and save a life.” He scrolled a down a bit hoping
to see a new post, or activity. Something that would
tell him that she wasn’t dead; drowned in her own
vomit, alone with her cat, driven by starvation, eating
her.
Buster cringed at the mental image and pushed it
aside by reading her last post again: “Totes have the
best support network in the world.” She had written
the night after she had crashed on Buster’s couch.
He didn’t know much about addiction or recovery, or
what support networks did exactly. But he felt as if he
was failing her.
“When you told me you loved her the other day,
you meant you’re in LOVE with her don’t you?”
The chirp of his phone was the push he needed to
get himself away from Hunter’s Facebook page. He
frowned at the text, then looked back at Hunter’s
profile picture. He grinned suddenly thinking about
piles of Chinese food and sushi. Hunter eating with
an abandonment equal to Busters. They had been
hanging out again for a few months at that point, two
sober buddies reconnecting.
She’d shown up late, snow clinging to her leather
bomber jacket. “You can’t judge,” she warned
playfully as they were seated, “I have developed
eating skills that will put yours to shame. I even ate a
big meal last night and a small one this morning to
optimize my capacity and hunger.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
She’d playfully jabbed him in the sternum with her
finger, “Listen Buster,” she’d always loved that his
name was also an obsolete piece of slang, “all you
can eat buffet is very serious business.”
Buster had let her lead him across the restaurant
and caught her stifled laughs at the décor that felt as
if it had been bought half price from the set of a Bruce
Lee movie. He watched her long strides and
wondered at how she ignored the idea of fashion so
completely and at the same time had become so
beautiful. She had been a scrawny tom-boy once
upon a time and she had turned that into a taut and
athletic woman, who was still a tom-boy, but did it as
if it were a profession and not a lack of fashion sense.
She seemed to realize the thing that Buster had
always thought: a woman is at her most attractive
when she seemed comfortable with herself. That was
the image Hunter sold when it came to her
appearance.
Sesame chicken and beef teriyaki, narrated with
the point that “Every sort of beef should be served on
a stick.” Then a long pause before the sushi station,
“This is always such a quandary,” she stood holding
her plate with her free hand on her hip. “I could be
plunging towards certain nausea, but at the same
time I could be missing out on a hidden gem of the
sushi world. It’s always such a gamble at these
places.” Then with a test piece of Sushi secured by
each of them they returned to their seats.
Plates were covered in MSG laced food and
consumed along with soda after soda. They rested
and ate, and talked. They pitted Greek mythology
against the Aztec pantheon. How “To kill a
Mockingbird” was her favorite book, and Buster loved
“The Road”. Then there were the things that they
could talk to each other about that they couldn’t seem
to talk to anyone else about.
“Recovery is like, it’s like having a clear mind for
the first time in years. It’s wonderful. For example,”
she explained plucking a piece of sushi from her plate
with chop sticks, “I just wouldn’t have rightly
appreciated salmon the way I can now, again.” She
gobbled up the sushi and smiled with her teeth and
winked.
“I don’t know much about it,” Buster admitted, “I
just know I’m happy you’re better now.”
But she explained that she wasn’t completely
better, and never would be. “It’s a fight, you know?
There’s a part of my wiring that doesn’t connect. I
want to get high, even right now.” She shrugged and
looked Buster directly in the eyes, like she always did
when she was being serious. It always made Buster
feel like he was the only person on earth who
mattered to her in the moments she choose to look at
him like that. “I don’t even know if that makes sense.”
Buster had nodded, “In a way, Iraq is like that… it’s
always right there,” he explained pointing to the side
of his head. “If I’m not careful, it… it doesn’t, I mean,”
he’d paused then and looked down at his plate in
frustration. “It really gets me down, makes me feel
less than human, the things I did. The men I lost.”
She had grabbed his hand gently across the table.
“Hey, I get it” she let her smile loose again. “I mean, I
could never understand what you went through. But I
know what it’s like to struggle with something.”
“Well?”
The chirp pierced into his fond remembering. He
was sure he had fallen in love with Hunter that night.
There had been no kiss, no confession. Just a grab
of the hand, and hug when they parted ways. Yet, for
Buster his feelings had crested some massive rise
during that dinner and once over the top he slid
deeper into a desire for intimacy both physical and
emotional.
“I’m not sure that’s important right now, all things
considered. “
“Even if she isn’t dead, she’s super focused on
getting her degree.”
“I hadn’t planned on telling her. I didn’t want to
complicate her life.”
“Always the considerate one, Buster.”
Buster jammed the phone back in his pocket again
and stood in the middle of his room. He needed to be
proactive. That had always been one of his strengths
in Iraq: making decisions. Whether they were “right,
wrong or indifferent” as the old Army saying went.
When Buster saw John Quinn’s face jawless and
mangled, he hadn’t balked. He also hadn’t hesitated
when he had assigned Quinn, Rogers, Pell to the
Humvee that carried them to their deaths. But when
the ragged sound had begun to escape Quinn’s neck
a new urgency had gripped all of the men who were
still alive. Buster had begun to issue orders, “You
two, get a spine board off of 309. Wilkinson, tell them
we need a Bradley and the fucking medics up here
now!” Before the words Buster had been reaching in
for Quinn, someone else had begun pull on Quinn’s
upper body and Buster had grasped his feet. Behind
them the Bradley Fight Vehicle rumbled up on its
tracks stopping ten feet behind the Humvee, the ramp
to the troop area opening while the turret scanned
restlessly. Another soldier had been uttering over and
over again, “Oh God… Oh God…”
Those words rattled in Buster’s head as he
grabbed his jacket and keys and headed for his car.
As he started it and pulled out into the street he found
himself imagining Hunter’s normally sharp features
sunken beyond anything approximating healthy. Her
normally freckled and soft skin stretched and battered
with needle marks. He drove towards her house. He
would kick down her door if he had to and drag her to
a sober house or group home or whatever they called
it. His phone chirped as he drove.
The only person who had ever blamed him for
Quinn, Rogers and Pell’s deaths had been himself.
He had been their sergeant and they had left in body
bags flying off in unscheduled helicopter flights. He
arrived at Hunter’s ramshackle building and didn’t see
her car there. Her one eyed cat posted like a chubby
sentry in her second floor window. He checked his
phone.
“Don’t catastrophize Bus, she’s done all this
before. That’s why you have to get distance.”
Disgusted, Buster tossed his phone into the empty
passenger’s seat. It chirped on impact. “God damn
it!” he snapped. He figured someone would have
contacted him if Hunter had gotten into a car accident.
It was possible she was with someone getting high, or
in a squat somewhere her corpse being fleeced by
other junkies. He thought of low brow construction
worker types she had met in AA, the kind of men who
said “’murica!” without irony and found Hunter a
novelty because she didn’t mind getting dirty and
knew things about world war two.
For a brief moment it gave Buster a focus for his
growing frustration and allowed him to turn his
concern and fears into anger. He would dismantle
those Duck Dynasty wanna-be’s with his bare hands.
He would teach them the real meaning of dangerous
and tough. But the anger fled as quickly as it arrived.
He wasn’t going to kick down doors. He wasn’t going
to murder anyone. Buster found that in reality he was
impotent. Kicking down Hunter’s door wouldn’t save
her. It would cost her a door, possibly get her evicted.
Beating ignorant laborers to a pulp would get him
arrested, possibly drive Hunter further away.
Exhausted from his turbulent emotions he picked up
his phone to see what else Rory had to offer.
“I know this sucks, but she sucks when she’s like
this. If junkie Hunter knows you care she’ll work you
for whatever you’re worth. If she knows you still care
it’d be almost like nodding her along. She has to feel
like she has nothing. She has to hit bottom before
she can come back up.”
They had loaded Quinn into the back of the
Bradley’s troop area. One of the medics had begun
an emergency tracheotomy when the small arms fire
had started. It had come from the buildings two
hundred meters to the right of the vehicles. It was
concentrated on the on Humvee that had been hit. A
complex ambush. Rogers’s body had been taken out
by then and two soldiers had been bearing him on a
spine board half way between the Bradley and
Humvee when the shooting started. Buster had
sprinted out and put his body between the buildings
and the spine board shouting “Go!” while he snapped
controlled pairs at the second and third story windows
he suspected the fire to be coming from. By then the
Bradley turret had swung around began firing. The
enemy fire slacked.
“Pell’s still in here!” Wilkinson yelled from the
corner of the Humvee where he had taken cover.
Buster nodded back and they both sprinted to the rear
door of the Humvee on the side opposite of where the
enemy was. The Bradley’s chain gun slammed in
groups of three, whoomp…whoomp….whoomp, each
time making Buster’s ears ring more and more.
Rounds struck at the Humvee’s frame and armor as
they reached in for Pell. The small caliber rounds
sounding like cat claws scrapping against the metal
frame. They each grabbed a leg and pulled him
towards them. He screamed, like an animal in pain,
not an eighteen year old boy. Once his feet were out
of the vehicle Buster had hooked his arms under
Pell’s armpits. He smelled of blood, sweat, and urine.
As fast as they could they carried him up the ramp of
the Bradley and laid him on the floor. Pell grabbed at
Buster’s left forearm, scared and alone. A boy dying
thousands of miles from home.
Buster pointed at Wilkinson, “Stay with him.” he
began to try and pry Pell’s hand off his forearm. “It’s
okay, you’re gonna be all right.” The grip
relinquished. Buster never found out if Pell heard
him. He sprinted down the ramp of the Bradley back
to his own vehicle. All three of them died before they
reached the Combat Surgical Hospital.
“You want me to abandon her?”
“If you want to keep her alive, yes. Only deal with
her when she’s sober.”
Buster started his car and began to drive towards
the East Side of Providence. Maybe Hunter was at
school. He just needed to know she was alive. He
parked a mile from the main drag and decided to
walk. He needed to clear his head, and a new born
spring season had added bright colors to what had
been for months a dead gray city. Grass had begun
to take on shades of emerald green and he
appreciated the quiet of a late residential morning.
He thought about the last time he had seen
Hunter. She had called him. “Bus, I need to crash
over for a few days and get this stuff out of my
system. I need to not be alone.”
Buster hadn’t even needed to think about it, “Of
course.”
“I’m also going to transfer my tax return to your
paypal. It’s a lot and if I have it I’ll buy more with it.”
“I can do that, I’ll be by to pick you up.” When he
got there she met him at the top of the stairs.
“You don’t want to come in, it’ll upset you.”
He shook his head as he looked up at her. “I’m
your friend, I take you as you are.”
She still had cocaine, and she wanted to use it,
said it would be best if it was gone and that she
couldn’t bring herself to throw it away. Her tone made
it clear that she wouldn’t let Buster throw it away
either. Her couch sat against the wall of her small
apartment, the cat sitting with his legs tucked under
him, making him look like a furry pirate loaf of bread.
Wretched country music played on her laptop. “I don’t
want this to change your opinion of me,” she
explained as she sat her desk which was covered in
fast food wrappers and Chinese take-out boxes sticky
slick with dried sauces, medieval literature and drug
paraphernalia, which was few feet from the arm of the
couch Buster sat down at. The living room they were
in smelled like a litter box that had been neglected.
The cat looked up at Buster with mild curiosity.
Buster scratched the back of its head unsure of what
he should do. Hunter had bags under eyes and her
left foot tapped as she sipped at a cup of fast food
soda. “I can’t be doing this,” she said to no one in
particular as she took a lighter to a spoonful of
cocaine. “Maybe it’s good you’re seeing this.”
Buster had looked at her arms track marks in a line
up her veins and doubted it.
“It’s highlighting for me how fucked up this,” Hunter
prepared an insulin syringe, “I’m escalating, I’ve been
doing this shit for a few days. It started when they
gave me pain killers for stress fractures I got training
too hard.”
Buster shrugged, “You should train with someone
who knows what they’re doing, not trying to impress
you into bed with how far they can run.”
 She had laughed nervously at his remark, and
swore out loud when she couldn’t find a vein. She
moved on to her other arm, and failed again. She
was pulling off her Chuck Taylor to get at her foot
when Buster decided that he couldn’t just sit and
watch. “I’m going to clean your cat’s litter box for you.
What’s his name again?”
She didn’t look up from her fix to be. “He hasn’t
told me.”
It took her an hour to find a vein. Buster, at her
request took the needles and threw them out in the
trash outside. He helped her collect her things and
took her back to his place where she promptly
crashed out on the apartment’s couch for almost
fourteen hours. When she woke up she seemed
better. Buster made her some food and they both sat
down at his computer and she transferred over the
money. “I’ll have some bills to pay in a week, so I’ll
need to get some money then. I’ll get you details.”
Then after another hour of sitting quietly and chain
smoking together she quite suddenly insisted on
staying at another friend’s house who was in AA. It
seemed reasonable to Buster so he drove her there
and dropped her off.
Two days later she insisted she needed all the
money back. Buster wondered if he should have
refused. It was her money though. She said she
needed rent money. It was the first of the month that
much had been true. He wanted her to trust him, and
for her to come to him with the truth. So he decided
to believe her. He hadn’t heard from her since,
despite having tried more than a few times to get in
touch.
“I gave her the money back, it’s on me.”
“No, she would have gotten it some other way,
god knows how. You have to disengage Bus.”
He finished his walk thinking about Hunter smiling
and sober. He thought about kissing her collar bone
lightly, a desire he had never had a chance to do. He
thought about her unmoving on her back, with stale
vomit cooling in the corner of her mouth. He stopped
outside the café they had so often met at and sent a
text to her again, with little hope of an answer.
“Are you okay? Where are you?”
He waited and smoked and when it chirped at last
he couldn’t unlock his screen fast enough.
“Yea, u want 2 meet?”
Text speak. She was probably high. Sometimes
she did it ironically, but he had come to realize that it
probably meant otherwise.
“Yes, the Blue Spot Café.”
The café was a clutter of what seemed like
universally studious and attractive college students.
Skinny jeans, moccasins and pairs of topsiders.
College logo t-shirts, sweat pants and casually cared
for hair. Behind the counter a “hipsterish” girl
complete with thread bare cardigan and ironic t-shirt
was trying very hard to scowl with bitterness beyond
her years. Buster bought himself a coffee, kept it
black and found a seat overlooking the street. A
persistent clacking of keyboard keys mixed with the
innocuous neo-folk rock to make a sort of fair trade
white noise.
She arrived suddenly in front of him her hair a
tangled, greasy mess pulled haphazardly into a pony
tail. The bags under eyes had taken on dramatic
Hollywood proportions, her skin seemed yellow. She
was even skinnier than a week before, and her
muscle tone had begun to slip away, her Slayer shirt
stained with unknown sauces and soft drinks. It
seemed to Buster’s eyes that she had contracted a
disease. In a sense, she had a long time ago.
Her body seemed to vibrate and it took her
moment to pull out the chair across from Buster and
sit down. She moved stiffly. “Hey Buster, my special
friend, how are you?” She smelled faintly of blood,
sweat and urine, the stale pall of generic brand
menthols hanging over it all.
“I’m worried about you,” Buster said simply. He
wanted badly to drag her to his house and force her to
shower and eat. He wanted to drive her out deep in
the California desert and wait while she spirit healed
herself. He wanted to make her sober, and better.
“Ah Bus, you know me, I’m fine, I couldn’t be
better,” her eyes shifted rapidly side to side as she
said it. She scratched absently at her arm. “I do have
a bit…a bit of a…Q…q…”
“Quandary?” Buster offered.
“Yeah! I’m a little short on cash to get printer
paper I need for class.” She reached across the table
and grabbed his forearm. “You’re always
dependable, my hero. Can I borrow some money?
We go way back.”
 His phone chirped, but he didn’t look at it. He
knew it was Rory and he knew what it would say.
Slowly and gently he pulled Hunter’s hand off his arm.
“I want you to love me,” he began.
She seemed to grab on to the idea, “I do love you
Bus, I have forever.” It felt like the air slipped out of
Buster’s lungs as she said it, the words were right but
not the why.
He waved her off. “Listen, I want you to love me.
But I’ll settle for you staying alive.” She began to
speak again and Buster shook his head, “Because I
love you,” and as he began to say it he thought of
running out of that Bradley and back to his vehicle.
“I’m going to leave now.” Tears were boiling in his
ducts and he willed them back. “I love you and the
second you want a ride to somewhere where you can
get clean I’ll come for you.” He got up and resisted
the urge to kiss her cheek and hug her.
“Buster, don’t be like that, leave no man behind
right?” she cooed.
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he
realized that there was a chance that this would be
the way he remembered her: trying to cheat him out
of money, her body shaking in a café. This wasn’t the
Hunter that he loved. He nodded to her one more
time and left, without looking back thinking about
Quinn, Rogers and Pell all the way. He had always
been good at making decisions, whether they were
right, wrong or indifferent.
About the Author

