Contributor: S Marston

- -
Splitting the seventh outside Reno; passing wind when you have diarrhoea; Making drunken phone calls to exes; the matrix sequels; experimenting with PCP; having a child to cement a failing marriage; taking one last Long Island for the road; selling Alaska; letting the kids stay over at uncle Mike’s; not signing a prenup; timeshare; electing bush; buying poodles; replying to spam; speedos; upsetting the sacker of cities then taking on Illium; re-electing bush; not scouting Isandlwana; arguing religion; eating pink pork; invading Russia in winter; following Lost.

Everyone makes mistakes. Mine was fucking you.


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: S Marston

Contributor: Pranas Perkunas

- -
I had some darkness for breakfast and some light for lunch, then J.S. Bach came knocking and told me about this strip club where they didn’t take dollars, but you could pay the door and the dancers with poems. I scooped up a fistful of sappy sonnets from the kitty-littered floor, and Bach showed me the horrible haikus he wrote about a Korean cutie he friended on Facebook. (He was friend number 4,147.) Then away we sped in the Bachmobile!

The place was packed with pimply-faced poets while the dancers were literate and lovely. As I pulled back a glittery garter to insert a poem, my youth was magically restored, and I looked just like Justin Bieber again! Bach and a dazzling dime just out of high school shared a Kool-Aid with two Krazy straws. Her stage name was Baby Gaga, and they went on to make some quite strange music together.


- - -
Pranas Perkunas (pen name) rejects everything you probably believe in. He fervently hopes that a new reality exists somewhere or sometime which is not predicated upon the premise of a food chain. If this is the only current reality, then God created surrealists as a kind of collective think tank.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Pranas Perkunas

Contributor: Alyanna Diavane

- -
At first, we didn't care.
We're just too different,
Or maybe just indifferent
To each other's existence.

I can still remember the time when you were just standing there, minding your own business while everyone was rushing to meet you, to get a hold of you, to get close to you. You just didn't care, did you? Too caught up in your mind's devices, never seeing the horde of women wanting, struggling, to be near you, to be recognized by you. It was ironic, really, how we ended up as part of each other's pseudo-family. We never cared for those kinds of things. We had our lives to live, and that's that. I was too preoccupied with my studies while you, you with the piercing stare, was too busy with your mind's abyss. I was useless as your pseudo-sister. We didn't even talk, meet or anything in particular. Then again, you weren't exactly the ideal pseudo-brother either. You never needed the help anyway. You got by with what you already have, even with the knowledge that everyone's more than willing to help you out.

Or you were just too aware.
Silently observing,
With feigned innocence,
As everything transpired.

You were always the mysterious one. Always had that observing vibe with you everywhere you go. It's as if you're just waiting for someone to fall from grace. I didn't mind, at first. I mean, why would I? We weren't close or anything to that extent. We didn't even acknowledge each other's presence. As the days went idly by, we were gradually finding ourselves entwined to each other's lives. Who knew? But we weren't together because of the pseudo-family status. We were just (un)fortunate enough to wind up in the same circle of people. Or maybe I was just too persistent in forcing myself in yours, I don't know. Something happened. Or, maybe, someone happened. You know this more than anyone else. You saw what happened, didn't you? And, even then, you were feigning innocence, waiting for me to spill all those emotions I strove so hard to keep for myself. But, you listened. You, actually, listened to all the gruesome details as if you didn't care. And, honestly, it helped.

Until that night, of course,
How could I ever forget?
The cold mask shattered
And all I saw beneath was regret.

Normally, I was the only one whose mask would slip away. You were always the mature one, weren't you? But... that night happened. I won't sink into details. You know that night just as well as I do. And, besides, we really don't want to go back to that time, now do we? Since then, this idea intrigued me: "What will happen if your masked shattered, to the point of no return?" It's sick, I know. Wanting to destroy the thing that made you so unique in the first place. That chivalry, it's sickeningly ideal.

It was something different
And it made me cling to
An impossible dream
Of seeing you lose control.

