BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology: Volume Two
Copyright © 2011 BestsellerBound.com/Darcia Helle
Smashwords Edition
All rights to this anthology are reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the authors. This book contains works of fiction. The characters and situations are products of each author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Rights to the individual works contained in this anthology are owned by the submitting authors and/or publishers and each has permitted the story's use in this collection. Individual copyright information is listed with each work. All rights to each work are reserved by the authors.
Contents:
The Art of Breathing by Jaime McDougall
I Didn't Know His Name by Darcia Helle
Make A Wish by Susan Helene Gottfried
The Last Chance Motel and Mausoleum by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick
Beyond The Green Hills by Tom Gahan
From Joy We Come, Unto Joy We Return by Ami Blackwelder
What Was Lost
by James Sophi
© Copyright James Sophi
The sound never came. I knew the gun had been fired. Somehow I knew. There was no pain, only a strange sensation, as if the ground beneath me had fallen away and I was being suspended in mid-air, frozen in a borderless void. A fogginess engulfed my mind and in the blackness the memory of these most recent events began to blur until they were just a vague collection of distorted images, as if someone else had lived them and I was merely remembering a tale told.
The camp. The sky. The barbed-wire walls. The guards, their faces bare and expressionless. The journey from my cell to the muddy yard in my brown uniform, whereon watched my brothers, fellow captives. The executioner stood behind me, and in that all-too-brief moment before the cloth was pulled over my eyes, I looked up and saw Isaac. The firm, brave expression on his young face emboldened me, and as the deep scarlet skies were blotted out with the darkness of my blindfold, I stopped shaking. My heartbeat slowed, and my mind went to the Almighty. My prayer was silent, but was shouted inside me. Remember me, Father. Forgive me and strengthen me. Remember me.
Then the darkness was complete. My legs gave way, my posture relaxed, the aches and bruises that covered me seemed to fade to nothing. I was falling forward for what seemed like an eternally long time. I was expecting the earth to come rushing up to meet me, to fill my mouth with the filthy mush of the camp floor. But I hit no ground. I was just there, present, prevailing. Some emptiness had taken me. Lazily, I became aware of my thoughts. I was thinking. Thinking. Did dead men think? I saw in reflection the shadow of what had happened, which now seemed such an insignificant thing. I was subsisting. For what, I was not sure.
Was I truly still alive? Was this what it was like to die slowly? There was nothing, for a time, to ground me as still human. No arms or legs or face or fingers. No emotion or concern or desire. Mind and body, I was at peace. I was rested, relaxed. Liberated. I was waking from a slumber that had lasted eons.
After a time, a very long while, there was coolness on where my face once was, as if a breeze was kissing me. The kiss reached my limbs. My skin prickled and I shivered. I inhaled weakly and could taste sweet air, the sweet breath of life, filling my lungs. I had feeling again. A pulsing rushed through to the tips of my fingers and toes. My lips curled into a smile as I drew another long breath, deeply and with determination, as if it had been a lifetime since I had air to breathe. I felt powerful, recharged, spirited. I felt the ground, not against my face where it should have been, but under me, behind me. I was lying on my back. I curled my fingers and dug them deep into the dirt, feeling the soil, the texture of it, the dampness. It wasn’t mud.
A glow flourished against my closed eyes, reddening my lids. It grew brighter until I was forced to shield myself from the light. I casually, cautiously, opened my eyes and looked up. My vision was unfocused. A tree loomed over me, blocking out the force of the sun. The radiance twinkled through branches swaying slightly in the breeze.
My mind was flooded with imaginings. Somehow, amidst the enigma, I knew where I was. It was a promise He gave me. A reliable and trustworthy vow. I shivered at the thought. Was I the first? Was this my own body? How long had I been gone? What happened to my brothers? To Isaac? How did it all end?
“You must have a lot of questions,” a male voice whispered from somewhere out of sight.
I startled and sat up. “Do you read minds in paradise?” I jested, my own voice hoarse and broken and barely audible.
“Now that would be handy,” the man said, as he approached. My eyes were still hazy, and I hadn’t seen him leaning against the tree. He draped a blanket over my shoulders from behind and I realized I must have been naked. “So you are aware,” the man continued. “I knew you would be. Makes my job of educating you quite a bit easier.” He was old, I could see as much. His hair was grey, but he stood tall and robust.
I wrapped the thick blanket around myself and attempted to stand. I found my legs strong and capable. I looked around, taking in the setting, and my heart lept at the sight. The sky was blue again. It had been the colour of blood the last time I looked upon it. The blueness sent a wave of peace through me. In the distance on all sides were rolling hills and outcrops of trees hustled together. The field I was in was lush and green and grassed all over, except for the patch of earth where I had been. There it was soil, fine and deep brown, turned and soft. My vision was clearing. I rubbed my eyes awake and took a few steps to try out my new legs. At the base of the tree, there was a chair. It was simple and wooden, and on it sat a lute bag.
