A Freak (Short Story 8) Part 1

Consume (The Stand) [in progress] 42"W x 84"L

Spires rose up against the flat orange clouds, black as the coming night and wrapped in the haze of spaces in between. Like claws, the mountaintops ripped at the sky with a malice embedded in all the places left in the world. Each peak rose higher as the sun dropped, its boggy shadow embracing the illusions of distance and drowning the few people who look up in the terror of a grasping fist, wringing out the pulp within its grasp.

Cale saw the familiar horizon as a thing without merit. It was simply a boundary between him and the other side. Each mile he had to cross over those ridges was the equivalent of ten down here on the flats and it gave him cause to grimace. In fact, it pissed him off.

Couldn’t just send me south, he thought, had to be west. The failing light leapt off the glass shards at his feet and dragged his shadow around the corner of the building he leaned against. Taking a step to the right, he pulled his shadow-self away from the bend, sliding it farther from sight. Around that corner was the rest of his journey, obstacles and challenges and men with faces yet to be seen. And women with bodies yet to be touched. Or none of these things.

Cale remembered his last trip into the west, on the heels of a four-legged freak. The man-beast was always miles ahead of him it seemed, not counting for his extra legs, the bastard just seemed to find short-cuts, places in the world where one leap could take him four and Cale’s steps never seemed to leave the tarry ropes of a crowded road. He rounded hundreds of corners then, each one was a blind leap of faith that when he turned he would live. Corners were dangerous, corners are dangerous. He thought as he did now, that in turning each one he would be beset by adventure and some sequence of epic events that could afford to be written down by someone who still remembered how to read. Much to his disappointment, it was an adventure without much excitement.

He had caught up with the freak, the quadruped. The monster had managed to snap both of its forelegs when leaping over a stalled four-door sedan. How long it had been lying there, unable to get out of the traffic jam without the full use of its front legs, was of no consequence. Cale stared into its bird’s eyes for an hour as it squawked in its freak language, basic tongues long-forgotten. It had been a beautiful monster. In the west, Cale didn’t know what it was called, but back home, back where it was simply a freak, he would have called it a centaur. It had the torso of a man, a muscular form that  could have been carved from stone it was so perfect; a sheep’s body, whose wool was matted and pierced with chips of wood and muddy branches; four smooth and hairless legs that would look stunning on any woman back east. And of course, the bird’s head. He had never seen a parrot before and would not have known to call it that, all Cale saw was the blue and orange feathers that molted and dropped from the shrieking and dying form of the freak.

In the end he did what he always did, two slugs in the head. The squawking ended and the blood that came out looked black on the old beaten roadway. Cale remembered being disappointed, an unexciting end to a long and dull trip.

 His hands now cupped around an old and bent cigarette as his practiced fingers deftly lit a wooden match. The sulfur burned in a faded green at the stick, but was wrapped in the familiar orange Cale’s eyes knew so well. Down to three, he thought. Smokes were a rare privilege on the road and he would probably have none on the return journey, but fuck it.

The cigarette burned slowly, rolled perfectly by hands that were now dead. Tobacco was pulled from the earth in places Cale had never seen, wrapped in homes behind closed doors and sold by men with teeth as white as their eyes, but held venom as yellow as their piss. What was the saying? They could sell a thirsty man a cup of salt? Something. Cale dragged on the smoke deep and long, savoring its warmth and the flat burn in the back of his throat.

Its shriveled husk fell to the ground and choked and died like the freak so long ago. Two in the head.

He rounded the corner, knowing it could be his death and (maybe) the last corner he ever turned. Pulling in a fast breath, like a gasp, he swung into the shadow of the concrete structure. Eyes up and there was nothing. Of course, he mused, just like every other turn on this road. His dusty boots walked on.