C.L Quigley is a native Rhode Islander making his

publishing debut in this anthology. He has led a varied and
often sordid life. At various times he has filled the role of
Soldier, Game Developer, Quartermaster, Manager,
Businessman, Student, Radio DJ, Prep Cook, Tour Guide
and Lover. He is currently wrapping a degree from Rhode
Island College, and producing fictional works and flavor
text for Not-So-Broken Games.
He’s currently residing in the Northern Hinterlands of
Rhode Island sometimes referred to as North Smithfield.
“Right, Wrong or Indifferent” is his second published story.
His first was a horror piece called “Victory Assured” and
can be found in the Anthology “Possessions” also available
from Burnt Offerings Books.
Bigger Fish
By Stephen Pope

Here’s one. What’s the difference between the

fisherman who fishes in the middle of a lightning
storm and the worm he uses as bait?
Simple. The worm can see it coming.
I keep thinking about Tabby. I know I’m a sap, but
I hope she makes it. She’s got that hat to keep the
sun off her head, and if she can make it to the road
she’s got a chance. She’s smart, too. Smarter than I
thought.
My legs hurt. Every so often I get a really bad shot
of pain, and that’s when my head gets light and I see
little fireflies at the edges of my vision. That’s when I
try not to panic. Things could be worse.
I just wish I could get these little bastards off me. I
can squash a dozen of them between my fingers, and
the rest only stop long enough to eat them, then they
keep coming. I can feel them under the pieces of my
shirt where I wrapped them around my legs. I can’t
even think about scratching, no matter how much it
itches.
But, things could be worse. I could be like
Braddock here.
As tempting as it is, I’m not looking at his face.
Part of me thinks it would be nice to see it getting
eaten. That smile of his was the thing that I hated the
most.
That smile was what told me that he planned to
enjoy this, whether I ran or not. I should’ve just run
and kept on running.
I’d been in Shafi’s. It’s a place on 4th Avenue that’s
run by a guy from Pakistan that I know. The food’s
good, the music is weird, and it’s got web access. It’s
just the right kind of cheap, and the right kind of good.
Sometimes I picked up a job or two there. Lots of
people who smoke don’t want to make a run to the
parts of town where their supplier lives, usually
because they’re cautious or lazy. Most suppliers
won’t take the risk of home-delivery either, because
that's automatically intent to distribute. That’s how I
make my money. I’ve got a clean-cut look and a nice
minivan that’s soccer-mom green, so I look like a
student who’s borrowed his mom’s car. When
someone says, “I’ll send a guy over,” I’m the guy.
Braddock was smiling when he walked in.
He wasn’t in his uniform, which meant there was a
chance for real trouble. When he’s on-duty he knows
that people notice him, so he usually just shakes me
down. When he’s on his own time, he’s just fucking
with me because he’s an asshole.
Archie was sitting across the booth from me. He’s
a good guy, but not the sharpest spoon in the drawer.
He didn’t even see Braddock until he sat down next to
me, smiling at Archie, and said, “Disappear, queer!“
Archie gave him a blank look for a second, and
when he started out with, “Who the fuck?” Braddock
suddenly had his nightstick in his hand. I guess he’d
had it tucked under his jacket, along with his gun and
God knows what else. He casually reached across
the table and hit Archie on his eyeball, the way a kid
will hit something just because he thinks it’s funny.
I kept still, looking down at the worn tips of my
sneakers. But I could still see Archie’s whole face pull
up around that eye, like he was having a stroke or
something. He stumbled away from the table,
shaking. He looked like he was choking.
No one said a damn thing. Even if they didn’t
know Braddock, they could tell what kind of trouble he
was. He slid right up against me in the booth and put
a big, beefy arm around me, grinning.
“How’s it going, buddy? You running anything
today that I need to know about?“
“No.”
It was the truth. It was a slow day and I hadn’t
been able to find any business. After being seen with
a big guy who carried a cop’s nightstick, I probably
wouldn’t be able to find any for a while, either. The
asshole knew it, too.
“Tabby’s going to be waiting up for you tonight.
Some rookie on the graveyard shift broke a couple of
fingers trying to cuff a crackhead, and they moved me
over to take his place. Can you believe that? Two
days before I go on vacation, and I get stuck on
nights. Isn’t that a pisser?“
He leaned close enough for me to feel his breath
on my ear, still grinning at me with those big, white
teeth of his.
“Tell me something, buddy. On those weeks when
I have the night shift, and I’m out there busting all the
dope-heads that smoke the dope you run, and all the
dealers that get the money that you run back to them,
and you’re in my home, giving it to my wife, does she
ever start crying? Like one minute it’s, ‘Oh Daddy, oh
Daddy,‘ and the next minute she’s got the waterworks
running worse than she did when that stupid bird of
hers got caught in the fan.“
He was tapping his nightstick on my shin under the
table, but I kept my mouth shut and let him talk.
“No? Count yourself lucky then, Eddie. You’ve got
no idea how hard it is to finish the job when she isn’t
at least pretending to cooperate.“
For a second, he stared down at the floor, and his
eyes lost some of that crazy gleam that I always saw
in them. Over in the corner of the room by the coffee
machine, Shafi pretended to work on a Sudoku
puzzle. He shot me a look that let me know I’d need
to find a new place to hang out.
“But that’s not such a big deal, is it? Why don’t
you bring her some flowers or something tonight? I
have to clock in at eleven, so it’ll be safe for you to
come sneaking around a few minutes after that.”
He hit my shin again. The pain made my eyes
water.
“You know what would be really funny? What if,
some night when you and Tabby are playing slap the
salami, I decided to drop by, and tiptoe in to the foot of
the bed right where your skinny white ass would be
up in the air? What if I just whipped it out and started
giving it to you while you gave it to her? I could fuck
both of you at once that way. Wouldn’t that be some
messed-up shit?“
Then he took his arm off my shoulder and tucked
his baton under his jacket.
“But not tonight. Tonight is business. You show up
and Tabby’ll be a good hostess and get you a beer,
and the two of you can have a nice, long talk. If you
feel like fucking afterward, go for it. But business
first.“
He stood up, and I almost got up to get to the
bathroom before I pissed myself in the booth, but he
snatched the hair on the back of my head and pulled
my face up to his.
“Eleven o’clock, shithead.“

