Making Dad Proud

A quick story I spewed out of my brain drainage:

            Rubio walked into the sparsely crowded high school gymnasium enveloped by sounds of a basketball game. His snapshot mind memorized fresh faces and body postures of parents and casual observers along with all-age cell phone obsessed non-observers sprinkled along the bleachers and across all four corners of the gym before focusing on the teams at play. The home team wore darkened green uniforms with black lettering, matching their school’s heavily present color scheme, while the away team adorned blue uniforms with yellow lettering.

With every immediate individual accounted for, Rubio re-analyzed all of the entrances and exits, checking for any he may have overlooked in relation to the outer perimeter’s schematics, but every way leading in and out of the building synced with his previous exterior exploration. For now, Rubio could enjoy the game.

Both teams were fundamentally flawed but heavily competitive. The home team distributed the ball evenly, displaying good teamwork. The blue team looked full of individual talent. During a steal, Rubio singled out one of the home team’s players; a young man familiar to his ideas. The young man looked like Rubio’s son – slender but not lanky, sporting crisply cut black hair, and wandering eyes of wonder; heavily thinking, always two steps ahead.  He had good eyes for distribution, he played his role well. He wasn’t good enough yet for the varsity team, but by his senior year, he’d be a critical team member – good in assists, better on defense.

Rubio cheered his son on. “Do your best!” he exclaimed over the crowd. It turned some heads but that was okay. He was proud of his son and would cheer him to the very end. Besides, his real rewarding gift was his brain. He was in the top ten percent of his class, slightly geeky, but capably social when necessary.

The team’s basketball rotation wound up in his son’s hands. He drove into the paint, psyching out his defender with a pump fake so he could bounce pass it underneath to the forward for a successful score. “Excellent!” Rubio joyfully exclaimed aloud.

What was wrong with all of the nonsense-obsessed technological ostriches with their heads buried in a tiny computer screen? Life’s spontaneous excitements passed them by; they should be paying attention to his son.

Rubio thoroughly imagined the consequences of sticking someone’s head in between the flexing beams underneath the bleachers. He wondered how much force it would take to kill someone. Would it merely break a neck, or with proper imposing force, could it decapitate a person? Surely, it wouldn’t be a surgical slice, probably a grisly scene of stretched, torn flesh and outwardly piercing bone shards.

            The grim scenario replayed itself in Rubio’s mind, gently easing him back into the surprising thrill of the junior varsity’s basketball game. As the play intensified during the closing minutes of the spirited contest, Rubio’s purpose entered the gym. Being the figurehead of a school’s administration, every principal’s voluntary appearance at school functions was definitely mandatory. Luke Walters was a town native with out of town secrets that buried him deep within bad peoples’ pockets and deeper into their business, qualifying him as, what Rubio’s client noted, a loose end. That was more than what Rubio wanted to know. All he needed was a name and a face. The rest came naturally.

            Walters paraded around the gymnasium, shaking hands, playing nice; buying trust. After finishing his public rounds, Walters left the gym. Rubio would have to follow him, abandoning his son. The natal compassion that would never materialize, the trophies which he hoped would decorate the hallways – melted down by cumbersome reality. During his senior year, Rubio hoped to take his son to Oaxaca to meet the rest of his family, maybe even take him to the annual reunion of his old platoon. However, as instantly as his son was born, his existence was erased. Rubio had never been married. He didn’t know of any possibly conceived offspring anywhere in the world, and he had traveled extensively. Fatherhood was momentary disguise, killing was how he made his living, and for a moment, Rubio felt good about accomplishing something besides another murder. The fun part was gone, the stalking was over. It was time to kill.

Love Handle

An irritating sensation drilled its across his scalp in a crooked, winding road. He raked his fingernails along the annoyed flesh. He pressed harder, overjoyed with temporary relief. Lost in elation, he never  felt his nails sinking deeper into his head until they sunk deeply into his head and protruded through his eyes and mouth; a bloodied waterfall spewing from every pore until the top half of his head fell to the floor and his lifeless husk collapsed into a gory splatter.

To: Lenny

That day arrived again – the one day out of the year when mysterious gifts, kind looks, and favorable acts gravitated towards Lenny. The one day when people remembered he was a fragmented human being and not the homeless bum of O’Neil Park.

Sometimes he received clothes, sometimes he received food; people hesitated giving him money. They thought he was going to buy drugs or alcohol with it despite him being twenty years sober largely thanks to his military service. Once he was discharged from the service his world collapsed bit by bit. He couldn’t readjust to society’s expectations of normalcy. The simplest decisions, like what type of detergent to buy or when to take the dog out for a walk tested his resolve. Eventually, his wife had her fill and left, taking the dog with her. Lenny was thankful they never had children. He couldn’t screw up their lives any more than he had destroyed his own. When the military built Lenny into a soldier, he didn’t know how to be anything else. He couldn’t turn it off. He never did.