On Writer's Block (A Paradox)

All I hear are sirens of far off emergencies and the din under the overpass. Flowing water can erode the bedrock and shape the face of the earth, but its sound is so insignificant when faced with the combustion engine. Dogs bark in the distance and my sleep is disturbed. My fitful, restless sleep – the sleep of the wicked – where I string together ideas both grand and foolish, but have the substance of fireflies that flicker and vanish before my eyes in the dark.

I can’t keep a grasp on the characters I’ve created, in this case Steve and Louis. They sit before me as unfinished mounds of flat clay, grey and wet with the tears of the tragedies they are yet to face and yet to overcome. Without the spark of life, these two men are just ideas in my head and have no form, no body that can impact the lives of others. I can’t put them on paper, my attentions keep wandering.

I keep seeing different worlds and different stories, but only ever the beginnings, as if the stories never finish and I’m not allowed to know what happens. Worlds full of hunger and hurt and worlds full of joy and redemption, but none like the one I’m in.

The world I am in. I recently went camping (if it could be called camping) in the Wooster are of Ohio, a little place called Greer Landing. Tents went up, fires were lit and hotdogs were cooked, but all the while there was the skunk of mid-grade weed and the burn of Crown Royal down my throat, choking my appreciation of the trees that looked so alive, they came at me like a pop-up book. Nature was overcome by nurture and the rednecks who set up camp twenty yards away made this very clear by opening up the bed of their pick-up and revealing a 52-inch flat panel television. Talk about class.

I thought to myself, this is not camping, this is just America in a different scene. Others turn to me and say, “redneck fabulous” to describe the horror.

I try to escape, I go canoeing. It takes six hours of canoeing and twenty miles of river before I stop hearing motors and sirens. The sun goes down and my wet feet shrivel in my tennis shoes, small suffering to seek a still and a silence.

All it is, what it all really is, is my childish anger. Resentment towards a culture I was born into and had and have no choice in changing. People with big hands and big wallets affect the world around me and all I can do is put words on paper and hope they reach your eyes. That’s the small person in me talking.

The big person in me asks, “if you were dying, if you were granted a wish, what would it be?” My girlfriend answers, “I would spend my dying time helping animals, volunteering.” Flabbergasted and voiceless I imagine my answers. The pictures that come are of fire and desolation, worlds without voices and the eyes of the machine. Green and rolling but with smoke in the distance. These are wishes that cannot come true, at least not while I live to see them.

These are the wishes of the wicked as are my dreams. It keeps me from writing like it keeps me awake at night, wondering if the world I am in is the one that I see in my dreams. Wondering if these words will find a voice and if the stories I create can have a life of their own.

Short Story 7 (No working title) Part 2

The guy has no idea what’s about to happen to him, thought the man called Louis. He spends his last bit of cash on Cheez-its, Band-Aids and makeup – this is going to be a fucking joke.

Louis had been waiting patiently for Steve to arrive back home, lurking in the run-down van for nearly two hours as Steve took his good ol’ time dicking around in the grocery store. The man called Louis would have waited for any amount of time, having prepared stacks of dried goods and bottled water for just this occasion. In fact, Steve’s taking only two hours was a blessing, now that he returned, Louis could take what belonged to him, what he waited all this time for.

The flat quilt of grey overhead mimicked the haze around Louis within the car, two hours was plenty of time to kill and Malboros were indeed a tool for such killing, in more ways than one. The pile of ashes and butts threatened to spill out of the tray and decorate the floor of the piece of shit white-panel van Louis had rented. So what if they did? He had no plans to leave the vehicle in one piece.

Louis watched Steve from the side-view mirror outside the van. Sort of chubby, Louis thought, but I bet the guy can move like a wrecking ball.  The man called Louis stood at five-eleven and broke one eighty on an average day, but he would have to be careful around this Steve fella; if it came down to a struggle it wouldn’t be pretty, if Louis got first blood, he knew it would be over. Louis had always been in favor of the sneak-attack approach, especially with big guys like this. In fact, the only time he remembered utilizing a direct assault resulted in his lying in a ditch with a face like bloody-hamburger and flashing red, white and blue lights coming to carry him off.