So I went. I know, I’m stupid.

The smart thing to do would have been to leave
town, and don’t think I had any shortage of people in
my life who were suggesting that. Ever since
Braddock had made me a pet project, my friends, my
customers, even the people I hung out with had
begun to drop little hints about how much easier my
life and theirs would be if I was somewhere else. My
buddy Chuck had moved to Philly a few years back,
to get into business for himself selling tires. Every
time we talked he reminded me that I had a standing
offer of an honest job.
But I stayed. I stayed because I already knew
Tucson, and I liked it. It‘s like a small town that‘s
larger than some big cities. You’ve got students, ex-
hippies, developers, and artists. If you work the
streets like I do, it can get tense, but it’s not as bad as
it would be in other towns. If you know how to keep
your head down and you stay inside when it gets hot,
it’s a great place. Braddock was one asshole out of a
city of one million, and, most important of all, he didn’t
know how to play his luck.
You see, everybody has luck. I don’t care if you’re
Paris Hilton or that guy who stands on the corner with
a sign that says, ‘Need food. God bless,‘ you’ve got
luck. Whether or not you play it right, though, that’s
something else. If you punch in at nine and out at
five, never drive more than five miles over the speed
limit, and never take a chance on anything, the only
luck you’ll ever have is that maybe you’ll never catch
the clap. You won’t marry a porn star and you won’t
win the lottery. If you play it, though, it’ll get better,
like a quarterback’s arm or a card dealer‘s hands.
You’ll get to know it better, too. I only ran when my
feet felt light and my hands had that tingle. Doing
that, I could count on one hand the number of times
I’d been busted, without using the thumb.
Of course, nobody’s got the same luck as the guy
next to them. That’s why some people have it easy
and some don’t. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get
a fair hand, but everyone has to play by the same
rules. If you keep winning big and betting your whole
roll on every turn, sooner or later you’re going to go
down.
I wanted to be there to see Braddock go down.

I parked my car a couple of blocks from the house

and walked the rest of the way, keeping my hands in
my pockets and my head low. My feet were heavy
and I knew this was stupid. I hadn’t felt safe in that
house since Braddock had walked in on me and
Tabby. At the end of that night, I thought it was the
worst in my life. I've had a lot worse ones since then.
I’d been on top, and hell yes, I had my skinny
white ass up in the air. Suddenly in walks this big guy
with a crew cut and wearing a cop’s uniform. I was
too scared to even get off of Tabby, and all he does is
say, “Don’t mind me, kids,“ as he walks over to the
closet and grabs a pair of gloves off the top shelf.
Tabby was able to help me finish about an hour later,
but even with all her promises and explanations I
couldn’t sleep after I went home. I kept seeing that
damn grin.
The driveway was empty, which I knew didn’t
mean shit, but it helped. When I knocked, she
opened the door so quickly that I guessed she’d been
sitting at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me.
God damn, she was beautiful. She’d begun to let
her hair grow out a bit, and it was all red fire framing
her face. Her eyes weren’t really blue and they
weren’t quite green. She was thin without being
boney, and her body was soft and her face was
strong. I’m not a big guy, and she was still shorter
than me. Her lips were so red and sweet that when
we kissed I thought she was going to suck all the life
out of me. I kicked the door shut and we just kept
kissing, only stopping when I felt her cringe as I
shifted my weight to one side a bit.
“What’s wrong?“
“I’m sorry. Let me sit down.”
I held her arm and helped her to the couch, trying
to figure out why she was walking like a little old
woman. When we sat down together, she held me
tight.
“God, I’ve missed you.”
She was shaking. I hadn’t seen her in over a
week, and it made me a little sick to realize, again,
that as bad as Braddock made my life, she was the
one who had to live with him.
“Wait. I have to get you a beer.”
It took her way too long to walk into the kitchen
and back. Her face showed the pain.
“What the hell did he do?“
“He hit me. On my feet.“
“Let me see.“
I knelt on the floor as she sat on the couch and
gently lifted her feet. The soles were red, and starting
to swell.
“Did he use his baton?“
She closed her eyes and nodded.
“Christ.“
“It doesn’t matter. I need to talk to you.“
She twisted the cap off the beer and gave it to me.
“He wants you to go with him, with us, out of town
Saturday.”
“Where?”
“West, due west. There’s an abandoned church
that some people were living in that was raided
yesterday. They were growing dope.“
“Why?“
“Money.“
“Huh?“
 “They had a lot of it. He was one of the first ones
in the room. After the room was cleared, he hid some
of it where it wouldn’t be found. He wants us to go
get it. He said he’d give you some.“
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Tabby looked at me
like I’d slapped her, but just this once, I didn’t care.
“Drink your beer.“
I left it alone.
“Where is this place?“
“I don’t know. He didn’t say exactly. It’s in the
desert somewhere.“
“Tabby, there’s nothing due west of here but
desert. If this place of his is out there, it’s in the
middle of nowhere.“
“Right. He said it was a bunch of crazy old
hippies. Like a cult.“
I took a long, slow drink of my beer.
“Tabby, if I go out there, he’ll kill me.“
“No.“
She grabbed my face in her hands.
“We’re going to kill him.“

I didn’t leave for a couple of hours. I had another

beer, and Tabby, and we talked. Oh hell, did we talk.
All for nothing, because I was done.
I didn’t know how to get to Philly, but I knew where
to buy a map that would show me. It would take me
fifteen minutes to pack up the stuff at my place that I
really gave a damn about. I was going to be on the
road in less than an hour.
I didn’t know why Braddock told her he’d give me a
cut. Maybe he really thought I’d believe it, or maybe
he just wanted to wave some hope in my face before
he shot me in the back and left me to rot. But there
was no way in hell he would let someone like me see
him picking up money that he’d skimmed. He let
Tabby and me see each other so he could keep us
dangling on a hook, but there was no risk in that for
him. If he’d managed to cut himself a real piece of
somebody else’s pie, it was a fool’s bet that he didn’t
have something planned for me, something that
would make him smile.
He might have something planned for Tabby, too.
Nothing I could do about it. I’d asked her to leave
him, and she’d said no. Both of us had been pushing
our luck, and now it was burned out. It was time to
live the simple life for a while.
I’d made up my mind even before leaving the
house. Walking those two blocks in the dark, keeping
my head down, had just given me a chance to see
how everything was fitting together. You can build up
your luck until you can feel which way it’s pulling you,
but you still have common sense. When they’re both
pointing you in the same direction, it’s time to go.
That’s what I was thinking as I walked up to my
car. I could still hear those thoughts as I noticed that
my rear windshield was broken out. The front one
too. All of my windows.
I had to stand there a while to realize just how
ruined it was. Both airbags had been set off, and all
four tires were flat. My gas cap was missing and
there was foam bubbling up out of the tank. There
was a growing puddle of oil and other fluids on the
street underneath it.
But that wasn’t all. My plates were gone. After a
few minutes of being in shock I checked the driver’s
side of the dashboard, up where it met what was left
of the windshield. The part with the VIN had been cut
out. With that and the plates gone, I couldn’t even
prove that this was my car.
I also found a note, typed, stuck to the rear-view
mirror, which had been broken off the windshield
mount and was sitting in the passenger’s seat.

DON’T WORRY, BUDDY. WE’LL PICK YOU UP.

I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

I’d already used up the last bit of my luck, it

seemed. I’d tucked my cell phone in my pocket
instead of leaving it in the car.
I called Shafi to ask for a ride back to my place.

Two days later I was sitting out on the porch in

front of my apartment, just enjoying looking around.
One way or another I wasn’t coming back. I killed
some time by playing fish with a little girl that lived a
couple of doors down, and by teaching her how to
deal cards off the bottom of the deck.
Braddock’s car pulled up around nine, with Tabby
behind the wheel. She opened the door and
motioned for me to drive. She was barefooted. It
took her some time to limp over to the passenger’s
side and get in. Braddock was in the middle of the
backseat, grinning at me.
“Where to?“
“Just get us to Highway 86, little buddy. You drive,
I’ll navigate.“
At the highway he had me head west, into the
middle of nowhere.
“Tabby tells me you were pretty horny the other
night. She said you wanted it three or four different
ways.”
It shouldn’t have stung, but it did. She wouldn’t
meet my eyes in the rear-view mirror. I said, “She told
me we were going after some money, and that I could
count on being paid for my time. You mind telling me
how much?“
“Money? You need me to loan you some money,
buddy? Come on, it’s too nice of a day to waste
haggling over something like that. Why don’t we all
just sit back and enjoy the drive. Take that exit and
head north.“
I was nervous. It took me a second or two to
realize that he thought I might be wearing a wire. I
wondered just how that would play out, but it did help
me relax during the drive. If he thought someone else
was listening, he wouldn’t shoot me in the back of the
head… yet.