You always said that you despised men who took women for granted. That you would never, ever, turn into someone like... him. You know who he is, don't you? He's the reason why we became somewhat close to begin with. So, I thought: "What if the 'using someone' part was mutual?" That way, it wouldn't look like we're using each other. Just some agreement that entailed no emotions whatsoever. Since then, I did my best to join the various gimmicks you're going to. Silly, I know. It's like something a preschooler would do, yes, I know that too. Don't worry, I don't like you, not like that. Not that way, anyway.


- - -
Innocent enough to love. Knowledgeable enough to think things through. "Be warned. I'm a disaster in the making." is what she'd normally say but now it's just "This has tragedy written all over it."

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Alyanna Diavane

Contributor: Amy Pollard

- -
Adamson College would unravel. Nadine just knew it. Adamson College would unravel and she would be the first to go. Biting into her lunch, Nadine grimaced and wiped her lips with a napkin. Nothing would ever be right again. A sour, tangy mayonnaise ground against the edges of her teeth, already lathered with viscous mustard. The slimy, paper-thin lettuce smudged against the roof of her mouth, washed down her throat only by a long sip of thick, goopy root beer. Cheap concession stand, she groused, glancing around the plaza as she wiped her lips again.

Named after some heck-of-a-rich professor, Adamson Plaza attracted many visitors from outside of the university. Smiley, gray-haired couples would often stroll the grounds with their yappy toy dogs, restrained by a mere thread. Accountants from other offices often came during their lunch hours to sit and gaze at the fountain or, as Nadine was, to eat their deli sandwiches on one of the stone benches.
Nadine groaned. Birds squawked around the prim birdbaths by the gazebo, where ignorant little girls and boys were teasing them with crumbs. The workers at the concession stand were laughing amid the clatter of banging dishes. Stroller wheels clacked alongside black, bushy-tailed squirrels pitter-pattering as they scrounged for leftovers. A flicker of stress shot through Nadine as she felt the yellow string tied around her forefinger give a tug. Oh yes, she thought. How silly of me. The files, of course, the files! She had forgotten to put new labels on them. Nadine shuddered beneath her cobalt-blue skirt, cobalt-blue coat and cobalt-blue tie. Lifting her sticky bangs off her forehead, she paused and listened. Was that an e flat hurdling through the bushes? Yes—yes, of course, it was! Nadine sat up straighter and leaned forward. The note was coming from the open stage a block away—the same stage upon which she had performed elaborate cello pieces. A giddy, girlish excitement seized her. The unlabeled files and her sweaty work clothes faded to the back of her mind as she remembered her first-ever cello recital, at the old, torn-down middle school. The audience was silent and the auditorium lights were dimmed. The stage lights, however, breathed fire upon her stretched fingers as they jerked the bow across the strings. Nadine remembered her cello instructor, telling her exactly which strings to press and the precise angle at which she should hold the bow. Every pulse of the melody, every whine of the bow and every thump in her chest seemed to mix into one beautiful blur of depth and color, as she listened to the music from the open stage.

As the memories began to fade away, note by note, chord by chord, a bitter numbness struck Nadine’s chest. Her hand itched to grasp the cello bow again, to retrace its fragile dance across the delicate yet resilient strings. Her ears craved the harsh, metallic thump of the music stand and the persistent whining of the notes coming to life on the sheet. But most of all, her soul longed to feel the music, just once more, as it throbbed through her, scraping against the roof of her mouth in a cold rush of wine, gushing into her bloodstream like a fey, tingling caress and, finally, echoing the drum of her heart, fathomless and true. Nadine shifted on the bench as the stage music swelled in a wistful seventh, almost resolved, almost whole, blurring the squawks of the birds, the clatter of the concession stand, the clacking of the stroller wheels and the pitter-pattering of the squirrels into one melodious torrent. Nadine felt a sigh escaping her; there had never been music like this. Music that could merge soul and body as it extolled legatos and fermatas, and all of the eternity that notes on a scale had to offer. Brushing the crumbs off her clothes, Nadine rose to her feet. The stage was not far, only one block away. Surely she could go, if only for five minutes, and inhale the perfection of that music.