Yeah, fuck that.

The man called Louis knew that Steve’s family was out of the house, that his more-than-chubby misses was dragging his two children through summer activities that they thoroughly loathed, little league baseball or basketball. Louis thought it was probably an excuse for the Chunk Queen to stuff her face with concession stand snacks; machine wrapped hot dogs, ice cream and candy, the stuff that’s the color of irradiated pigs’ meat. The simple image of crumbs rolling down the chins of Mrs. Steve almost made him toss up his recently consumed deer jerky.

He held it down and settled on a chain of raspy coughs and a fleck of phlegm that he gladly let fly onto the vacant passenger seat. It’s a dumb habit, Louis knew that, but addiction is addiction and even time in jail couldn’t fix that. It wasn’t the worst of his habits.

Steve finally wrapped the corner sidewalk up to his cracked driveway. The lawn was freshly mowed and the scent of gasoline still floated in the air, pleasant like the cigarettes. Louis watched him check the mail and gaze up at the decades old bi-level, a house just like the rest of the neighborhood with a recently replaced roof that, most likely, set Steve back a few hundred if not a few thousand. The man called Louis chuckled to himself, the experience of watching this man was harkening back to his last trip to the Zoo and staring on as a pacing bear considered its confines and let its rage-soaked eyes settle on the patrons of the animal-prison, patrons who looked on without a shred of pity for the animal in captivity.

Steve the Bear, another animal in captivity.

Louis continued to watch. He would lose sight of his quarry as Steve went inside, but that was okay. Once Steve was inside, Louis would make his move, with plenty of time before Mrs. Steve or the small ones would return. He had gone over the possibilities in his mind, ways to do this without involving someone of so little consequence, but there were things he needed to know and only Steve would know them. He watched as Steve traversed the front door and his heart beats became heavy and full. Loius could feel the adrenaline charge his veins, the reverse side of fear, the stinging chill that raised his light arm hair on end and left him gripping the steering wheel with unusual vigor.

He left the keys and the ignition and set foot outside the white van, time to die, Steve.

Short Story 7 (No working title) Part 1a

Steve extended a twenty and a fiver across the boundary, “So, John, what would you rather be doing right now?”

There was a fraction of a moment where John hesitated to grab the crumpled bills, if Steve hadn’t been looking for 

it he would not have noticed.  John continued bagging as he answered Steve.

Steve chuckled, plain enough reply, but the content didn’t matter, it was the fact of the response, the breaking of the hierarchy of customer versus grocer and a simple question that lets Dead-Eyes John know that he is not forgotten behind the counter and that his plight is appreciated. Steve had always tried to ask that question to people in the service industry: waitresses, grocers, busboys and cashiers of all types. Every time he asked they always lit up, as if he were the first person in history to take an interest in their feeling as opposed to harping on them for doing their job “improperly.” Most people, it seemed, would rather ignore other humans, contrary to the belief that they are social creatures. It was out in public that Steve would see people for who they truly are – parents that would beat their kids, old wealthy white guys who expect to be waited on hand and foot, young couples on welfare who bought scratch-off lottery tickets – no one had any shame and Steve figured this was because they ignored everyone. It was only through complete social isolation that any normal person would expose their fucked up behavior like that. Certainly, Arnette and Steve would not raise a hand to their children when out in public, not only would it be embarrassing, there could be dire legal consequences.

John handed the cash back across the counter, “Have a good day, sir.”

“Thanks, John, take it easy.”

The parking lot stretched past Steve’s line of sight, cars became the horizon and frantic men and women pushed overloaded grocery carts along tunnel-visioned paths to avoid crashing into one another. He passed half-dozen rows of middle-class cars: mid-2000s four doors with a child’s seat in the back and stickers on the rear reading either “CHOC” or diagramming the family dynamic with stick figures for everybody in tow. Each parking spot within one hundred feet was sought after like gold, with newcomers crawling along in search of a closer spot – stalking those on their way out, anticipating a quick steal of their abandoned white rectangle. The evening sun was blocked by a grey sheet, lighting the dusk with an even glow and cutting the usual glare off the waxed and washed Corollas and Suburbans.