Within a year, Lenny was living in the streets. The military wouldn’t help him. His mental instability had alienated his remaining friends and family members since he refused to seek any assistance. People didn’t think Lenny was the same person anymore but Lenny believed he was the man he was destined to become. He was a soldier and would be to the day he died. This was the day that people were thankful for Lenny being that soldier.

Stupid Circus Rat

I don’t know what I was looking at; the husk that was my good friend Jack was borrowing my couch for a psychedelic escapade. Meanwhile, all intentions for thirty minutes were devoted to teaching a squirrel to do a backflip. There was no validation in living in the suburban area, being responsible, or biding by my morals; but if I could teach this furry bastard to accomplish the unexpected, I’d become immortal.

Training is eliminating options. The knowledge implied minus the knowledge impaired. Remove choices; fuck the corpse of alternatives until this diseased mammal puke has no choice but to throw it’s legs over it’s head.  I could use shock treatment, or motivational pin pricking; fur plucking might – OH! It just did a backflip. Damn rat must’ve been reading my mind.

Beautiful Destruction

Gellar awoke to find five dead women in his bedroom. Their faces pulverized, nearly caved in while their bodies draped over furniture, mangled, twisted; completely destroyed.

Compounding Gellar’s horror were his bruised fists with swollen knuckles and broken teeth piercing his flesh. He broke their bodies with his bare hands and turned their faces inside out with hammering fists.

Frightened, with no recollection of the massacre, Gellar thoughtlessly ushered himself through his living room, noticing all of the paintings burned or shredded. Stunning artwork brutalized as savagely as the dead women in his bedroom.

Gellar rushed to the patio of his fourth floor apartment as dozens of questions swirled inside his mind simultaneously causing him nausea.

The cool air of the new morning slightly soothed his frayed nerves. He focused on the half-risen sun and the cavalcade of colors that painted the horizon. It was beautiful. Suddenly, Gellar snapped. He grabbed one of the lawn chairs dressing the patio and flung it towards the sun, hearing the thud as it hit an unsuspecting stranger’s car roof. Gellar felt compelled to destroy the horizon. Gellar wanted to destroy everything that was beautiful.

Aquatic Blood Prophecies

This was the other dream I had the previous night. It started in sequence after the other story - Laughter in Crimson - ended. The transition was flawless....

Exiting the walls of the institute, I met four friends awaiting my arrival. We promptly made our way to the boardwalk where a couple of friends of ours, actual gypsies, a brother and a sister, were performing magic tricks as a sideshow attraction at the aquarium.

We had access to the rear entrance as guests to the performers, which felt cool; even cooler was being able to see the underbelly of the aquarium. Gypsy Brother opened a door to what one could have assumed to be a small maintenance shack, but instead of tools and brooms there extended a staircase down into darkness.

Without hesitation we followed the performing duo into the cellar where we were met by a single light showing us a garage-sized room full of control panels and all sorts of gauges (temperature, pressure, etc.).  Another door around the corner of the stairwell opened. A haggard woman stepped from behind. She told us hello the way a cannibalistic witch encountering two lost twins would say hello. She stepped into the light, dressed purely in black; a netted rose hate like ladies wore one-hundred years ago to the fair with a classic gown to match.

“We're here, Nanna,” said Gypsy Sister.

“Splendid,” said Nanna in her squeaky, innocently malicious voice. “Go on you two, but first why don’t I show the two of you a preview of the show?”

The siblings trotted off leaving the two of us behind.

“Come here, lovely girl,” Nanna instructed. She unveiled two empty jars from the unknown universe beneath her garb. “It’s an easy trick.” She placed one jar to the side of Lovely Girl’s head, with her ear within the opening. “Get ready to hear the ocean.”

Nanna lifted up the other jar except now there was a lengthy needle, at least a foot long, protruding from the center. Nanna shoved the needle through Lovely Girl’s ear until it exited out the other end. Blood instantly began filling both jars without a single drop spilling to the floor.  

Once drained of life, Nanna pulled the jars away from Lovely Dead Girl’s ears, letting her fresh husk crumple to the floor. I felt nothing. I wasn’t afraid; I wasn’t excited in any way.

Nanna handed me one of the blood jars. “Look,” she said to me. I did. I looked in the blood; maybe I looked past the blood, but within was the world around us. I could see the Gypsy Siblings performing their act. I could see the dolphins flipping through the air. But in the clouds, above all of that, within the clouds was a dark presence gathering itself, slowly growing stronger. Destruction was among us. Annihilation was coming.

Laughter in Crimson

This was a dream I had last night. It left me chilled and a tad frightened.....

Visiting my cousin at a juvenile mental institution, he was in the middle of a class located in a science laboratory, all the students were dressed in white jumpsuits. On the television was a repeated showing of the incident that sent him off the deep end. During the halftime of a major sporting event, my cousin reached out to hug his father when a heart attack claimed the man’s life. My cousin caught his dying body and held him until he died. He then yanked the boy behind him to the ground and broke his neck and then broke his dead father’s neck. It replayed on an endless loop while everyone watched it except him. The psychologist on duty was using it as a tool in some form of group therapy.