“Hey, you kids want to see something really wild?

Take that turn, buddy. You’re going to love this.“
I turned off the road, and I had to drop my speed,
fast. The road wasn’t anything but a narrow dirt trail
that someone had cleared some of the rocks off of.
 “Easy buddy, easy. We’ve got all day. Just let it
get down there at its own speed.“
I still had to steer around the rocks, and that took
all my attention. I didn’t worry about Braddock
shooting me, and I didn’t see it until we were right on
top of it.
Christ, that place. Looking at it was like someone
stabbing you in the brain, right behind your eyes. The
people who’d lived there had spray-painted it in this
bizarre, cartoon-like style. It was like a mural done by
a blind painter while he tripped on acid. There were
breasts, vaginas, cocks, mouths, and butts, all
painted right there on the outside walls. They were all
part of people, but those parts were larger than life.
The whole building was one huge, feasting orgy.
“You think that’s something? That’s nothing.
Come on.“
We got out, and as we walked closer, I could pick
out little details that I hadn’t been able to see from the
road. All of the people were painted with hairy legs
and armpits, and there were little bugs like spiders or
ants crawling over everyone, biting them. Some of
the women were giving birth, and the babies that were
coming out already had strong, white teeth, and they
were already eating.
“What the fuck is this place?“
Braddock just laughed. There was a sign near the
front door, the big kind that a real church will have to
show what hours they’re open. Only this one had
been painted lime green, and the letters on it were
bright, gory red.
 IF IT DOESNT GROW DONT EAT IT
IF IT GROWS EAT IT AND BE EATEN
EDEN WAS A GARDEN WHERE THEY GREW
THINGS TO EAT
WHAT HAVE YOU EATEN TODAY

I’d skipped breakfast, thank God.

“Come on. The best stuff to see is in the back.“
I didn’t want to look at the figures on the wall, so I
looked everywhere else. There was a lot of open land
between the road and the hills. Before I had come to
Tucson, I’d spent my whole life in North Carolina, with
trees growing so thick and tall that you had to be on a
highway to see more than a mile in any direction.
After I’d moved, I’d traveled outside of the city lots of
times, but whenever I did I could never shake that
lost, desolate feeling. It felt like being the only human
left alive, on the moon.
The church was the biggest building, but there was
also a barn, a tool shed, and something like a cattle or
horse pen. Braddock led us around to the back,
where there was a big, covered area with a cement
floor and old, wooden picnic tables up against the
back door of the church.
“Go ahead, Eddie. Check it out.“
It was a perfect setup to execute me, but the look
on his face was more like a kid trying to trick his
younger brother into sticking his tongue onto an icy
flagpole. I walked, still feeling him looking over my
shoulder, under the cheap tin roof. There was one
corner of the concrete floor that had been colored. As
I got closer, I realized it was chalk, the kind that kids
will use to draw all over the sidewalk.
The pictures were mostly bad imitations of the
mural on the church, but there were also butterflies
with women’s breasts and bobcats that french-kissed.
A few lines, written in powder-blue chalk, caught my
eye.
peas eat the dirt
Sister eats the peas
Mommy eats the snake
and apples from the tree
i eat sister
and Daddy eats me

Braddock actually held his stomach and laughed at

the look on my face.
“Come on, Eddie. Enough funny stuff. Let’s get to
business.“

It looked like the cops had tried to close the big

double doors, but the wood was ancient and warped,
and they were stuck halfway open. In the end, they
had settled for doing a half-assed job of wrapping
crime-scene tape across the opening. It was already
sagging and a couple of pieces were flapping loose in
the dry, hot wind.
“That’s where it is.“
Braddock was smiling again. The sun was beating
down on us and the whole area felt like the inside of
an oven, but he was smiling like he was about to pop
someone’s cherry.
I gestured with my thumb, not taking my eyes off
him. “In there?“
“Yep. Now if you don’t mind, buddy, I’d like to get
paid.“
It was hard, but I didn’t say anything.
“Tabby, you might be surprised to learn this, but
your fuckbuddy here is one clever, sneaky bastard.
He and I were enjoying some pleasant conversation
at a little Arab place the other day, when he starts
telling me all about this plan that he has. It seems
he’d heard that one of his regular suppliers had gotten
busted, and he wanted to know if I knew anything
about it. I told him I didn’t like to talk about a case
that hadn’t gone to trial yet, but that was just fine with
him.
“You see, he already knew a lot of things. He
knew these folks that he’d worked for grew it
someplace out of town, where they felt safe, and that
they were a pretty odd bunch of ducks. He told me
that he knew the guy in charge, a crazy old
missionary with some really weird ideas about the
way the food chain was supposed to be. He knew
him so well, it turns out, that he knew the guy had a
stash, a nice little wad tucked away just in case things
ever went wrong. He said if he could just get his
hands on that stash, he’d be sitting pretty. If only he
knew where their little hideaway was, and that, Tabby,
is where I come in, he says.“
I started to say something funny, but suddenly I felt
sick. A bad memory started crawling around in my
stomach, like a bug.
I’d been having a beer at a sports bar, trying to
decide whether or not to put some money on the
Wildcats, when I’d gotten a call from Percy. The
whole reason I had enough money in my pocket to
think about betting was because I’d done a lot of work
for him in the past few days. He’d recently gotten a
big delivery in, cheap, and had passed the savings on
to his customers. I’d never heard him sound scared
before. When I got to his place, he tried to get me
stocked and back out the door as fast as he could.
His wife was talking on two cell phones at once, trying
to calm people down. I heard her tell someone to go
ahead and get to a hospital, but to keep quiet about
where they’d gotten it.
Percy didn’t get me out fast enough, though. I was
able to see his brother, Mike, hunched over the toilet
down the hall. Mike had always dipped into Percy’s
stock, and that time he was paying for it, hard. I saw
Mike puke, and what he threw up was full of little
things that wiggled and squirmed. After he puked
again, he started to cry as he picked them off his face
and out of his mouth. He cried that they were eating
him.
Like I said, he didn’t get me out the door fast
enough. The cops got there first.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I found out just
how bad it really was. That had been some extremely
fucked-up weed. Four people, including Mike, ended
up dying. Another eight would be eating from needles
in their arms for the rest of their lives, and one guy, a
runner like me, had to have his foot amputated
because he’d carried the bundle in his boot for an
afternoon. At the trial, some doctor testified that body
heat sped up the ‘gestation,‘ or something. He talked
for a long time about how lice and other bugs laid
their eggs, exponential rates of growth, and how the
eggs didn’t get inside you from the smoke, but from
the unsmoked weed touching your lips or skin. He
kept trying to hint about how unlikely it was that
something like that could suddenly appear and adapt
to this climate without ‘intelligent intervention,’ as he
put it, but Percy’s lawyer was good enough to make
the judge cut him off.
My public defender was pretty good, too. He got
me off with probation and community service. I did
have to testify, though. I felt like a jerk, even though it
was already clear that Percy was going down. He
gave me a desperate smile as I climbed down from
the stand.
My probation and trash-picking had lasted less
than a month, but it still counted as a conviction, my
third, and last. I could tell from Braddock’s face where
the dope had come from.
That meant there was a connection on my rap
sheet, between this place and me. There was a
record that connected me to this church of lunatics, a
record that anyone could turn into a million excuses.
That was his safety net. He could just say, aw
shucks fellas, he came to me, not the other way
around. I wasn’t gonna let him really take anything. I
just wanted to get him to hand over the money as
proof, then I’d cuff him and Miranda him. He was
fucking my wife, you know.
If I handed over anything, even a dime, it would
cinch it.
“I’m not wired.“
“Never said you were, buddy. But I’ve already
started on my vacation, and I’d like to at least take the
little lady out for a steak dinner tonight, so what say
you ante up?“
I chuckled, because one way or another, it didn’t
matter. I took a few twenties from my wallet and
handed them over, still not taking my eyes off him. He
counted them, and stuck them in his back pocket.
Then he hit me.
I didn’t even see it. I felt my brain bounce off the
inside of my skull, and the ground came up and hit me
on the shoulder blades. After a second, I realized that
Braddock was going through my pockets and
everywhere else, but I was looking at Tabby.
She just stood there, staring at nothing. The hat
was keeping the sun out of her eyes, but there was no
light in them, no life. Something, a fly, I think, landed
on her lip and she didn’t even blink. I wondered if she
even still knew my life was on the line.
Braddock came back into focus right before he
crushed my watch under the heel of his boot. God
damn, he was big.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, buddy. Go
ahead and pick up your stuff so we can get inside.
You haven’t seen anything, yet.“
I stayed down and tried to collect everything. The
bastard had even taken my shoes off. After I sat up
and got them back on, I nearly fell over when I tried to
stand.
He caught me. With one hand under my arm, he
lifted me up on my feet. Maybe I had never really
noticed it before, or maybe I’d just fooled myself. He
wasn’t just mean. He was strong, and fast. The plan
had been to catch him off guard, after we had the
money. Then Tabby was going to say his name, all
soft and sexy, to get his attention. She’d claw his
eyes, and I’d knock him down, then we’d just kick him
to death. She’d said a simple plan was best, and I
had agreed because I had planned on being in
Philadelphia and leaving her to live or die by herself.
It wasn’t a simple plan, it was a dumb one. We
were both fucked.
“Come on, Eddie. Let’s get inside. It’s hot out
here.“
I bent down to get through the door without
breaking the tape. He laughed and walked right
through it. Tabby followed him.
The room was pretty small. I’d thought it would be
better than outside, but I was wrong. It was almost as
hot, and the air was dead and still, like someone else
had already breathed it. The double doors that we’d
come through were on one wall, another set were
opposite them, and the well was in the center of the
floor. There was a thick hemp rope, and a pulley on
what looked like a knocked-together A-frame over in
the corner.
That well didn’t look right. It was too wide, for a
start. The rim around it wasn’t even a foot tall, and
some smartass had shaped adobe clay around it to
make it look like a giant, wrinkled body opening. I
laughed, quick and nervous, thinking about how easy
it would’ve been for the people who’d lived here to be
walking out of the doors behind me and looking at the
outer doors and just keep walking in a straight line
and disappear.
I stood as close to the edge as I had to and looked
down. It went at least forty feet through the bedrock,
then it was dark. There was a smell drifting up, like
soured milk. I could’ve sworn that the air from the
well was warm, and moist.
“Asshole of creation, little buddy. That’s where all
our fortunes lie.“
“What?“
“Well, just imagine for a second, Eddie, since we’re
doing nothing but sightseeing and speculating.
Imagine if you were one of the good guys, and you
came out here to round up this whole crazy herd of
cannibalistic, dope-smoking, coprophiliacs, how easy
it would be to lose count of the dope money that you
were counting. When half your team are puking their
guts out, no one’s paying much attention to where the
decimal point is going on the sheet. It all gets
counted again later, anyway. Then, while you’re
carrying all the weed, seed, and money out to the
truck, maybe you drop a bundle or two down
someplace convenient. Maybe you drop a bundle or
two each trip. Then maybe, just maybe, you let it sit
for a while.
 “So why don't we pretend like we're back in
kindergarten, and all make-believe that we're brave
explorers. You go ahead and get motivated, Eddie.
I’ll get the gear.”
He started to set up the frame, grinning. I sneaked
a look at Tabby, who was still standing by the outer
doors. She had just walked in and stopped, staring at
nothing.
When I moved I tried to make it look casual, like I’d
seen something interesting through the partially-open
doors that lead into the building. I didn’t want to die in
that damn hole.
“Wouldn’t look too closely in there, if I were you,
buddy.“
He was smiling with a whole face full of teeth.
“That’s the kitchen.”
I backed off, my guts feeling like liquid.
“All ready, Eddie.“
I noticed it when I looked back at him. The pulley
on the frame didn’t have a lock. If Tabby was out of it,
that left two of us, Braddock and me. One to get the
money, and one to haul it up. If either one didn’t
cooperate, you had a stalemate.
A weak shot. But it was better than trusting him.
He’d tied a loop in the end of the rope, and he held
it up for me to step into. I’d never been so close to
him before, looking him in the eye.
Tabby screamed.
She screamed like her soul was being torn out of
her, and as she ran towards us with that look on her
face, I think Braddock and I finally shared something
special. Fear, of her.
She hit him with both her hands and all her weight.
He was already bent over, holding up the rope, and
down he went. There was one, short second, that
was longer than all the twenty-six years of my life.
Braddock was gone, and I felt the rope go tight
around my feet.
God, she was beautiful. That look on her face
could break your heart.
Then I fell. You know why people are afraid of
heights, of falling? It’s that sick, sudden feeling in
your gut that you’ve been taking something for
granted your whole life, and it’s not there to hold you
up anymore.
It didn’t hurt so bad at first. I think I was out for a
couple of minutes. When I came to, things were a bit
fuzzy. I kept feeling around in the dark for the switch
to turn on the lights.
The well was dry, and the bottom was all jagged,
cracked stone. I’d landed on top of Braddock, which
was probably why I was alive. He looked like he had
landed on his face, broken his jaw, then his neck, and
then kept on breaking.
I found out my legs were broken when I tried to
straighten up. The well was narrow down here, barely
three feet wide. I was almost upside down with my
head and shoulder on a dead man and the rest of me
against the wall of the well. As soon as I tried to shift
so that I’d be sitting on by butt, the pain shot through
my nerves and bones, right into my heart. I thought I
was going to die, it hurt so bad.
 For a moment, I saw Tabby silhouetted against the
light above me, and I called her name. When she
moved away, I called again. She didn’t answer.
It almost sounds like the perfect ending to a sappy
chick-flick, doesn’t it? Our heroine goes through hell,
but in the end she finally gets away from her abusive
husband and the loser who was never any good for
her anyway.
That’s where it would end, except for two things.
The first? Well, what are small, jingle, get carried
on a ring, and it’s easy to forget them, but you’re not
going far without them?
That’s right. I put them in my pocket when I got
out of the car, and Braddock even took them when he
searched me, but he didn’t keep them. I guess he
was going to get them back after he killed me. Either
that, or he just forgot.
The other? Well, that would be the bugs.
My eyes have gotten used to the dark down here,
and I can see them pretty clearly. They look just like
the ones on the mural, sort of like an eight-legged
centipede. The walls of the well have dozens of
cracks in between the layers of bedrock, some of
them almost big enough for me to reach my arm into,
and the bugs keep coming out of them.
The funny thing is, they keep getting bigger. When
I first started looking around, I thought they were ants.
They were too small for me to see that they had an
extra pair of legs. After Tabby left, I noticed there
were bigger ones coming out of the walls. They
looked just like the others, but they were the size of
my thumbnail. They chased the smaller ones away
from Braddock’s face, eating them if they weren’t fast
enough. Then came the ones that were as big as my
thumb.
A few minutes ago, I saw some that were the size
of my open hand. In the half-light from above, they’re
the first ones big enough to get a good look at. They
move in circles, or arcs, never walking in a straight
line, and they click their big, black pincers at each
other right before they fight. Those things can cut,
too. One of the little bastards took off Braddock’s
thumb with one snip. A couple of them tried to climb
up the wall to get at my legs, but I found the pulley
and rope from the frame and crushed them with it.
The other ones ate them.
Oh, did I mention I found the money too? I did, I
think. There are little bits of green paper and some of
the metal strips that they put in new bills all over the
place. I guess these guys eat just about anything.
I got worried about those big ones. They’re pretty
fast, and they move their pincers back and forth as
they crawl, like they’re nervous. But they, like the
others, ran away after a few minutes.
Here’s one. Take a fish. Take the biggest,
meanest, hungriest fish in the whole lake. Now what
do you think that fish would run away from?
About the Author