Steve walked clear out of the parking lot, not making his way towards any of the cars and he paused at the crosswalk. Traffic roared past as the commuters raced to make it under the yellow light. The light turned red and the automated crosswalk voice told the zero blind pedestrians that it was safe to cross.

Keeping a brisk pace was important, it was so easy to be nonchalant about walking, but the truth – as Steve saw it – was that walking was the primary exercise he got in a day and he better make it count. The neighborhood he walked towards was unbelievably unspectacular. As far as Steve was concerned, nothing good or important would ever take place in or around Glimmer Court. The houses were all designed by the same company nearly three decades ago, a company which (apparently) favored bi-levels and ranches. Each unit was occupied by a family, usually families which held the title of “original occupant,” which was, somehow, of significance. When cruising through along the streets, it looked like giant, square, faded Easter eggs had been dropped into this corner of Bland. The last event to register as notable to the region beyond Bland happened when the neighborhood was not even finished, when only half of the lots had been filled seventeen years ago.

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Short Story 7 (No working title) Part 1

It did not matter how many times Steve said he didn’t care about celebrities, he was always captivated by the tabloids. The magazines at the check-out were baiting him, luring him and seducing him; stories of people he would never see or meet were somehow credible and concrete. The real value was probably in how truly fucked up these people were, especially the people who wrote for the magazines, the paparazzi who took the photographs of cellulite-riddled legs and then took time to criticize. Nothing good could come of this hypnosis, but that was the point, wasn’t it?

It did no good to look beyond the magazines, to try to stare past the colorful ocean of names and faces, because all that lie beyond was candy and impulse buys. Steve allotted himself two candy bars per week, sometimes three if the days were rough, or the weather too extreme, or the kids being assholes.

Steve allotted himself three candy bars per week. Each little bite was a step outside of his life and into a moment of over-indulgence that always made him feel guilty afterwards. There were funny Twix commercials where time would stop when eating a Twix bar, something about “need a moment?,” that meant “look how you royally fucked up this moment, so eat this candy and feel better.” Oh and Steve did feel better. Once when Arnette was giving him the biz about how he forgot milk, he just ripped open the Twix and thought how perfect he would be for TV commercial work – drowning out the harpy altogether.

He inched forward in line, one patron shuffling outside to let the next greet the cashier, “How are you today?” followed inexorably by “I’m doing fine, I would like paper bags, double bagged and then put into plastic bags, please.” Like adding “please” onto the end of that made it any less ridiculous. Not that Steve was any better, bringing reusable bags and then asking the minimum wage zombie to do him the honor of fillin’ ‘em up!  Whatever, he saved a tree or two.

“That’ll be two-fifty eight, forty one.”

Jesus! Steve had a paltry six items on the black moving belt and looking at the staggering sum of the customer in front of him was far more satisfying than the star-spangled bibles and chocolate shelves. The duo in front of Steve practically rolled down the check-out aisle – if not rolling, waddling – and gladly paid no attention to the cashier as they took advantage of the black credit card reader.

“Press ‘cancel’ for credit.” The couple obliged. Probably saving up Points for a George Foreman.

Steve’s turn. “Good afternoon, how are you today?” The brown-shirted cashier had the dead eyes of a fashion model, the world around him was a dull assembly line that only produced unbearable cretins like the 258’ers.

“I’m fine,” Steve glanced at the plastic badge that labeled dead-eyes, “John.” It was clear that base-level attempts at socialization would not break the surface of dead-eyes John. He began expertly flipping the six items over the glass-faced box with the retina-killing red lasers inside and didn’t even look up as he was passed the fabric bags, breaking the boundary between them. His practiced fingers did not stop reaching for items as he gently placed the bags in front of him and dropped one box at each end and the remaining four items between. ‘Artful’ would be the word Steve used to describe the bagging.