Crumpling up the remains of her sandwich, Nadine started forward only to stop and wince at the slight tug on her finger. Why, of course, the string. About the undo the knot and toss it in the garbage can along with the ruins of her lunch, she paused and frowned. The files…oh yes, the files. The files must be labeled. More than that, the checks must be compiled and organized and all the old receipts must be sorted and shredded. Otherwise, Adamson College would unravel. Nadine just knew it. Adamson College would unravel and she would be the first to go. Tossing her wadded-up lunch into the garbage can, she gulped and hurried out of the park.


- - -
Amy Pollard is a poet, writer and student. She maintains a book review blog at http://cafereads.blogspot.com/. Her poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Emerge Literary Journal, Eunoia Review and The Copperfield Review.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Amy Pollard

Contributor: Gary Clifton

- -
"George, you know them darkies ain't allowed in here." George stood on Turner's Drugstore stoop in the sweltering August sun. James and Early Dee behind, stared at their bare feet on the brick sidewalk, their faded jeans, nearly white from years of harsh washing and sun-bleaching on a hot clothesline, gapped six inches above the ankles.

"Made a nickel apiece rakin' Miz Evan's leaves. Jes' wanted to buy some candy." In 1952, a nine year old had good reason to be afraid of a big man in the Alabama Klan like Willis Turner. Turner was heavily into "The Cause" of white superiority.

"Get your white trash ass in here and buy for them."

George picked out a meager selection while James and Early Dee stood, noses pressed against the window glass. Turner took his money easily enough. "Keep runnin' with them coloreds out there," he gestured, "and your mama's shack likely gonna have a fire, George," Turner said, eyes radiating hatred. He was fiftyish, roundish, with yellow teeth and a thin comb-over. "And don't sit out there on my curb." He stepped out and kicked at Early Dee's backside, but missed.

That night, Turner's Drugstore burned smooth to the ground. The "cause" here was definitely arson by gasoline. Townspeople spread the word ol' Turner was up to insurance fraud.

Sheriff Roberts agreed, because he slapped Turner in jail. But one of the Klan was a judge and sprung him. It would have been Turner's ass, the sheriff said, if only he could find the gas can.

The insurance company wouldn't pay and Turner ended up sitting on the curb in front of a pile of burn debris - until the bank repossessed the property. Seems the banker, a vocal Klan brother, wasn't quite as imbued with the Klan "cause" as Willis Turner when dollars were the bottom line.

An old wino was said to have drunkenly slurred more than once he'd seen George, James, and Early Dee toss a gas can into a passing boxcar. He guzzled so much wine he died of cirrhosis not long after. Who'd believe three kids from skidsville had enough sense to burn down a drugstore anyway?

Nobody ever did try to set fire to George's shanty. Not enough fervent "cause" by the bigots to muster the courage to attempt the deed, you might suppose


- - -
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop has over thirty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. He has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Chad Bolling

- -
Most people in my time are ageless and live forever without fear of a natural death. It was not through science that this was achieved. It was through myth, the supernatural, and the like that ageless immortality was given to the human race. Not to say that science hadn't achieved many wondrous advancements.

In my time, “humans” have traveled to galaxies far past our own. Because of our advancement in lifespan, distant space exploration was made possible. We can spend many decades in cryo-sleep, traveling through deep space, and those at home don’t age a day while they wait for their explorer to return home. We have colonies on Mars and many reside in space-station cities that house millions of “souls”.

The other problem the human race had was disease. Cancer more specifically, but the path to immortality and agelessness proved to be one in the same with our quest to become healthy and disease free. Cancer, and many other deadly diseases were no longer a problem once humans “agreed” to become immortal.

Wars are still fought, unfortunately. Sometimes even nuclear war. However, the immortality “treatment” not only stopped disease, but renders humans immune to the effects of radiation. Despite the immunities to radiation from the bombs, the intense light flash which occurs after detonation harms immortals severely.

It is a simple (well not too simple) decision one must make, whether or not they want to live forever. However unbelievably good this agelessness and immortality “treatment” may seem, there are some drawbacks. Like any medicine it has side-effects, and as you can imagine, the side effects for a treatment that cures death and aging must be quite severe. However, I can assure you that they are easy to get used to after a few decades.