Assured that my cousin was accommodated appropriately, even though he never lifted his head up once to look up at me; just kept coloring a picture he’d drawn, I left the classroom to meet with a detective and a staff member to fill me in on details of a string of murders plaguing the institution. Mostly young women strangled or stabbed. There had been a man found stabbed much more violently than the women, but it was believed that he had stumbled upon the murderer during his ritualistic killing and ruined the murderer’s momentary bliss. While they explained it to me, I felt like on the horizon I could see what the killer saw; the locations of the murders, the blood flying in the air, my hands around their throats. I could even feel the cold steel of the knife and the peeling off of blood soaked gloves from a clown outfit – yellow with multi-colored polka dots and white ruffles on the cuffs.

I checked out the locations myself. One was at the bottom of a stairwell leading from a rear parking lot to the nurses’ changing stations. The area was cold and resounding. The entire time there were two men, I’m assuming they were janitors as they were dressed in grey jumpsuits. They kept watching me, talking about me. Frustrated, I chose to confront them, but they disappeared.

The other murder happened inside the storage unit closer to the back of the institution. Entering, there was a walkway stained with blood where the man, the groundskeeper, had stumbled upon the murderer during his killing. The walkway was paralleled by a fenced in storage house where old furniture, books, and old everything else were kept before they were auctioned off, donated, or forgotten. While studying the scene, again, the room was cold. I almost felt in the presence of omnipotence. I definitely felt eyes watching me. I turned to see a shadow fleeing the area, but no sounds of a door being opened or closed; but someone else had been in there with me.

On my way to share my thoughts with the Institution’s director, I crossed paths with a tall, heavy set man who seemed naturally strong. He was dressed in a white muscle shirt and the bottom half of his jumpsuit with the rest hanging behind him. I stopped. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. He slowed down but hesitated to turn. I rushed over to him before he could have another thought. “Sir!”

He turned around. I saw fear in his eyes. “You,” I said. He tried moving back but I grabbed him by his shirt and insinuated major violence with my other hand and malice in my eyes. “I’ve got you, motherfucker.”

In failsafe wall hidden behind his locker paneling was the yellow clown suit I had seen in my vision along with a clown makeup kit, a rainbow wig, latex gloves, and a knife that had been rinsed well but still held traces of dried blood.

The killer had been hauled off, the drama had died down; the campus was quiet again. Suddenly, I felt ill. I felt frightened. I turned around – at the entrance of the stairwell leading to the changing station was another clown dressed in a red pointed hat, a red and black outfit, smiling a wicked red smile, waving at me with bloodied white gloves. Then, he shuffled back into the institution.

Brother of the Devil's Enforcer

From the diary of Detective Roger (Roy) Bucher:


I’ve never heard my brother Myles speak, but I have heard him scream. I’ve also heard him cry. The last time I heard him cry was the day we went to the orphanage, he was only four and I was six. Someone from around town investigated the odor coming from our grandparents’ house and found our grandparents’ two-week-old corpses festering in their favorite chairs right next to their radio tuned in to their favorite religious station. The social workers and police officials came to look over the house and collect us. Myles ran to Grandma, jumped right into her lap, and hugged her around her decrepit neck and started crying. He didn’t want to leave them. I heard her weak, dead bones break from the fuss. Her decomposing head nearly came clean off when the cops yanked him away from her, leaving her head hanging by its rotting neck since Myles accidentally pulled her skull off the spine. He screamed all the way through town.

That wasn’t the last time I’d hear him scream, though. To the other kids in the orphanage, immediately, we were outsiders. We didn’t belong there. Problem was, I knew it too. Myles though, he didn’t care. He just wanted to go back home, but no one would let him. They picked on us – well – they tried picking on us.

Grandpa used to take Myles hunting with him. He’d use Myles as a game hound to spook the birds and fetch their bodies, but Myles had also acquired hunting skills. Occasionally, Myles would straight up fight whichever bastard was picking on him at the time, but Myles also developed patience. If he couldn’t go home, he’d make the best of a bad situation. He would wait. He would stalk these kids like he’d stalk a quail. Whenever I heard Myles screaming, I knew there was bloodshed. Some of the orphans didn’t live to see puberty. Some of them lived, and killed themselves anyway because of the mutilations Myles had dealt them. Orphans who felt they were unwanted by their real parents, and after Myles got a hold of them, disfigured them; who would want them anymore?

Not a day passed that I wasn’t frightened over what Myles was becoming. The worst day was when we were separated. I stayed at the orphanage; he wound up at a juvenile mental institution. All he ever wanted was to go back home and these idiots kept taking him further away. Not me. When the time came, I moved as far north as I could. I guess Chicago wasn’t far enough because sure enough, I heard his screams again. Soon after I got wind of the murders happening back home. The more I thought about it, I think Myles wanted me to hear about them. How he knew I became a police detective is beyond me. I never told anyone about my plans because I didn’t know anyone and because it was never planned. It just happened.