Beep, click, whiz. The din of a machine, dead-eye John’s computer slash register told Steve he’d managed to spend twenty dollars and 11 cents. This was a small moment that left him closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Of course it was 11 cents; Steve had thought to bring his one dime out of the car in the event he could use the change, but no. Instead he would have more coins. Arnette told him to keep a jar to put his change in, to save up for a goal – vacation or college for the kids or something equally impossible – but, the bitch she is, kept taking the quarters out! What good are pennies, nickels and dimes? Together all three don’t even add up to a single quarter.

Steve extended a twenty and a fiver across the boundary,  

Short Story 6 (No Working Title) Part 1a

Bang.

Dripping red gore decorates the once sterile room and I stifle a laugh I know is coming, what if someone’s trigger was splattered blood? That would be strangely fucked up. I grab Lab Coat’s ventilator and ID.

It takes a single swipe to get me out of the blood caked room and into an equally haunting white hallway. I was expecting hordes of people, rent-a-cops, legitimate security, random do-gooders, but no one is here. A plastic hallway that’s as desolate as East Cleveland, but without the radiation, it gives me shivers.

I would never let my guard down, especially with a bizarre twist like this, but I put my gun in my right jacket pocket, safety still off. It certainly makes things easier if no one wants to get in my way.

The layout of the hallway is the same as all the others, I’ve seen so many of these facilities that the layout is burned into my head. Once, when I was dropped into the New Orleans site I had to carry a hand-drawn map to navigate the uniform hallways; no doors had labels, no one would give you directions and opening the wrong door could mean your ass, but I know what door I’m looking for now.

Hand along the right wall, I use the oldest trick in the book for solving a maze. The third immaculate door I come to is the one holding what I’m after, a vault for treasures of a type unknown. I pass door one, its wide open.

Fuck, gun’s out. In the style of police long-gone I take cover at the edge of the door and peek with one eye to survey this new trick. I see an impossibility, a small white room with a faceless man seated in his own blood; the pool is so large it threatens to leak out into the hallway, so much more blood than should have been there. How am I back at the start?

Keep going, that’s all I can do now. So there was someone watching me after all, someone or someones and now I’m stuck, most likely walking in a trap until they are done toying with me. I wander. The white halls never change, constantly pristine and quiet. The fluorescents overhead hardly flicker and are absent of the normal buzz of their burning. Around each corner I find the same hall, and after that hall I find the same door.

They must have a Minotaur on me, which means I’ve either never left the room or I’m walking around the room in circles, regardless of what I’m seeing. Minotaurs are just one of the many weapons that these people are after and using them to trap me must seem absolutely hilarious. I have to go back to the Lab Coat.

He’s still there, faceless and gore-spattered. Taking my original seat, I let out a heavy sigh. What can I do, I’ve never encountered a Minotaur before, at least not like this. Close my eyes, try and find out where I am with my other senses; forget about what I see and focus on what I hear, what I feel and smell.

Blood. Irony and rich, potent enough to make me gag. Powdered plastic gloves, the kind the dentists used to use when probing around in my mouth, fishing for faults that were not there. Cologne, cheap and stale, like rotten strawberries and the bottom of a trash can sprayed with air freshener. A thin vibration rolls through my chest, a tiny rolling thunder like a soprano’s voice or a placing a motorized toothbrush against my skin. The blood flow to my wrists is getting light, the pin-pricks are hitting my fingers.

I am moving. I can feel the air push past my face and the pressure of inertia. I’ve been caught. Fuck.

 What does it mean? What can I figure out? I’m secured or strapped at the wrists –tightly – and along with that I’m most likely on a cart or in a wheelchair being pushed along by someone who had the shitty experience of falling in Lab Coat’s blood. It was at least two people, one of them a man with a deep voice and the other was probably the Minotaur.