The first and most severe side-effect is that you cannot be in the presence of direct sunlight or any type of UV ray. This is perhaps the most unappealing effect the “treatment” has and perhaps even, the main reason many decide not to do it.

The next-side effect is very minor, unless you love garlic. I must admit, being the lover of Italian food that I am, for me personally it took longer to get used to eating pasta sauce without garlic than never being able to see the sun again. The second side-effect being of course, a painful and deadly allergy to garlic.

Oh, I almost forgot the most severe side effect. After the “treatment”, you have an insane thrust for fresh, warm blood from a still beating heart. This part must have slipped my mind, as it is thought by some to be the worst side-effect, I myself find the thrust quite delightful. That is, of course, once it has been quenched.


- - -
Chad lives in Long Beach, California and loves to read and write science fiction when he is not enjoying the cinema or a fine cheeseburger. He has been published in Farther Stars Than These.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Chad Bolling

Contributor: Chris Sharp

- -
“Papa, I was just accidentally coming up with the name of that salmon you pulled out of that little brook the other day with your fingers. It was the General Patton brook salmon. That’s what you called this salmon, Papa. Remember?”
Mary’s drinking is revolting, Hemingway said in his head, as he liked to do when he was writing. Without pencil or typewriter in front of him, he was in the writing habit inside his brain anyway, chronicling Mary as he had done for their last safari together following that crazy Pauline in “The Green Hills of Africa.” Mary was a good wife with a big heart and loyal to him and she was also the biggest imposter and the littlest fool he had ever known in his life.
“Mary,” he said to her. This fourth wife had become such a Hemingway imitation that he thought of her caged in parenthesis on one of his rough drafts.
“But I know why you wrote about about Georgie so derisively, Papa. Georgie Patton was a terrible bully to you in France when you were only trying to serve your country and write about the war.”
“Thank you. Now go in your room Mary and stay in there.”
“Go into my little room like a little child.”
“That may be your charm, Mary, to be a little child.”
“Oh Papa, you understand the people you write about so well. Can you just spare a little understanding for your wife, too?” she said. But compliantly she back-pedaled out of his cabin and started closing his door for him. “You know so much about animals, Papa. You know how desperate an animal is when they try to talk to you.”
“Then why don’t you stop being an animal?”
She only glared at him as she vanished into the door.
Hemingway’s own forest cabin was looking more like the real Arles room that Van Gogh sat in than ever. It was that Dutchman’s doing to make him so crazy, that little Vincent boy who had burned himself up in his own artistic integrity and then finished himself with his gun because nothing else would stop the artistic radiation in him.
Hemingway’s twelve-gauge shotgun Old Boss leaned in the corner waiting for action, out from hiding in the basement. Once Old Boss had been in the hands of his father, Dr. Clarence, as he was known to his backwoods patients. During a safari vacation once Dr. Clarence finished off a great old elephant the hunting party had named Perry. Today, when Hemingway squeezed his eyes shut tightly, he saw the elephant’s dying eye one more time shining right on the darkness underlying everything else.
Now the ghost of the young Agnes Von Kurowsky was in his cabin also, entering as she did so mysteriously and silently as she had moved into his Italian hospital room over four decades go. Impossible to believe his faithful war nurse had been replaced by an old woman nearly seventy years old. Yet Agnes had never given any indication she had ever aged beyond her twenty-five years tallied when she had first met him on the Austrian front.
Her long blond hair was all tied up in the back according to the rules of the Red Cross, so that her womanly aspect couldn’t spread germs among the wounded in the Milan Soldier’s Hospital. Few men had been wounded in so many places as the nineteen-year-old Hemingway. Agnes’s idea of treating him was to shut in his body so no one would see it, step up into his bed and spread herself all over his wounds.
Agnes had a style of her own. As she lay over his body, she pulled at the bands holding her hair in the back and suddenly her blond hair would drop over his face like a tent, turning into a shelter where his face would share an absolute privacy with hers. It is the one time in his life when he felt totally safe.
“What are you doing, Agnes?”
“Checking you out, Hemingway. Want to be sure the Austrians didn’t pull the plug from you having good children like you should.”
“But look, Agnes, the sun also rises.”
“Don’t even say it. Obviously, you’re more than okay. What a shame if you weren’t. You certainly have a duty to father a child as cheeky as you are, Hemingway.”
She had disappeared with this statement immediately, because his time travel expired whenever he had lapsed into referring to anything that happened after 1919. That was when the beautiful Agnes had vanished after writing she intended to marry some Italian lieutenant she met somewhere.
As Hemingway had picked up Old Boss, there was an energized but tricky thought in his mind. He decided he was going to kill someone who was not himself. But then by the time he had reached the closed door of Mary’s room, losing all of his breath not just with his movements but the panting of his heart, he had pushed two shells into his double-barrel Old Boss and resolved to kill the first person he saw, even if that was going to be himself.
“Bang.”
The “bang” sounded sort of Chinese. He would like to have told his friend the General Vinegar Joe Stilwell how Chinese this dying sounded when death was right in your face talking to you. At once he felt his life had been so twisted with words even his death had arrived as a word.
As a bottle-fly flew over the body, it witnessed that the great writer’s upper face had been blown off, leaving only the famous white beard alone.
Mary was out the door and screamed. “Oh Papa, why, why, why?”
The bottle-fly could not answer Mary’s question but buzzed and observed everything until at the end of the day he had also died.