Maybe it wasn’t planned. Maybe this is what was meant to be all along. Yes, my brother Myles Bucher is the killer the media refers to as The Devil’s Enforcer. I should be ashamed to say that to him, what he’s doing actually makes sense. I’m not, because it makes sense to me too; but Myles has gone mad.

I’m sorry, Myles. Mad dogs gotta be put down.

Related links - Escaping Silence

Scab Critter - Horror Short Story

Wrote this after losing some flesh during a training session the other day.

Scab Critter.

We Never Met - An Assassin't Monologue

Growing up, I enjoyed reading stories and watching movies about assassins, hitmen, and hitwomen. I do plan on writing in that genre someday. I figured this was a good start.

We Never Met.

A Reasonable Riske - Full Story

My 4 chapter serial A Reasonable Risk is complete. Enjoy, or don't. I don't care.

A Reasonable Risk - A Short Story Serial

Here is a link to where you can find my short story comedy romance - A Reasonable Risk

New Short Story - Laylee

You can read my new short story - Laylee - and leave comments if you'd like. Feel free to critique but don't be a dick. I have friends with explosions.

Again, here is more of my work.

Cherry Cider

Laying the groundwork for some new material: 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cherry patrolled her corner with the grace of a drunken lioness as her pimp, a near-7-foot flashy hulk named Bitch’s Preach watched from across the street. If she didn’t start bringing in the business she was going to find herself on the wrong end of a Singapore Gonzo Bus, which is as painful as it sounds.

Before her three tours of duty, Cherry (her street name) was studying to be a chem.-tech, but then the world hit a fan made of shit. She was called into action and while she was there she succumbed to one of her few faults. Cherry accepted a bonus from the military by opting to be a guinea pig for one of their ultra-soldier programs. At first, the drug worked splendidly. Her body surpassed its original apex of physical capabilities. She was finishing special ops obstacles in a matter of single digit minutes and her IQ shot up several hundred notches. She was a scientist with a gladiator’s killing skills.

The addiction started during her four month layoff. She began looking for compensatory drugs; first, legal supplements used by fitness experts and world class athletes, but they didn’t compare to the thrill of the military’s sweet sensation. Then, she started dealing with the illegal stuff but cleaned herself before she was due back for her second tour. When she came home, the need came back sooner and her desperation doubled, but she was able to compensate until it was time for round three, but compensating meant the money went to the bad people with bad things that made her feel good and not to her bills. After her third tour of duty, Cherry returned home to an eviction sign and a foreclose notice on her home. Her car had been repossessed. She had signed her life and its connections to the military so she could be one of the ultra soldiers. She had no one to turn to.

Bitch’s Preach found her in an alley with her tongue stuck up the ass of a translator for the Chinese chairman of the CPC Guidance Commission. Bitch’s Preach applauded her enthusiasm and controlled her through her addiction. Bitch’s Preach had been dishonorably discharged for running a prostitute scam on the American military Base in Germany. He knew Cherry’s symptoms because he had also partaken in the same experiments, only he wasn’t a guinea pig, he was a chemist. He had manipulated the formula used for the ultra soldier experiments and was now pimping out women laced with the junk as super sex slaves. Many of his girls were ex-war vets, so not only did he have the most scintillating pussy in the city, if anyone tried to skimp out on the tab, they turned into wicked enforcers and collectors with a bloodlust. Bitch’s Preach wanted punks like that turned into examples.

Cherry was sick of this life. She was sick of Bitch’s Preach. She had fought in wars, saved lives, but like so many ex-military, once she was done her government didn’t bother to remember her name or the names of her street sisters. But she still had instincts.

Cherry still knew how to be a soldier. Her sisters were fellow soldiers. Warriors – warriors that had fought through pain, insurmountable odds, and common sexual degradation. Cherry didn’t want to feel sick anymore. Cherry was ready to take her life back. It was going to start with Bitch’s Preach.

Even Monsters Get Diseases

I am anxious to begin reading Storm Constantine's works. She is most known for the Wraeththu Chronicles. I figured I would start there, but there is still so much to choose from. She also has singles works, including a collaboration with my all-time inspiration Michael Moorcock called Silverheart. I would prefer to start with lone story book rather than the first of a series, but does it really matter? I'm probably being completely anal about it, and you love it when I go anal.

Storm Constantine's books deal plentifully with mysticism and jumbling sexualities. I've even considered giving Anne Rice's latest offering The Wolf Gift a chance, though how good she still is since converting to Christianity is anyone's guess. I feel it may be parallel to Chuck Mangione giving up the drugs. It was great for his health but his music never came close to the excellence of his junkie era.

This all stems from a new project that I've been tinkering with. It's one that has me excited again like no other work has done in such a long time.

 I'm hoping to turn this young adult craze on its head and put some fear back into the creatures of the night, even if I must destroy the world to do it. I want teenagers to fall in love with fearing the written word once again. I want them to fall asleep with my story in one hand and a steak knife for protection in the other because my monsters don't come from under the bed. They bash down the front door, splatter puppies, and rape their parents while using their childrens' skulls as condoms. Seems to be a defeated purpose but even monsters need to practice safe sex.