Stephen Pope once wrote a horror story when he

was fourteen, let his grandmother read it, and she
stopped speaking to him for three days. When he
should be writing he enjoys role-playing games and
World of Warcraft, usually playing someone you
shouldn't trust. Anyone who contacts him and admits
to being a literary agent will be forced to read his first
book. He writes in Houston, Texas, where he lives
with his wife, two cats, and a dog. If you want more
weirdness like this, just follow his blog at
http://stephenbpope.blogspot.com/, and wear your
crash helmet.
Christina’s World
By Sean Douglas

Gabrielle was conceived in a public park by the

ocean.
The day was bright and beautiful. Warm but not
hot.
The skin of her parents was tan and leathery from
days spent under the sun and nights spent sleeping
on the beach. Their hair bleached blonde by the sun
and salt water.
Her father looked like Brett Michaels if he had
never been famous. He wore a black bandana across
his forehead to hide his thinning hairline. There was a
line of yellow-grey at the bottom where his sweat
dried to salt and leached out the black. His eyes had
a perpetual squint from too many hours under the
unrelenting sun.
Her mother looked like a heavy metal groupie
dressed casual in heather grey sweatpants and a
heather grey sweatshirt with the collar cut out,
exposing her collarbones and a dull brown bite mark
fading green and yellow around the edges.
Her mother dropped their duffel bag, opened it,
and pulled out two towels. Flapped them out and laid
them on the ground in lieu of blankets. Her father sat
down and took his shirt off, dropping it on the grass.
Not that he needed to be any more tan, but lying in
the sun was a nice thing to do in the summer when
the sun was out and the breeze was soft and warm
and you didn’t have any money to spend or a home to
call your own.
 Her mother pushed her sweatpants down. She
was wearing a red bikini bottom, the kind that was
shaped like an hourglass with a triangle for the front
and back and strings that tied on the sides to keep it
on. She took her sweater off. She was wearing the
matching bikini top. Two red triangles and
strategically placed string. Her breasts may have
been beautiful when she was younger. But that was
years ago. Decades and gravity had their way. Her
ass sagged around the red triangle, her thighs were
spider-webbed with veins and tendons and her
breasts would have pooled out flat on her chest like
pancake batter were it not for the bikini top keeping
them in place.
She left her sweat suit in a rumpled pile and
reached into the duffel bag, pulling out a bottle in a
brown paper bag. She peeled off the black plastic
and unscrewed the cap, taking a swig of the whiskey
and passing the bottle to the man. The man took a
gulp, then a second, swishing it around his mouth,
swallowing and sighing a satisfied sigh. He thumped
the bottle into the soft summer ground so it wouldn’t
tip over.
The woman lay down, turned on her side and
reached out turning his head and kissing him. Their
sun-chapped lips, his greasy with balm, hers greasy
with hot pink lipstick, their whiskey flavored saliva
mixing as their tongues intertwined, writhing like
mating snakes.
She pinched his nipple and he groaned. He
reached up and cupped the sagging mass of her
breast, circling a fingertip around her aureole. Her
nipple hardened, lengthening like a bit of roadside
beef jerky against the backdrop of her aureole like a
squirt of chewing tobacco.
She dragged her chipped, pink, ragged nails from
the man’s throat down his torso, over his swollen
abdomen, stretch marks like speed bumps, to the
waistband of the man’s shorts. She slid her hand
inside, circling her thumb and forefinger around his
uncircumcised inch, trying to knead it to life.
She squeezed it, ignoring the small smooth spots
from his herpes scars as it lengthened, growing half-
hard, a small roll of cookie dough. A sticky yellow
discharge seeped out of the hole at the end of his
urethra. She rolled back his foreskin, rubbing the
ooze in a spiral around the bright red head as it
swelled with blood.
Overhead the seagulls cried and coasted on the
thermals.
On the basketball court, young black men
glistened with sweat, shouting and shirtless on the
shimmering blacktop.
Along the sidewalk middle-aged people in leisure
wear were dragged along by their dogs. The dogs
stopped to lift a leg and urinate on every pole and
hydrant on the perimeter of the park.
Everyone else was far enough away that they
looked like vague forms trailing short shadows under
the noon sun. The woman rolled over, straddling the
man. He reached down and pushed down his shorts
to the middle of his thighs. She pushed aside the
bottom of her bikini. He managed to thread the three
inches of half-hard penis into the slime-slick opening
of her vagina. She clenched her ass, working the
muscles inside her, grinding her pubic bone hard and
slow against his. He ran his hand up her thighs from
her knees to her hips and she sat up straight, pushing
herself down as close to her man as she could, trying
to get him deeper. He came so weakly that she didn’t
notice. She rode him until he went soft and slithered
out of her. She rolled off of him and opened her
purse, pulling out a pack of Marlboro Lights, cupping
one hand around the tip of the cigarette where it met
the jet of the lighter to protect it from the offshore
breeze. The man hitched his shorts up, the
secretions of sex drying quickly in the summer heat,
and reached for the brown paper bag with the bottle
inside, taking a gulp. It went down smooth. Only
amateurs wince at whiskey.
And thus, on a beautiful summer day, Gabrielle
was conceived.

Technically speaking her parents were homeless.