- - -
Chris Sharp has short stories published in the archives of Daily Love, Linguistic Erosion, Yesteryear Fiction and Weirdyear, as well as under Google: “Short Stories by Chris Sharp.” His new book “Dangerous Learning” is distributed by Barnes & Noble.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Chris Sharp

Contributor: Susan Dale

- -
‘Soldiers steadily advancing.’ He fell to the ground, this Cherokee son, fighting in Vietnam. He was laying pressed tight against a log. Tall, thick underbrush concealed him from approaching guerrillas; the guerrillas advancing up from an underground tunnel.

A steady stream of them coming to keep coming. ‘Parades of Asian soldiers. As many vietcong, as ants emerging from an ant hill. Marching up and forward with set purpose.’

Sunset to twilight. The blue-black beginnings of night peeking around the corner with starry eyes when he felt brave enough to pop his head up and assess. ‘More, than more guerrillas; all emerging from that same underground tunnel. Fanning out to be here, there, everywhere. Steps cracking branches and rustling underbrush. All taking positions that begin battles with Arvin. Arvin waiting for them behind tree lines.’

The death and dying that began in a narrow sunset, continued with blazes of orange and golds that thrashed a violet twilight. The twilight led to blue-black night, to black-black night. All the time he stayed motionless. Quiet, behind the log in shadowed sundown. Wrapped in a harrowing night of owl eyes and jungle screams, of battles and battle cries. Screams of tracers. Screams of men. Through it all, he heard stars shouting directions to the moon. The moon heard and widened to full face to create a valley of light, by which guerrillas slunk back to the tunnels; many less soldiers than when the battles began.

There, in the deep, dark tunnels, the jungle fighters stayed throughout this night, and the nights thereafter. Nights after nights: nights until the gray’ before dawns. After coming up, they moved through amplified days of grasping, gasping battles on this war-torn earth___ to nights within the dark tunnels. Battles upon battles: sunsets into sunrises: twilights into sun-ups.

And while he was yet lying tight against the log, he felt that he too was moving beyond time measured in hours and minutes. ’I enter an interim that transfixes me into leaving when I will.’

The time, this time removed from the body of the universe. Time was entering into the arteries of his being. Changing time palpitating inside of him. Time expanding, shrinking, as he lay behind the log. His time collapsed around space. Space being swallowed by other spaces. Spaces reaching beyond sundown to stretch towards a time of stars and other worlds.

Once a time when he looked into the sky and saw sunspots on the sun. Sunspots flashing and jumping___ altered the time within him. Behind the log he stayed, and knew, as he was lying there, that he was both in front and behind time. He was following time and looking back at time___ to be part of the moments being shattered by rocket attacks and mortar fires. Behind the log he remained. He remembered to know, thus fear the grenades and bullets zinging over his head.

Yet pressed behind time, and against the log when he saw slashes of sunsets sink into ivory twilights. Still and yet, he laid silent, motionless, fearful behind the log while the sun sunk further to be behind a mountain range.