The horsemen ride, and they're bringing the kids. Horseman's Child.

Double Barrel's Interview on Zombie Evolution

Dumb Shit: “Check, check…okay….sounds good. Are you ready Mr. Earhart?”

Earhart: “You wanna get yer fingers outta my face, son?”

Dumb Shit: “Well, uhm, y’see my hand’s modified, I, uh – god, your eye is really weird – I,mmm… modified it over the summer to be an all-purpose-media device; microphone and additional plugs in the fingers, audio and text editing in my palm, full control on my backhand. I installed stage lighting into my synth-retinas here in my right eye, next to the video recording apps in my temple It’s really – OW! GEEZ, you didn’t have to yank it off like that! It hurt!”

Earhart: “A lot, I hope. Now, you only need one microphone as far as I’m concerned, so I’ll just fix it up to my liking.

“There we go.

“Test, 1, 2…You hear me?”

Dumb Shit: “Loud and clear. The middle finger works quite well as a microphone. You don’t have to direct it straight at me all the time though.”

Earhart:  “Oh, but I feel I do. I really, really do.

“Now, you wanted to know about the evolution of these new zombies, zat right?

Dumb Shit: “Yes, sir. Nowadays, they look almost like any human alive, some have passed right through crowds and cities and were not spotted until it was too late. They started attacking people for their flesh; when did it all change?”

Earhart: “It was probably about twelve years ago. I was with a group of the South Texas population making their way through Missouri. They had requested our expertise in fortifying their villages.

 The zombie population was dwindling. They weren’t scarce by any means, I’m just sayin’ the length of time between encounters with zombie packs were getting longer. There was no doubt in my mind that the zombie population was definitely dwindling.

“You five-knuckle-shuffle with this all-purpose-media-device, son?

Dumb Shit: “What?”

Earhart: “Crank the shaft? Turbine the engine? Launch the red rocket?”

Dumb Shit: “……uuuuhhh”

Earhart: “Oh, Jesus; nevermind. Anyways, we’d been hearing tales from other wanderers that there had been a shift in the zombies’ genetics; that they were now reproducing on their own. I chalked it up to the typical grapevine syndrome – somebody says something and by the time it passes between a few dozen people and three states the story was nothing like the original – but that didn’t mean I wasn’t gonna keep an open mind. “

Dumb Shit: “Sir, I realize my microphone finger extends, but could you please not use the rest of my hand to scratch your groin?....awww, what is that? ”

Earhart: “Oh, shit; forgot it wasn’t mine. Now, we were about twenty miles from the Eldon camp when we ran into a small zombie tribe, about five of’em, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t see it for my own eyes. 

“Y’see, four of’em came at us. Two of’em were the old, slow kind. One of’em was a speedster, but still stupid; no tactics. The fourth was another slow one, but this one tried circling around us for a better vantage point. Of course none of’em were a challenge, we picked’em off quickly, cleanly.

“The fifth one….fifth one was a woman. She was missing half a face, missing an arm, and one of her legs just below the knee. She’s wriggling and rolling around on the ground. None of us can figure out what’s wrong with her. She finally stops, she’s on her back. He stomach begins expanding until it tears wide open, and out comes this tiny, fully functioning - - I don’t even wanna call it a baby, but it was a baby zombie, not a zombie baby – that’s something different. This was a baby zombie.

Dumb Shit: “Your math doesn't add up, but what do you mean by fully functioning?”

Earhart: “This thing WAS the fifth! Dumb Shit! Walking; not perfectly, but it had enough sense and intelligence for muscle control. While it’s stumbling about we’re all in shock not noticing the mother trying to shove her guts back into her stomach. She does so, gets up off the ground and charges right at us. Nearly bit Bilo, but Sara was able to put a shotgun shell in the thing’s skull before then.

“Once momma was down, we set out to catch the kid, wound up snagging him with our trap-nets. Looked ungodly, it did. Gray mushy skin felt like thick jelly; already had teeth too.

“Wipe that I-just-saw-and-elephant-dick-look off yer face son; it’s only teeth on a newborn zombie. Natural selection, whaddya expect?

“Don’t you be giving me that look yer givin’ me now, I’ll yank that retinal-recorder outta yer socket and globally broadcast the biggest ass-whoppin yer sad, techno-pussy generation’s ever seen.

“That was my first encounter. Had many more through the years, but seeing as how zombies had become a mainstay in the natural order of things, they began to evolve. It wasn’t just women birthing these things, men were too. “

Dum Shit: “Zombie men and zombie women, correct?”

Earhart: “………..

“You sure you came outta yer mother’s vagina, boy? You sure she didn’t shit you out, cause only a dumb-shit would ask that question. Or maybe, just maybe she shit you out of her vagina. You were meant to be a turd but her body got mixed up and sent you through meiosis and thus was born the first ever turd baby named Dumb Shit.

“Yes. Zombie men and zombie women, and the more intact the surrogate zombie was the better condition the baby came out. And, I mean they were new and improved. They grew quickly, they felt no pain, they didn’t have to breathe; they were now thinking, flesh-eating machines.