When you live in a vacation community and the
weather is nice, you can go where you want and do
as you please and sleep under the stars on the beach
with the sound of the waves crashing on the shore to
lull you to sleep. All you need is a full bottle and
someone to help you empty it. As the months
progressed and she began to show, she stole a
pregnancy test from the drug store and pissed on the
stick in a port-a-potty waving away the horseflies
trapped inside. She waited till the window showed a
plus sign and dumped it into the blue chemicals and
piles of stale shit and toilet paper. It only confirmed
what they already knew.
That night they drank themselves to sleep on the
beach and when she woke up in the morning the man
was gone. He had taken their duffel bag with their
few worldly possessions and emptied out her purse of
what little money they had. Mostly made from turning
tricks in exchange for drugs or a little bit of folding
money. The man would usually watch, his protection
his contribution. The man was gone and she was on
her own again. She went to a women’s shelter and
spent her pregnancy living among other unwanted
unlucky women who had burned their bridges and
had no place they could call home. The weather
turned cold and the woman made up her mind that
she would give up the baby up for adoption. She
knew that since it would be a white baby it would have
a better chance of finding a good home. She knew
that she was in no position to raise a child since she
was barely able to take care of herself. It’s not that
she was selfish. She had given up a child for
adoption before as a teenager. Then again in her
mid-twenties. Unplanned pregnancies were just
something that happened every ten years or so in her
life.
The birth was difficult and the baby was
underweight. The baby was a girl that spent her first
months in an incubator being fed formula by bottle
and fighting against the alien hands that reached in to
change her diaper when she soiled herself.
 Underweight and all too pink, fighting to survive in
her own little world, she was not the first choice for
adoptive parents. In time, her condition stabilized and
she was adopted. Her adoptive parents were
financially secure. Her adoptive father an optician.
Her adoptive mother a social worker. They were old
and the woman was barren. Having spent her career
helping other families whose parents raised their
children like animals in poverty alternating with
neglect, violence, and unexpected bursts of
unpredictable affection, she decided she wanted to try
to raise a child of her own. They named the girl
Gabrielle because it sounded like a pretty name to
call a girl and she hadn’t come with a name of her
own.
The day that Gabrielle was adopted they found her
birth mother in a motel room. There was a belt
loosely circling her bicep and a needle in her arm.
The glass on the bedside table was frosted white with
ashen residue. There was a spoon bent in half and
burned black on the bottom. There was vomit drying
into the pillowcases and Jersey Shore played
unwatched on the television. The woman didn’t have
any identification on her, but they identified the body
from a tattoo over her heart that had been made a
matter of public record during one of her many
arrests. A faded red rose with her name and the
name of her first husband in a banner wrapped
around the stem. She had tried to burn out his name
by heating up the chromed shields of cheap
convenience store lighters years ago after the divorce
was finalized and all that was left were scars. She
was buried in an unmarked grave in the place where
they bury people that no one cares about when
they’re dead.