Within the immense silence of another mountain night, ’how many nights has it been,’ his eyes held to the womb of mother moon. Her soft sure light bathed the heavens and gave birth to myriads of baby stars. He was drifting off in dreams of the six grandfathers. They were picking him up and moving him one step closer to transcendence.

And when he awoke, the Cherokee son realized that he had been carried over to a time given over to what he was becoming. And what he was becoming actually saw the sun trembling the next day, simultaneous with mortar attacks that shook the earth. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Cassava vines were sweeping along the earth. Crawling about and choking everything in their path, including the cavity that swallowed the guerrillas.

The next morning, ’but what morning, when?’ guerrillas were chopping through the vines’ profundity with machetes. Heading into another day of bloody battles. Rushing forth, yelling, cursing into bloodshed and death.

But then the next night, the 22nd night of the third moon, the land was sanctified by the star-studded curtains of the sky falling to earth. This was the night that the guerrillas completed what it was they came to do.

‘They came to kill and to be killed,’ he concluded.

The following morning, ’what morning?’ broke with sunrise shining against a dusk of the mountains. Frail facets of sunlight broke into a drifting fog. The guerrillas left, so too did he leave. He hustled away from the killing fields, but again. Away from skies dark with crows circling. Away from v-shapes of black wings in the skies. Away from plumes of smoke rising from charred lands. From blood-soaked ground. From a cratered earth; from cratered minds; from broken
bodies; away from all of it. And on his way to gone, he realized
that he had fulfilled the Cherokee direction of the west; dark and death.


- - -
Susan’s poems and fiction are on Eastown Fiction, Tryst 3, Word Salad, Pens On Fire, Ken *Again, Hackwriters, and Penwood Review. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Susan Dale

Contributor: Marissa Halvorson

- -
My mind whirled as I spun in circles, searching for a way out. My face looked back at me from every direction, my eyes wide with fear. My feet moved without my volition.
A new face popped up in front of me. I stumbled back with a cry, heart beating an unsteady rhythm. “God, Noah.” I exhaled and wiped a hand across my forehead. “You scared me! Do you know where we are?”
“Not sure,” the face in front of me replied. He brushed golden hair out of his eyes and stared at me, unblinking. “There sure are a lot of mirrors, though. Maybe we’re in a house of mirrors?”
I bit my lip and swiveled. My reflection peered back at me. “Noah?” I didn’t look at him as I spoke my next words. “Do you think this is real?”
Silence answered me. My head whipped around to find nothing but my face. The unusual paleness stood out in sharp contrast to my dark hair.
“Noah?” I called, rubbing my hands over the goosebumps on my arms. The wind wrapped around me like a frozen blanket. “N-noah? Are you there?”
A bone-chilling laugh rattled the floors and mirrors. I opened my mouth to scream and the breath sucked from my lungs. My legs collapsed. “Wh-who’s there? Noah, is that you?”
“Noah? Who’s Noah?” the voice called, echoing from all directions. “It’s me, Cameron.”
With a sudden clarity, I realized the voice talking was different from the cold laugh. Cameron’s voice radiated warmth and femininity. With forced effort, I stood and turned, searching in my multiple faces for hers.