“Society was still able to make progress, we have towns back, regular communities, businesses going again, but with the zombie evolution – it’s like living with fear of communist spies again, only instead of giving secrets to the Kremlin, these invaders will eat your face.

“That’s all I got for you fer today. Here’s yer hand back. It thinks yer number one, heh heh.”

Dumb Shit: “Well, thank you sir….ow….uh, your insight is very valuable. Again, thank you…uh…this is going to make for a great article in the science magazine. Your contributions certainly be remembered and honored in the future.

Earhart: “I don’t give a fuck. You drink beer, Dumb Shit?”

Dumb Shit: “Well, no, yuh see the alcohol isn’t good for my body modifications and….”

END SIGNAL

City Voices

Wired around the torso and sedated, I was waiting only for the mask. Athono asked if I wanted the full guard or only the half-piece. I chose the full guard for comfort. The sedatives took longer to begin working; I was gaining a tolerance to them, but soon I wouldn’t need them at all.

I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes. I was in the dream state. The whispers I heard when I was awake were now the shouts I implied to soften. 7^th street ached for repaving. Each day the potholes sank deeper into the gravel flesh as cars with foolish drivers couldn’t swerve away from the large voids in the street.

The Meintz-Leanord Trading Tower urged for someone to stabilize its foundation. The depletion of the original mineral resources beneath its foundation had left empty cavernous layers. The tower stressed that it had begun shaking. The building personnel shrugged the tremors off to fault lines of which there were none for over eight-thousand miles but it was the stress of a multi-ton building erect over hollow ground.

A damaged lamp post in the Lacosta district wondered when the city workers were going to take it down. A drunk driver had swerved into it two weeks ago, bending it; leaving it in constant agony. Meanwhile, a house in the neighborhood called La Chuza cried. The dad was beating the mother again after knocking the daughter unconscious in kitchen.

The Mithune Hotel shouted that a murder was happening on the fifth floor. The serial killer known as The Red Lace Romeo was in the midst of carving another victim.

This is my city. I am its shaman. I hear everything.

Post-Contagion Playground Soliloquy

"Excuse me, are you lost?" I heard a woman’s voice through the light, tattering rain. Her hair was dark with frosted streaks. Staring in between her locks reminded me of being in prison which is where I thought I had been, talking myself to sleep. Instead I was in my old neighborhood, in the middle of our playground that used to be our universe.

"No," I replied, still believing that I was falling asleep in prison, thinking I was dreaming about standing in the midst of a dark gray day in the my dress clothes covered by my black trench coat.

"Did you used to live around here?” Her voice wavered from compassionate to careful. “Have you been gone a while?"

"I have." I looked away from her voice, never wanting to see into her eyes.

I stayed silent until she walked away.

I stared at the spot where my brother and I used to play. The ground was greener now. Before we had green patches spread out amongst regions of dirt. The air was cleaner. I could suck in a stomach's full and not gag from the fumes of incinerated corpses, dead from the Red Devil Virus.

Pregnant women were actually allowed outside again, which was a big surprise to me. I saw one showing off her unborn child through her ultrasound-shirt. I didn't check the display label to see if it was a boy or a girl, I was relieved to see that it didn't have a head and a half, or a third limb shaped like a talon.

Times have changed. The people are nicer, the planet is richer, and I'm still no closer to belonging in it than I was before my incarceration. But my brother and I, we never belonged. We just did enough to make other people think we did, plastering the right smiles at the right times, but we were always different, always would be. We didn’t care about anyone else because in our family’s line of work, you could only trust family. Now, all of my family is gone and there’s nothing left to do but adapt. Luckily, my family’s profession is still a necessity in this new, cleaner world.

Every one with money still wants someone with more money dead. That will never change.

The Cleansing Trail

A story I thought up during my morning jog....

Greg stepped outside at four-thirty that morning, the temperature was much lower than the meteorologist with firm breasts, heavy eyeshadow, and gaping teeth had previously predicted, which made Greg even more excited for the upcoming eight mile jog.

Feeling blessed to be currently living directly across the city’s modified river canal, it would be a crime for someone in Greg’s peak physical condition not to take advantage of the two mile radius encircling the naturally discolored water and all the feisty creatures dwelling within and around it.

Greg felt blessed lately. His short stay in county prison reassured his meaningful value on life and the honorable code of ethics taught to him by his father. Everyday Greg awoke behind his cell door he carried a backbreaking weight of shame. His father would have believed he had failed as a father and as a man had he lived to see Greg under these circumstances and felt the same about Greg.. What made things worse was that Greg felt right at home in those police state conditions, even made several friendly associates that helped him cope with prison life, but in his heart Greg was not a prisoner; he could never succumb to such a mundane, overly supervised lifestyle. He needed fresh air, transcending daylight, and the ability to make simple decisions without asking for permission.