As Gabrielle grew older she was always small for

her age. When they lined up by height she was
always at the end of the line. She had straw blond
hair as fine and soft as strands of silk, tiny teeth and
tiny hands, and eyes the grey of looming clouds when
the pressure drops and the wind picks up as the
thunderclouds condense and conspire to block out the
sun. There was ozone in her eyes.
Her father was mostly uninterested in the familial
experiment and dealt with his daughter from a
conservative distance as if she was a young visitor
that came to live in their home until she was old
enough to live her own life. He was never cruel to
her. He never raised his voice. Cruelty doesn’t have
to be manifested in harsh words or physical violence
to be harmful and neglect can be its own form of
cruelty. A lack of love can sting as strong as hate.
Her mother treated her like a child-sized doll, buying
her fancy frilly dresses and combing her hair while
Gabrielle sat up straight and quiet letting herself be
groomed. The fancy lace-trimmed dresses her
mother bought her made her unpopular among the
other children in school. She wasn’t bullied since she
was so small that it would have been unfair, but she
was ignored and whispered about when the other
children thought she couldn’t hear them and she was
never invited to jump rope with the other girls.
 Gabrielle liked reading books and drawing
pictures. Things that she could do on her own without
the help of friends and family. She wallpapered her
room with pictures of animals and rainbows and
horses and unicorns and smiling stick-figure families
in front of gabled houses. Birds and bees and
butterflies and lions and tigers and characters from
the stories she read when there weren’t enough
illustrations in the books to satisfy her imagination.
She did well in school and was praised by her
teachers as an example for the other children which
only served to worsen the alienation. She wasn’t
proud of being singled out. She didn’t understand
why it was difficult for the others to sit still and listen
and learn and to fill out the correct answers in the
tests they were given. It all seemed so simple to her.
She passed through grade school like a ghost. She
was never invited to any of the birthday parties or
cook-outs hosted at the homes of any of the other
children because she was “weird”, but in her own way
she was more well-adjusted than any of her class-
mates. She was self-contained. There were worlds
inside her head that she could explore when she
needed something to distract her when the end of the
day drew close and everyone else was watching the
clock, waiting for the school bell to ring.
Junior high was confusing. Everyone adjusted to
the pecking order of the social hierarchy. For the
most part she was just ignored, but not entirely. She
was beautiful in her own strange way. Her clear eyes
and pale hair. Her slightly freckled skin. She never
went in for all of the lipstick and eyeliner and rouge
the other girls bought at the mall. She was never
interested in clothes as fashion. She preferred sturdy
clothes with classic lines. Her closet was a grey scale
study from white to black with the occasional
cadmium red or cobalt blue accent to break up the
monotony. Picking clothes to suit her personal
preference inadvertently gave her the appearance of
a cover model for Calvin Klein and the other girls
secretly resented her. She didn’t need the make-up
that the other girls used to fake beauty. She had
good skin. She kept a sensible diet. Since she liked
animals, she didn’t like the idea of eating them and
she made a secret promise to herself not to eat them
anymore. It didn’t help that her growth spurts
lengthened her legs and levelled her height so that
she was just as tall as the other girls.
She liked to walk the woods in the outskirts of her
neighborhood. She learned the names of the plants
and the trees and the names and the calls of the birds
and learned to whistle them well enough that she
could take turns singing their songs.
Her favorite season was the fall. The air was brisk
and the trees changed colors and everything smelled
like wood smoke and apple cider. She liked to dress
warmly and inhale the cool air as she walked to
school in the morning, exhaling plumes of frost like a
harmless dragon.
She was quiet. She wasn’t shy but her reputation
preceded her and the other kid acted like she was a
different species. Since she often wore black they
said she was a goth. Then they said she was a witch.
She was more often talked about than to and through
the magic of adolescent gossip, she earned the
reputation of having the evil eye. Someone said she
knew how to make a tea that would make a girl
miscarry and that if you gave her a hair from the one
that you loved she could cast a spell and make them
love you. None of this was true. She knew no more
about witchcraft than she knew about astronomy. But
that wasn’t really true. She taught herself the names
of all of the constellations and could tell which
direction she was facing after the sun had set if the
sky was clear. If anyone had asked her, she would
have said that she thought that witchcraft was just as
silly as superstition. She didn’t believe in fate and she
knew that wishes didn’t come true even if you wished
upon a falling star. All she ever wished was to be
normal like everybody else until she realized that she
would never get the only thing she wanted and it
wouldn’t matter anyway. She was happy with how
and who she was and she stopped wishing.
She attended her classes as scheduled and
studied general education in the advanced college
track. If she wanted to, she could have been the
valedictorian of her class at graduation but despite
her natural aptitude she wasn’t perfect. She would do
her homework in a workmanlike fashion. Quickly and
efficiently but without any real passion since she
recognized it as the rote rehearsal and busy work it
was. The one thing that she was passionate about
was art. Not just her own but in general. When
asked what she wanted for her birthday she always
asked for books. She had high stacks of thick books
too heavy for her shelves, containing pictures of all of
the great artistic masterpieces of the world. She
would practice recreating them with her pencils and
markers and paints, trying to figure out how an artist
had achieved an effect but she didn’t draw things from
her imagination anymore. She would sit on a hill and
draw landscapes and try to capture the life essence of
the birds as they landed and pecked in the grass
around her, sitting still enough to be ignored. She
had dozens of pads filled with pictures but she would
never call herself an artist. She didn’t know what she
would call herself if anyone ever asked and no one
ever did.
When she met with her guidance counselor and
was informed that she would be allowed to select an
elective, when asked what her interests were she
said, “I like to draw.” And so she was assigned to art
class during her elective period the last of every day.
There were thirteen kids in her class and they were
left to do as they pleased as long as they were
making art. There was a computer that they shared,
taking turns making digital art and more often than not
spending half of the time breaking the computer and
the other half of the time trying to fix it.
She was interested in the metalhead boys, but not
in the way that girls are interested in boys. Their
black clothes and jean jackets with the colorful
patches sewn onto them. The skulls and demons and
wizards and lighting and dragons. She wasn’t that big
on the music. Loud and aggressive. Lyrics more
screamed than sang. She didn’t want to ask them out
or be asked out by them, but sometimes she
wondered what it might be like to let one of them kiss
her. The stubble of their poorly shaven jaw chafing
against the softness of her cheeks and neck. The
thoughts made her shiver. She didn’t know why but
she thought that this was how people fell in love with
each other like they did in movies. She had read
enough books that she knew what love was as
explained by the authors. A shortness of breath and
an ache in your heart when you thought about the
person you loved. She never felt that shortness of
breath or ache in her heart about anyone, but she had
her shivers and suspected that this was how it began
and that someday the rest of the mysteries of love
would open up to her like a flower slowly opening of
its own volition.
There was something about the way they carried
themselves. The faux fearlessness and real bravado.
She didn’t talk to them. She didn’t talk to anyone
except when spoken to. But she watched them out of
the corner of her eyes, drawing dragons and demons
and succubi. During lunch, the metalheads went out
to the student parking lot and smoked pot in their cars
in the cold weather, leaning against them when the
weather was warm. On nice days Gabrielle sat
outside and read a book in the sun, enjoying the feel
of the sun on her skin. She would see the metalhead
boys and girls leave and could smell marijuana smoke
clinging to their hair and clothes and hands when they
came back, their eyes glazed over. She wondered
what they did and knew what people said. She
thought that maybe someday she’d go with them out
to the parking lot if only someone would ask her if she
wanted to go.
Sometimes when she was watching the metalhead
boys, she would see one of them looking back at her
and when he realized she saw him watching her he’d
pretend to be interested in whatever he was working
on for a minute or so, then peek out from under his
hair to see if she was still watching him to see if he
would continue watching her and it made her cheeks
feel hot. She wasn’t embarrassed. That wasn’t what
she’d call it. She didn’t know what to call it.
The boy had high wide cheekbones and white-
blonde hair. It looked as soft and fine as strands of
silk although it could be washed more often than it
was. His eyes were a dark blue like the color you’d
color the sky if you were drawing a picture of the full
moon. His facial hair was so fine that he only had to
shave every other week if at all and only then to skim
off the dander of peach fuzz that persistently crept
back if unattended. He had been spared the plague
of acne that most of his friends were dealing with.
Not that he was unblemished, but he was much less
scarred than his friends.
He didn’t say much or often and when he did talk
his voice was soft and high. Not like a girl’s voice but
like it was waiting for the right time to change. He
didn’t seem shy. Just aloof. Like he wasn’t really
concerned with which band was better or who could
beat who in a fight.
They would walk home the same direction for most
of the walk but never together. She would see him
trailing a block behind her. She didn’t know if he
lived in her neighborhood. She didn’t think he did.
But she wasn’t afraid. If anything she felt safer
knowing that he was there.
On her way home she liked to cut across a field.
In the winter she followed the path that cut diagonally
across the field through the waist deep snow into the
treeline, onto the path worn between the trees by
years of shortcuts, to the end of the dead end street
on the edge of her neighborhood. As the winter
weakened, the snow would melt, a little lower every
day until the blackened ground was revealed in lone
patches, then as a whole. First hard with frost, then
cold with damp and wet. Young grass sprouts inching
out, a little bolder every day as the weather made the
slow, gradual transition towards spring.
In the springtime she liked the way the shorter
sheaves would nick and whisper at her ankles and
didn’t mind if the dew dampened her clothes or the
grass seeds clung to her socks.
In the fall, when the tall grass was shoulder-high,
the wind would wash across the swaths of sheaves
on either side, the dry grass making a sound like
waves crashing. Alive with grasshoppers and
crickets. Each insect contributing its tiny voice to the
symphony. Sometimes slowing and suddenly
stopping, the sudden silence tricking you into clicking
your teeth or humming or whistling to make sure you
hadn’t gone deaf. Then the volume of the insect
symphony would gradually turn itself up imperceptibly
increasing until it was once again a cacophony
competing with the rustling of the tall dry stalks.
Each year, on or around Halloween, someone
would set the field aflame and the fire trucks would
show up. But the firemen just let the field burn. Thick
black plumes of smoke spiraling into the red gold
sunsetting sky. For the rest of the fall, before the
snow fell, the blackened roots would blacken her
shoes and the bottom of her pants but she didn’t
mind. As long as she didn’t track it into the house by
accident, her parents never knew.
The field had burned last fall and the grass had
grown to waist height so she could hold her hand out
as she walked a long and let the tips tickle her palm.
She turned and saw that the boy with the white-
blonde hair and the deep blue eyes had followed her.
Whenever she entered the field he would wait until
she was halfway across before following. She waited
until she was three-quarters across the field and he
was a quarter in, the only ways to go being forward
and backwards. She turned around and stared in his
direction. He stopped when she turned and looked
down as if the narrow path had something important
to say to him. She waited for him to look up to see if
she was still there. She hadn’t thought any further
through than this. If this were a film they would race
towards each other across the field and the camera
would zoom in and the music would swell and they
would crash into each other’s embrace and collapse
into the grain and roll around kissing and grinning and
sighing and kissing again, the grass seeds peppering
their hair as the insects sang the soundtrack.
She thought that if she waved or walked towards
him that maybe he would walk towards her and
maybe they would meet in the middle and maybe they
would just stare at each other until one of them broke
the silence.
She didn’t wave or walk and neither did he. His
following her, not as the hound hunts the fox, but as a
curious cat might shadow your footsteps down a
street stalking close enough to be seen in glimpses,
but scattering scared if you stop and step towards it.
She didn’t think that he was scared or thought of her
as something to be afraid of. She turned and walked
away.
The next morning when she opened her locker, a
piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It was folded into
fours. She unfolded it and it was a drawing of a girl
dressed in dark clothes with blonde hair, standing in
the middle of a field of waist-high grass. She realized
what it was and who had slipped it through the narrow
air vents and the realization made her short of breath
until she remembered to breathe again. She folded
the picture and put it inside the back cover of her
notebook.
In art class that day, the boy pretended that she
didn’t exist. She thought she knew why and knew
that it was up to her to go to him and ask him if he
drew the picture she found in her locker. She thought
she would wait until lunch and try to find him by
himself, but when lunch came, he went to the parking
lot with his friends and the end of the day came
before the proper opportunity presented itself.
On the walk home, the sky was overcast, rain was
gently misting. The boy followed her, but today he
followed closer. And when they reached the field, he
followed. Halfway through the field, she stopped and
turned. He stopped, but he didn’t look at the ground.
He held her stare.
She said across the distance, “Thank you for the
drawing.”
“You’re welcome.” He said and smiled.
She turned and walked and he followed, but didn’t
hasten to catch her. They had spoken, and that was
enough. When she got home, she put the picture up
on her wall along with all of her drawings of birds and
trees and flowers. It looked out of place, but she liked
it and she left a little light on that night so she could
look at it as she fell asleep.
The next morning when she opened her locker,
she expected another piece of paper to flutter down to
the floor. There wasn’t one. Then each day until a
week had passed and they hadn’t spoken again. She
didn’t know if it was up to her to draw a picture for
him, and if it was she didn’t know what to draw. She
knew it would have to be special, but she couldn’t
think of anything special enough. Maybe it was just a
momentary act of kindness towards a girl he thought
would appreciate a friendly gesture. She didn’t have
any friends whose advice she could ask. Her parents
wouldn’t understand. They had been young once, but
the years had built walls around the memory of that
time in their lives.
As the year grew to a close, the hallways were
buzzing with talk of the prom. Who would ask who,
and what would they wear. She didn’t expect anyone
to ask her to prom. The boy and his friends weren’t
the kind of kids that would rent a tuxedo to attend a
formal event. If anything they’d have a party on the
same night out of spite. She wondered if the boy
would invite her to the party.
Instead someone asked her to the prom. She was
sitting, reading a book, her back against a tree when
a shadow fell on the words she was reading. A boy
from the wrestling team, a short boy with cauliflower
ears and a heavy brow. A boy who had a five o’clock
shadow if he didn’t shave every day.
“Hey.” he said.
“Hey.” she said softly.
“Do you want to go to prom with me?”
She was surprised. Surprised enough that she
said, “Yes.”
“Alright then. Let me write down my phone
number.”
He did, and she wrote down her number for him
and he called her that night.
They didn’t have much to talk about. She was
quiet by nature and their worlds were different but
they managed to work out the details. She would buy
a dress and he would buy her a corsage. He would
pick her up and they would go to the prom together.
Her parents were excited. She hadn’t dated
anyone before. They bought her a dark red velvet
dress that complimented the paleness of her skin.
They offered to pay to have her hair done, but she
didn’t see what all the fuss was about. She was going
to a dance with a boy she barely knew and certainly
didn’t like. But maybe this was her chance to finally fit
in with the other kids. Maybe she would meet a few
of his friends and they would get to know her and they
would be her friends too. Maybe this was the secret
passage to a normal life that she had been searching
for.
The boy from her art class stopped following her
home. She hoped it wasn’t because she agreed to go
to prom with someone else, but the boy hadn’t asked
and wouldn’t be going and if he wasn’t going to ask
her, she supposed that she should go with the boy
that did. It made sense, but she felt haunted by his
absence on her walks home. When she looked at the
boy from the corner of her eyes, she didn’t see him
looking at her anymore.
The night of the prom, the boy from the wrestling
team rang the doorbell and her parents let him in.
Her parents made them stand in front of the living
room curtains and pose for pictures. The whole thing
was so overwhelming to her. She didn’t want anyone
making a fuss over her, but she knew that it wasn’t
entirely about her. This meant something to her
parents and if playing along would make them happy
then she would play along. It was the least she could
do.
They left the house and walked to a car waiting at
the curb. The driver’s date got out and tilted the seat
forward so they could climb into the back seat of the
sedan.
As the car left the curb, the driver took a swig from
a metal flask and passed it to his date to took a sip.
She passed it back to the boy in the backseat who
took a swig and then offered it to Gabrielle. She
didn’t know how to say she didn’t drink, or at least she
never had. She took the flask and as she lifted it
towards her mouth she smelled the whiskey fumes.
She tilted the flask and took a sip. Although the flask
wasn’t warm, the liquid felt hot in her mouth. When
she breathed, her mouth felt like she had breathed
fire and she coughed, sputtering as she handed the
flask back to her date.
Gabrielle didn’t like the idea of the driver drinking
and she thought that maybe she had made a mistake.
She wished she was at home. She wished she had
said no when her date had asked her to the prom but
she didn’t think she could ask the driver to turn
around and drop her back at home. She had bought
a dress for this. She would see it through.
The prom was loud and dark. Everyone had done
their best to look their best and the air was heavy with
perfume and cologne and sweat. The sound system
played dance music loud enough that you had to lean
in close or shout to be heard. There were more
pictures taken and whenever her date could, he snuck
another sip from the flask that they had been passing
around. He was drunk and when they danced, he
wiped the sweat from the palms of his hands on the
back of her dress as he ran his hands down her back
until they rested on her ass. She would try to writhe
away from their groping. After an hour of that, she
said that she need to rest so he danced with other
girls. She didn’t know if he was trying to make her
jealous but he wasn’t. If anything she was relieved.
The last song played and they danced again. His
eyes were watery and his breath smelled of whiskey.
His pleated shirt half untucked and her corsage wilted
from the over-heated auditorium. In the middle of the
song, during the second chorus, he tried to kiss her.
She turned her head so his lips met her cheek. She
didn’t want this to be her first kiss.
After the prom was over, they piled back into the
sedan. The boy told her they were going to a post-
prom party. She said that she had to go home, but
her date gave her a look that convinced her that she
would be going to the party with the rest of them. He
didn’t say that if she kept saying that she had to go
home that it would get ugly. He didn’t have to. His
look said everything that needed to be said. She
thought that going along would be easier than
arguing. She would go, and then go home and try to
forget this night ever happened.
The party was at the house of a friend of her date
whose parents were away for the weekend. The
dining room table was covered with bottles. She was
thirsty. The auditorium had been too hot, and the
night air too cool. She decided to have a drink and
picked a bottle that said “Lemonade”. She twisted off
the top and took a drink. The lemonade had a heavy
aftertaste. She looked at the side of the bottle. It
said, “5% alc/vol”. She took it and sat in a chair in the
corner while everyone shouted over the music at each
other. She finished her drink and had another. She
was still thirsty. She started to feel numb and the
numbness was nice. It made the music sound less
loud and all of the shouted conversation started to
blur together into a meaningless hum. She tried to
sink inside herself. To find a calm quiet place in her
mind. She had another. And then another. Each
drink made her feel more numb and care less that she
was stuck someplace she didn’t want to be. Her head
felt loose on her neck. She felt dizzy, but not sick.
She thought it was strange that even though she had
three drinks she was still thirsty. She got up to get
another drink and almost fell back into the chair. She
was dizzy. Her head rushed. Like the distance from
sitting in the chair to standing on her feet was a long
way. She swayed over to the dining room table to get
another lemonade but they were gone. She saw a
squat bottle with a long thin neck. The label had a
picture of a green apple and the liquid inside was
bright green like a popsicle. She opened the bottle
and took a tentative sip. It tasted like green apple
candy. She liked the taste so she took the bottle back
with her to the chair and sipped it every few seconds.
The more she sipped, the softer everything felt. She
felt warm and safe like her consciousness was
floating away. She was relieved. She imagined that
she’d wake up at home in her bed and all of this
would just be some weird fever dream. She didn’t
remember falling asleep.
In her dream something held her ankles and her
wrists. She felt herself swinging like a hammock.
She tried to open her eyes but her eyelids felt like
they had been glued together. It took some effort, but
she managed to flutter them and saw the ceiling of a
hallway moving overhead. The light strobing as her
eyelids fluttered and she was carried through a
doorway into a darkened room.
She felt her dress being unzipped and hands slip
her dress over her head. She thought that someone
was helping her to go to bed. It didn’t feel like her
room. It smelled like cigarettes and pot and cologne.
She felt her bra come undone and her breasts settle
against her chest as it slid down her arms. She tried
to say “What?”. It was all her brain could muster at
the moment but it came out as a moan.
She felt rough-skinned hands squeeze her breasts
and a warm wet mouth suck on her nipple.
Fingertips slipped under the waistband of her panties
and dragged them down her legs, her legs falling
dead onto the bed. She realized she was naked in
the dark and there was someone in the room with her
and she was scared.
She tried to turn over and roll off the bed. Maybe
she could crawl towards the door. Where was the
door? If she could make it to the floor and crawl she
could find a wall and if she crawled along the wall she
would find a door. She tried to sit up but hands
pushed her shoulders down. She didn’t have the
strength to try again. She felt a hand pry itself
between her legs. The fingers tried to pried
themselves inside of her. She panicked in her head,
but her body was paralyzed. She tried to force it to do
what she wanted it to, but she was just a passenger
along for the ride. She heard the sound of someone
spitting. Then the hand was back, but it was warm
and wet and it worked its fingers inside her, sliding
into her, moving back and forth. She felt a weight
shift on the bed and a knee forced itself between her
knees and then another knee and hands lifted her
legs under the knees and spread her legs. She felt
something like a finger, being pushed inside her. The
weight resettled itself. Thin-haired thighs chafed
against the inside of hers and a weight pressed down
on her chest. She felt like she was going to suffocate
and tried to scream but all that came out was a moan.
An elbow rested on either side of her head and the
hips drew back drawing back the thing inside her.
The hips pushed forward, pushing the thing inside her
again. She arced her head back, trying to get away
and he bit her neck, clenching his teeth into her flesh
and thrusted.
Gabrielle went away. She focused on how sick
her stomach felt. She thought that she might vomit.
She wondered if her parents were worried. The
thrusts quickened and the thing inside of her pulsed
as the weight of the boy on top of her shook and he
gasped. The weight of his body went dead, then he
pushed himself up and off of her. She felt warm
wetness trickle out of herself. She was sore and
scared and she tried to turn on her side and curl into a
ball. Someone grabbed her wrists and turned her
around so that her head was at the foot of the bed. A
hand grabbed a handful of her hair and she felt
something slide between her lips. She tried to take a
breath to scream. The boy in front of her forced
something into her mouth. She gagged and vomited,
her vomit spraying around the thing inside her mouth,
spraying onto the bedspread and over the edge of the
bed onto the carpeted floor. The that held her hair in
his fist slapped her across the head and hissed,
“Stupid bitch!”. Her eyes welled up with tears. She
felt someone on the bed behind her spread her legs
and the weight of their body pinning her to the
mattress as they slid themselves inside her.
She didn’t remember anything after that.

