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.”

Jaded (part 2)

Lightning flashes. 

So he runs, he flees; I can see his round brown eyes are wide with fear. His matted fur glistens with the sheets of rain that strike the side of the world. His tail hangs low, curled in out of fear and anxiety. The thunder crawls in out of the distance.

This is an opportunity for me, one I may never get again. I slap my wrists for being too cool to wear a watch and dash to the microwave to check the time (yes, I don’t own a regular clock); the hour becomes important. If I’m gone for too long it may look suspicious and if I return very abruptly I won’t have a chance to cover my tracks.

My car makes a squealing beep when I hit the Unlock button on the remote. I freeze in the rain to check if the noise drew any attention to me. No, I’m still just a shadow in a thunderstorm. In the car, dripping wet, I shove the plastic knob to shut down the radio. The true darkness of the storm has passed and a pale grey-red settles over the glazed neighborhood.

 In the few breaths it takes to crawl to the end of the driveway I see the dog has made it to the end of the block. I know I have to pause here, I have to give him time to break line of sight with the Pit. Back and forth my eyes go, to the house he escaped from and his exodus, back and forth.

I grow impatient; I turn the wheel the other way and force myself to circle the block.

The whole stage was abandoned when the rain came, all the players just put down their props and went back inside; lawnmowers; basketballs; rocking chairs. I turn a corner, another, another – full circle. I can see his sauntering frame up ahead, not more than one hundred feet past this stop sign.

My headlights flick on in the rain – strangely delayed. He neglects to look at me, instead he and his shadow move into the street, dodging a flooded patch of sidewalk.

One last look around. No one. I drop my foot onto the pedal and brace myself.

I close my eyes.

Thump.

I don’t let up, one second, two, three. I think it’s okay to open my eyes now. I let up on the gas and gently roll down the street. The rain keeps coming.

A single stream of red rolls down the right side of my windshield.