As he walked across the street to Lincoln’s Trail entryway made of vermillion colored dirt, outlined by side-standing bricks, which reminded Greg of the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz as green bushes and fully loaded Fichus trees cascaded the open field peripheral to either side of the bright dirt and rocky trail. By the time the dirt met the parading trail of pavement ensconcing the water, Greg had programmed his mp3 player to his wickedly motivational workout mix comprised of an eclectic variety of upbeat tunes ranging from groovy and soulful to hate-filled and speedy. Once his jams were set, he stuffed the mp3 player in the left pocket of his dark gray hoodie.

At such an ungodly early hour, Greg expected to be the only patron using the trail, but growing up in the barrios he had learned to always be prepared. Strapped around his waist was a knife holster loaded with his ten inch survival knife given to him by his grandfather when Greg was a boy. No one in his family ever went hunting, but Grandfather knew to always carry the right tools around with you, and his whole family were well aware what kind of socially cloaked town they lived in and just because they weren’t hunters didn’t mean they were not ever going to be hunted. The rules changed everyday. Greg began his jog.

He turned left where the Solstice Street met the river and left again shortly after, following the curved path, passing by fishing docks to his left and swing sets, slides, and sandboxes to his right; park benches were spread out all along the trail.

In the center of his right there was a basketball course adjacent to a shaded rest stop that could seat at least two dozen people. A weather worn canopy shaded the pavement laced quarters while wired fencing shielded any potential users from wildly flung basketballs. Across the street from all of that was El Estrella, the rough barrio where both of his grandparents had spent their own teenage years and where Greg visited his great grandmother Nana every weekend as a child before any of these neighborly amusements ever existed at Lincoln’s Trail – before Lincoln’s Trail itself even existed.

The kind of people that lived there now were the kind of people that Greg had spent his whole life walking around while empathizing with; the kind of people he spent six months with in county jail. They were the new generation of self-entitled, unethical thug wannabes. They gave real thugs a bad name. They were too cowardice to be real criminals and too stupid to be anything else. They were the lost generation that was becoming the utterly hopeless nation, thinking that the government’s welfare checks and Medicaid offerings equaled a king’s ransom and a low brow morality.

Greg hated them, but he knew how to use them.They begged to be used, goaded, and extinguished.

In fact, in a nerve alerting moment, about seventy feet before Greg turned left on Colon Street; Greg noticed one of El Estrella’s newly lost souls walking along the sidewalk. Greg startled the young man who thought he was the only one walking the park at this hour, and instead of keeping straight along the sidewalk, the wannabe thug dressed in a white jacket, black baggy, butt-sagging shorts with a matching black shirt, shoes, and beanie decided to step on to the pavement trail and pretend to stare out at the river in the chilly morning moonlight. This made Greg nervous, but from the way the wannabe stiffened his posture and tried being nonchalant with his purposeless business; Greg noticed the wannabe’s nervousness as well and kept on jogging.

Returning to Solstice Street, Greg spotted his usual, anonymous morning compatriot – an older gentleman who walked only on El Estrella’s side of the trail. The first three weeks that Greg had jogged around Lincoln’s Trail, the old man assisted himself with a cane. He would politely wave at Greg either as a gesture of kindness or simply letting Greg know, “I see you,” but knowing the neighborhood and the culture, Greg interpreted it as an act of kindness. It was the same kind of gesture his grandfather made to every person that walked past his house when he would sit on his front porch and absorb the scenery, appreciating life and all the little things that made life matter to him.

These last three weeks, the old man had forgone the use of his cane. Greg was proud of him.

When Greg made the left on to Solstice, he witnessed a new arrival to the early morning exercise group. Another old gentleman whose body looked haggard in comparison to the man who used to use a cane had just embarked on his exercise walk with a hunched over torso and rickety knees that made his steps seem painful, but there he was, pushing his frail body along in the morning’s cold darkness. After passing the physically delicate man on the trail, Greg continued on and noticed that Wannabe had moved over to the canopied eatery area next to the basketball court. He was sitting down; his torso slumped over the table top with his beanie-covered-head lying flat on its side.

Fucking waste.

Greg continued left around the corner of Colon with his mind still on the worthless waste of flesh and oxygen housing itself beneath the canopy.

Even in prison, there were wannabes that learned how pathetic they had made their lives; though many of the wannabes, it wasn’t completely their fault. They had been raised by neglectful teenage parents to rely on the government and other hard working folks to keep their greedy pockets full and their gold-toothed mouths fed. The more Greg thought about it, the quicker his pace increased.

Another thing he learned in county was anger management; how to control his temper when under the most infuriating circumstances. One bad move landed you in the hole, another one landed you in the infirmary. 

When he made his third turn at Solstice Street, Greg noticed that the old man that formerly used a cane was just passing by the basketball court as Wannabe was still loitering under the canopy. Meanwhile, the fragile old man was beginning his first trek down the other side of the trail.

It was with this fortunate timing that Greg slowed down to a walk, paused his mp3 player, and took out his earbuds. Wannabe never heard his footsteps or the unsheathing of his survival knife. The dumb bastard never even had time to lift his head from the tabletop before Greg slammed the ten-inch dagger through the pathetic slacker’s neck, straight through the wooden table’s surface. Unable to scream and too terrified to move, Wannabe’s blood dashed across the table’s surface. Greg could hear it pouring off the edge down to the concrete. He adjusted his stance so he could maintain pressure while avoiding contact with the blood. He twisted the blade inside Wannabe’s neck to ensure a quicker and slightly more painful death.