 I need to break the Minotaur’s focus, I know he’s not responding to the deep-talker, because he’s almost in a Drop-Out, and he’s sharing it with me. Hell, he might be in a wheel chair right alongside me.  

Movement, I need movement. The best way to get moving when I’m not in control is to break the stimulus or cause a muscle reflex. That’s it! Clear my mind, drop away from these senses even further.

Fall asleep.

Short Story 6 (No Working Title) Part 1

“What do you know about Acute Sensory Paralysis, otherwise known as ASP or the Drop-Outs?” 

Being in a white lab-coat, I’m sure this fella thought I would know nothing, that he was the gatekeeper of the medical Pandora’s box and anyone else who dared look inside would only find plague. He was wrong though, it had been my job for almost a decade to know everything and anything related to the Drop-Outs.

If only I could see his face, I’m sure I’d love his shocked reaction, “ASP first surfaced after Event Charlie nearly ten years ago. Preliminary cases came out of eastern Pennsylvania and over the following months reports of the syndrome began appearing along the Coastal Atlantic and Eastern Gulf-Coast cities of the United States.

“ASP is characterized by local nerve damage, a side-effect of microscopic, cancerous and mutagenic tumor growth within areas of the brain that control motor function and stimulus recognition.  Individuals suffering an outbreak or a ‘Drop-out’ will appear stunned - a temporary loss of motor function that leaves the patient paralyzed, what some professionals call ‘petrified.’”

Lab Coat was motionless across from me, his eyes hidden behind reflective goggles and his nose and mouth strapped behind a ventilator. A plain yellow #2 was loosely grasped in his right hand, but he wrote nothing. I could see the slight motion of his breathing as his chest rose and fell. Between sentences I imagined the Darth-Vader wheeze and wanted to ask if he was my father.

“Subjects become paralyzed in place, standing like statues while experiencing minor blackouts. In some cases, Drop-Outs have exhibited symptoms for months without being aware of their condition.

“In all reported cases,” I slowly reach inside my coat pocket and draw out a gilded pen, a cheap gold imitation, “the patient’s temporary paralysis, or Drop-Out, is triggered by a specific stimulus, such as this pen.”

I place the pen on the sterile steel table between us.

“If the tumors were to affect an area of the brain specific to the sensory recognition of this object – the way it shines, its shape, whatever – then they would experience an ASP spell and become desensitized to their environment.”

The plain white walls of the room and the featureless surfaces practically shine. One of them is a camouflaged surface, concealing a viewing room where someone is undoubtedly watching us. I don’t want to appear suspicious yet; I casually stretch and push back my chair as I ramble on.

“The duration of the spell is, in controlled test environments, shown to be indefinite. As long as the stimulus remains then the paralysis remains. Unfortunately, for both patients and researchers, there is no known way to determine a Drop-Out’s trigger without their first-hand experience or knowledge of it.”

Gently rising from my seat, I circle the table, leaving the pen at rest. “Overall, ASP can be both a minor nuisance that has no impact on someone’s life,” my silent footsteps carry me behind Lab Coat, “or someone’s most deadly Achilles ’ heel.” Lab Coat’s gaze remains fixed in front of him, his shallow breathing continues but he’s made no attempt to follow my motion.

I’m sure they know what I’m doing now; dozens of boots will be closing in. Grasping at Lab Coat’s face, I rip the mask and goggles off. His pale blue eyes are captured by the pen, his jaw is slack and his nostrils are flaring. All of my experience tells me he cannot process any of these things, he is stuck in the moment of recognition.

No time, I grab up the pen and replace it in my pocket.

One long blink, then panic and his hands probe his face, “What did you do? How did you know?!”

I put my right foot up on the chair, revealing a small caliber hand gun, “True research, fella.” Aiming the gun at his face I’m struck with a sloppy grin, “see you on the other side.”