“Right here, silly.” Cameron stood behind me. Her auburn curls were an awful mess but as usual, a playful grin lit up her face. “Sometimes you’re really funny, you know that?”
“You’re just as bad as Noah,” I told her. “Would you guys stop sneaking up on me?”
Cameron winked. “We’re not trying to. You’re just not paying close enough attention.”
“Okay, whatever. So do you know where we are?”
“Well,” Cameron’s head turned, taking in the room. “It sure looks like we’re in a room full of mirrors.”
“That was Noah’s observation,” I sighed. “ But how did we get here? I don’t remember anything except waking up here.”
“I don’t know…maybe you’re seeing things? Why don’t you get us out of here?”
“How?”
“Well, if you dreamed it up, I’m sure you can take us back home.”
“Why would you want to go home?” questioned a new voice, slick and cold. A chill wracked my body. I turned away from Cameron to stare right into a pair of icy blue eyes. My legs moved back but my foot slipped and I hit the ground hard. A loud crack echoed through my ears. White-hot pain blinded me, sliced my skin open, shattered my bones. I gasped, holding my injured arm in one hand and grimacing through the pain.
“Sorry, did I frighten you?” It seemed his voice alone could create snowstorms, blizzards, and possibly ice itself. “It’s Crys.”
His matter-of-fact tone gave me pause and it took me a moment to realize it was his name.
“Wh-who are you?”
An emotionless smile played over his lips. “Your worst nightmare.”
Cold spread through my bones, numbing my pain. I clenched my hands, willing them to stop shaking. I swallowed the lump in my throat and opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, darkness plowed over me.
Light peeked out from behind thick curtains as my eyes shot open again.
Warmth shrouded my body, a blanket wrapped tight around me. I was covered in a thin layer of sweat. I sat up in bed, wiped my forehead and sucked in deep breaths. “Thank god it was just a nightmare,” I whispered to myself.
“You had a nightmare?”
“Cameron?” My shoulders jerked and tensed. I squinted through the dim light to make out Cameron’s figure sitting on a chair beside my bed. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d hang out here until you woke up so we could go shopping.”
“Same here.” Noah waved from over by the door. “Not so much for the shopping, though.”
A knock sounded on the door and before I could say anything else, it swung open. “Ava? Are you awake? I have breakfast ready.” My mother stepped in, her eyes squinted, adjusting to the dim light. “Come on, Ava, get your butt out of bed.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but a hand appeared from behind her, touching my mom’s arm. It was pale, too pale to be real. Then a face popped from behind her shoulder. I clapped a hand over my mouth and screamed. Mom jumped and looked behind her, eyes wide, but she didn’t seem to see the hand touching her arm, nor the face, the frozen smile or icy eyes.
“Noah, Cameron?” I whispered. They both looked at me and I continued, “Can you see him?”
Mom’s eyes darted around my room, passing over Noah and Cameron without stopping. “Ava, honey, is something wrong?”
“Of course we can see him, Ava. But I don’t think your mom can.”
“But why not?” I whispered.
“Ava, who are you talking to?”
My gaze wandered to my mom, whose eyes darted around. I swung my legs out of bed and took a step forward. “Crys?” I said.
A knife appeared in Crys’ pale hand. “No!” I cried and leaped forward just as the knife buried itself in flesh. A scream tore through my throat and then red and black spots speckled my vision.