When Wannabe’s body stopped completely moving, Greg checked for a pulse (again, avoiding any bloody contact). The stars were bright enough to allow Greg to look into Wannabe’s eyes. They were totally devoid of life, not that there was much life to begin with. This trail was for people that embraced life.

Greg yanked his blade from the fresh corpse’s neck feeling relieved - one less societal leech; one less waste of flesh. He swiped the blood from his knife off on a clean portion of the corpse’s blood soaked jacket, checked for any signs of new walkers or runners, and when he saw none he completed one more turn at Colon and retreated back to the vermillion dirt road feeling rejuvenated and excited for the blessing that was a brand new day.

Undying Message

The steps of the undead waltz penetrated the apartments’ paper-thin walls, from the first floor all the way to the second. A stomp followed by a dragged foot, and as it had every Wednesday for the past three weeks, the creepy rhythm halted at my front door.

Then, the knocking began.

Before, the raps were persistent and tough, like a life altering message was about to be delivered, and considering my reaction the first time I answered the door under these outlandish circumstances, my life was definitely altered forever. This time, however, the raps were slower; the life was being filtered from the remaining depressed spirit. The visitor’s message wasn’t so important anymore.

I raised my head from my science studies, unsure if I should answer the call this time. While I pondered the issue, a second highly assertive set of knocks pounded the door, shaking the entire structure. I felt forced to answer it before any of the neighbors chose to investigate the rude noises.

The locks were quickly undone, the door was opened, and once again there stood Uncle Phillip whom had been buried at Leslie Palms’ Cemetery one month ago. His skin tone was closer to ash, dried and sagging more than last week with well defined holes in his flesh where the subterranean creatures had begun feeding on him.

“Hello, Michael,” he said.

“Hey, Uncle Phil,” My stomach started turning from the pungent odor that seemed to be a few steps behind him. “C’mon in.”

He limped to his favorite section – the sofa in front of the television. His left foot was turned to a ninety degree angle, explaining the dragging noise, but I didn’t want to think about how it became contorted. I did wonder if anyone had seen him tonight or the previous nights, but I had neither read any nor seen any related reports in the news. The navy blue burial suit had tears in it, probably from being snagged and ripped on unnoticed pointy surfaces and scraped against building surfaces.

“What is that smell?” he asked. He could smell his own festering stench? “Are you having tea?” I guess not.

“Yes,” I was officially befuddled. “Would you….care for some?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he politely accepted. Even in death, some of the undead still practice manners and not brain consumption.

We reconvened at the dining table which was just a few steps away from the sofa, as was the kitchen quarter of the apartment, both with a fresh cup of warm Earl Gray in front of us.

“How are you?” asked Phillip. Seeing him in clearer light, I noticed the right side of his face was starting to sag; the muscles in that respective side of his bottom lip could no longer sustain the muscle tissue. He looked like a partially paralyzed stroke victim with its top corner portion of their lip bitten off, revealing teeth at all times.

“Fine,” I answered, though I couldn’t stop leering at his left eye. It looked like part of the retina had detached. It swayed a bit whenever he spoke or moved.

Then, Uncle Phillip asked the same question from the three previous visits. “How’s Sonjya?” He always asked how his wife was. It seemed that the part of his brain that told him he was dead had eroded or been eaten, because I had told him that he was dead and that she was trying to move on with her life. What I had not told him was that she had already moved on. She was dating again. They didn’t have a perfect marriage, and if Uncle Phil hadn’t died first, he would have continued living a lie because their marriage felt like it was over a long time ago to everyone except Phil, I guess.

“She’s fine. She’s – she’s doing just fine. She is coming to terms with the situation, all that’s happened….” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Good,” he said as an earthworm cascaded down his right cheek, poured from underneath his right eyeball. It chewed on his rotting cheek.

“She’s happy,” Whether it was a question or a clarification, I couldn’t tell. I think he just needed to hear it from someone else besides me, even if it was himself.

“Good.”

That was the last night Uncle Phillip visited me. Part of me was disappointed; I enjoyed his company, but I understood that he wasn’t a person anymore, just a hurting soul. The other part of me was thankful because the other tenants and the landlord no longer accosted me with ugly, damning looks in regards to the muddy trails leading from the outside and ending at my front door.

I visited Uncle Phillips grave site after classes were done that day. I could see the ruptured areas from where he had risen from the ground, only now instead of stressed out imprints of hands digging their way out for salvation, flowers were blooming in their place. Uncle Phillip was leaving a new trail, one that recalled the goodness in his life; one that led him to a final sense of personal peace. I hope to leave a trail like that behind some day, but right now I’m planting the seeds that will blossom into what will hopefully be a beautiful, memorable trail of my own.

Goodbye, Uncle Phillip.