The curtains were drawn tight, but a little light crept

in around the edges.
Gabrielle was confused when she awoke. She
knew she was in a bed, but she didn’t recognize the
bodies in bed with her, with their faces buried in the
pillows. Their hair corkscrewed into abstract angles
by last night’s sweat and hair gel. When she tried to
push herself up, the room spun and she felt sick. Her
mouth felt dry and sticky like she had been eating jelly
but it didn’t taste sweet. It tasted like bile and sick salt
and felt like rawhide. She took a deep breath,
mustered all of her effort, and crawled out of the bed,
trying to find gaps to put her hands and knees
between the people sleeping in the bed. She made it
to the edge of the bed and when she stood, she
cringed. She felt like she had been beaten up. Her
breasts were sore and her nipples felt like they had
been chewed raw. Her vagina felt like it had been
roughly gauged by a rusty lead pipe. She winced as
she bent over, trying to find her dress in the sea of
clothes on the floor. She found her clothes and put
them on gingerly, trying to avoid the sorest places, but
she felt like she hurt all over.
The found the door and opened it as quietly as she
could. She walked down the hallway to the living
room. People curled up sleeping on every available
piece of furniture and some were on the floor. Some
had never even made it out of their formal wear.
Empty bottles littered every flat surface. Some had
cigarette butts floating in them. She tiptoed to the
front door and put her shoes on before opening the
door.
She knew where she was, and she knew the way
home. It was a long walk and she was sore and
miserable. Thankfully when she made it home her
parents had left for the day. They knew that she
could be trusted. They didn’t give her a curfew
because they didn’t have to. They probably thought
she was out all night with her friends and happy that
she finally found some friends.
She made her way to her room and took off her
dress. She put it in the trash. She put her bra and
panties into the trash on top of it. She had others.
She took a shower and washed herself for a long
time. She was careful around the sore places, but
she knew that she wanted to get herself as clean as
she could. She wanted to wash the memory of the
night away.
When she was finished she wiped away the fog
and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She
didn’t look as bad as she felt. She still felt nauseous
and there were dark circles under her eyes and dark
red bite marks on her neck. Her first thought was that
her parents wouldn’t be pleased. It made her laugh a
bitter laugh. Of all the things to worry about, that was
the first that came to mind? What if she was
pregnant?
She went to her room and put on her most
comfortable clothes. She went into the kitchen and
drank four big glasses of water. The water was cold
and helped to wash the taste of last night out of her
mouth. She emptied the filter, then refilled it so it
wouldn’t be empty and went to her room. She slid
under the covers and fell asleep.

Gabrielle didn’t go to school on Monday.

She didn’t go to school the day after that.
She didn’t care if she ever went back to school
again.
She knew how everyone would look at her and
cover their mouths and whisper when she walked
past. She knew the things that people said. She
knew how vile and heartless people could be and she
didn’t think that she could just pretend that nothing
had happened.
In the mornings, she would get ready for the day
and leave, walking the usual way to school, but
turning around at the end of the dead end where the
path through the trees led to the field. She would
walk back home and go to bed and sleep all day. She
slept a lot now. She was always tired. Even after
sleeping all day and then again at night she was still
tired.
Her parents asked her how the prom went and she
said that she went to a party and there was pizza and
they played games until they lost track of the time. It
sounded true enough. She hated to lie to her parents
but she thought it would be easier for them than
telling them the truth. She thought it would better if
she carried the truth on her own. There was nothing
they could do. What was done was done and could
not be undone.
She waited a week to see how she felt before she
made up her mind.
She knew the school would call and ask where she
had been. Despite the fact that she had been mostly
invisible, the school had rules to follow.
She did some research. She figured out how
much it would take.
She went to four different drug stores and bought a
box of sleeping pills at each one.
Four was one more than she needed, but she
didn’t want to underestimate the dosage. She didn’t
want to wake up in the hospital with a feeding tube
snaked down her throat, her anxious parents sitting
by her bedside. She didn’t want to wake up at all.
She took the water filter out of the refrigerator and
took her favorite glass out of the cupboard and
walked down the hallway to her room.
She sat on the bed and poured a glass of water,
placed it on her bedside table, and opened up the first
box of sleeping pills, popping the pills through the foil
into a pile on her bed.
She picked one up and put it in her mouth. It
tasted bitter and powdery. She took a sip of water
and swallowed it. “So, that’s what it’s going to be
like.”
She emptied all of the boxes of pills into the pile.
The little pills looked like a pile of candy.
She got up out of bed and picked up her favorite
book, a collection of pictures of modern art. She sat
on the bed with the book in her lap and flipped
through the book. After she turned each page she
would take a pill and wash it down with a sip of water.
After forty she wasn’t feeling sleepy, so she refilled
her glass and turned another page.
She turned to Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.
A woman in a pink dress with black hair, crawling
across the ground in a field, her fists clenching the
turf, looking up at a house on the horizon. She
always liked that painting. It spoke to something
inside her. The sense of solitude in an overwhelming
world.
She looked up at the picture that the boy from art
class had drawn for her.
It was still pinned in the middle of her wall
surrounded by pictures of birds and trees and
unicorns.
She hoped that he wouldn’t be sad when he heard
that she was gone.
She wanted to be where unicorns were real.
She knew that there was no such place but if she
closed her eyes and wished as hard as she could as
she fell asleep then maybe that would be where she
woke up.
She didn’t actually believe any of it.
She knew that happy endings only happened in
books.
At least this way they wouldn’t be able to hurt her
anymore.
She started to feel sleepy so she put the book
aside and took the pills two at a time so she wouldn’t
fall asleep before she was finished, washing each
dose down with a sip of water.
About the Author

Sean Douglas does not want to get to know you

and isn’t interested if you want to get to know him.
He’s not interested in coming to your town and
making small talk with you or meeting your
unattractive girlfriend.
Sean Douglas is interested in smoking cigarettes
and drinking coffee and not sleeping. Sean Douglas
does not have any distinguishing scars or marks and
where he lives is none of your fucking business.
By popular demand, he created a Facebook profile
so that his readers have someplace to send their
death threats and unsolicited opinions about his work.
https://www.facebook.com/sean.douglas.75641297
Till Death Do Us Part: A Collection Of Short Stories

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1496129156
Dead Letter Depot: A Collection Of Short Stories