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Marissa Halvorson

Contributor: Gary Clifton

- -
Rain splattered the sidewalk fronting Red's Discount Palace in evening darkness. A sign inside the front glass promised "a gift for every child from Dave the Magician".
Inside, along a jewelry counter, a small crowd of adults and children watched Dave in a gaudy clown costume sitting on a raised platform. Slender, laconic, with oddly distant eyes beneath the paint, he performed magic gags. A jagged scar, poorly disguised by the makeup, ran from his left eye to disappear beneath his ear.
Ritzy, a leggy redhead assistant in skimpy shorts and large red-rimmed glasses, filled balloons. Dave's cellular rang. He eyed the display, put it back in his pocket.
Ritzy boosted a little boy onto Dave's lap. "Damn Dave, I hate this place. Maybe a Margarita when we close?" Her accent was hillbilly. Dave's cold eyes said no but he didn't speak. He rubbed his forehead, apparently working on a headache. He ignored the cellular ringing.
Two men in hoodies, one in a Mickey Mouse mask, the second a Goofy face, burst in waving pistols. "Everybody on the floor. This is a stickup." Mickey fired a shot into the ceiling. People screamed and scattered. Both intruders turned to the jewelry counter, backs to Dave.
Dave casually picked up a metal chair and splattered Goofy's head like a burst pumpkin, brains spewing. Mickey whirled. Dave slapped the pistol out of his hand. Mickey followed with a knife thrust. Dave parried the blade, then caught Mickey a crushing forearm across the lower jaw, the sounds of bone snapping vivid. As the man fell, Dave snapped his neck. Mickey fell dead atop Goofy.
"The clown's a damned monster," a mother ran for the door, slipping on blood and gore in the walkway.
"Jesus," Ritzy, aroused, breathed. "You tore them two guys a new ass in three seconds."
The manager rushed up, horrified. ""Dave, what have you...?"
Dave turned to the manager, eyes still distant, hostile.
"Man, it's okay. Don't hurt me." The manager edged backward.
"Dave, your arm," Ritzy gasped. Blood dripped on the floor. Mickey's knife had found flesh. Dave pulled up his sleeve. The wound was superficial.
"Ritzy will help you get to a hospital. I'll explain to the cops," the manager stammered.
"Hospital...Cops?" Dave's strange eyes showed concern.
A towel wrapped around his forearm, Dave drove his pickup in the rain, Ritzy riding shotgun. His cellular phone rang. The message read "Voice". He didn't answer. The cellular rang twice again in seconds. Dave pulled over and dialed a long series of numbers. "Leave me alone," he said softly into the phone. Then, "All right."
Dave swung the pickup into a parking lot, ordered Ritzy to stay in the truck and approached a parked SUV. He slid into the backseat behind two men in front. "Hello, Dave. Remember me?" one said.
Dave didn't speak.
"I'm Voice," the older man, flaccid, pale, with rodent eyes turned back in the passenger seat. The husky, younger man driving was silent. "You were hard to find...musta managed to remove your chip." Voice leaned slightly further back as if to inspect Dave's neck, then glanced at the towel on his arm without comment.
Dave massaged his forehead.
"The antidote, Dave...it didn't reverse the programming. The whole Chain Guard has the same headaches. Some have gone rogue, some apeshsit. We've reinstated you, effective last month."
"Chain Guard...yeah, Chain Guard," Dave rubbed his forehead. "The details are...fuzzy. My God, my name is..."
"We know your name," Voice shot a glance around. "Dave will do." He punched a button on his iphone. The chord from ...a bicycle built for two, played several times.
The tune visibly impacted Dave. His hard eyes intensified even further. "Jesus, Chain Guard...South American drug dealers...we were...killing people. Hey, I'm processed off that system...discharged."
"Discharged? You just canceled two men for Christ's sake. We'll clean up that mess you left in the store back there with the local cops...move your stuff outta the motel."
"If you sent those two humps I just killed," Dave leaned forward, inches from Voice's face.
"Cancel, not kill, Dave. We protect the Chain of Command. You're on record for 47 cancellations...all confirmed and archived. Plus two incidentals back at Red's. We need you back in play." Voice showed a thin smile. "And those two amateurs weren't ours."
"No chance...finished," Dave tweaked his forehead.
"Dave, High and Mighty found you," he pointed upward at the satellite, "...through your sister. We'll find you again."
Dave laid both hands on the seatback. The odd eyes were pure death as he said quietly: "Even mention my sister and your two clowns are statistics on your scoreboard. And that hillbilly chick in my truck knows nothing. She's just a dumb..."
"Dave, Dave," Voice said softly. "You know we wouldn't hurt your sister...and Ritzy, Jesus man, do you realize how hard it was to teach a Harvard girl that accent." He tossed the iphone on the dash.
"Ritzy...Harvard?"
"She's one us, Dave."
Dave looked intently at the two clandestine operators. Through the headache, he was seized with a fleeting vision of bloody, torn men...then of insects stuck on flypaper on the ceiling of old Mr. Nelson's drugstore long ago. Was this the sum-total of his life...trapped on flypaper...a killing machine?
Massaging his forehead, he stared at the back of the two bureaucrats' heads. His eyes focused. The headache drifted softly into memory. He stiffened.
"Welcome home, Dave, You're ours again." Voice said. "Early flight to Ecuador tomorrow. Ritzy has the tickets...and a sack of cash."
Dave reached up and snapped voice's neck - he was dead before the driver could react. Dave's grip on the driver's throat was fatal in seconds. The headache was gone, completely. "Home...ours?" Dave questioned softly. "You think?"
Dave hurried to his pickup and slid in beside Ritzy. "Could you handle retirement to Ecuador, Ritz?
"And do what?" she smiled.
"A hut in the jungle...all the Margaritas you can handle." He was free...at least for now. Flypaper didn't always stick.


- - -
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop has over thirty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. He has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Gary Clifton