“Your garments,” the man said, when he saw me looking at them.
“I don’t suppose there’s any food in it?” I asked.
He gestured me towards the bag, and I went for it eagerly. The man watched me intently as I took out a heel of crusty bread and tore it apart.
“My name is… ”
“I know who you are, brother,” the man said.
I looked at him then, really seeing him for the first time. His smile, that nose, those unmistakeable eyes. I tried to swallow down the tears. “Isaac?”
***
About The Author:
James is a full-time student from Western Australia. He does too much daydreaming when he should be studying, and too much writing when he should be socialising (with real people). His genre of affection is fantasy, and mainly writes it, to the dismay of his mother. He writes for his friends and family, and sometimes for fame and glory. He also feels comfortable writing about himself in the third person.
Find out more information at http://jsoph.blogspot.com/
###
The Art of Breathing
by Jaime McDougall
©Jaime McDougall 2011
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
All Tyler had to do was keep breathing. Breathing was essential. Even breathing would bring calm, stabilize his temperature, and keep him thinking clearly.
He struggled to remember what he had learned to fight off panic attacks.
One, look at your surroundings and name everything.
He looked around and began to name. Door. Window. Moon through the window. Dresser. Closet. Desk. Computer. Chair. Little table. Lamp. Bed.
Two, establish where you are in the room in accordance to the things you listed.
The door was behind him and the closet behind him to his left. The large window was on the wall directly to his left and the desk was under that. The dresser was along the wall directly to his right, about three steps away. The bed and the little desk right next to it on the right were right in front of him. With three long strides, he would be at the foot of the bed.
Three, repeat for as long as necessary that you are not in danger.
He almost smiled at that one. No, he was not in danger. He was not in danger. He repeated the phrase in his head once for every step he took until he was at the side of the bed by the little table with the lamp. He looked at the lamp, its shade decorated with a design of purple lilacs and frilly lace all around the base of it. Turning toward the table, he got as close to it as possible and stared down in through the hole at the top of the shade at the light bulb. He continued to stare until his eyes watered and pained him.
Maybe. Maybe if he just couldn't see, then everything would go away. As a child he'd loved putting his hands over his eyes. If he couldn't see it, it wasn't there. Yet, when he looked back to the bed, everything remained the same, despite the large grey spot in his line of sight.
The grey slowly faded and still everything remained the same.
Bed. Blankets. Pillows. Adrianna. Light purple pillow stuffed thick with batting.
Swallowing hard, he took the pillow and examined it, the same lilac and lace pattern on the lamp echoed along the edge of the pillow. He stared at the pillow until he could calm his breathing enough to look back at the bed. At Adrianna. At his sister. His perfect, perfect sister.
He swallowed hard again, trying to stiffen his muscles so he wouldn't tremble. How... How could something happen to his beautiful, perfect sister? No one hated her. She was practically angelic, but not in a flaunty way that annoyed people. She was the embodiment of what a person should be. How could anything ever happen to her?
"How..." he whispered, staring down at her as his arms twitched with the effort of trying to stay still.
"How?" he asked of the room, loud enough to make Adrianna moan in her sleep. "Tyler did it."
Grinning, he relaxed his body and rested the pillow over her face, slowly adding more pressure...
***
About The Author:
Jaime McDougall is a citizen of the world, currently loving life in beautiful country Victoria in Australia. She loves eating sushi, kidnapping her husband and naming her pets in honour of science fiction authors. (So far, a cat named Asimov and a puppy named Brin.)
A love of fiction has always coursed through her veins and she told stories as a child even before she knew how to write them. Settling into one genre was never her style and she has plans for novels in women’s fiction, urban fantasy and more – all with a touch of romance.
She has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: High School: The Real Deal and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Campus Chronicles. She has also enjoyed writing a column called ‘The New Australian’ in local newspapers as well as various articles online.
Her fiction work and poetry has been published both online and off in places including The Oddville Press (no longer running) and The Filth zine.
So You Want to Write a Guest Post is her first ebook and is available on Kindle and at Smashwords.
Learn more about Jaime at: http://www.inkyblots.com
###
Soul Windows
by Jaleta Clegg
© Copyright Jaleta Clegg
Published in Abandoned Towers online 2009
"The eyes are windows to the soul." Blake's lips twitched in an ironic smile.
"Our philosopher." Talbot lifted his tiny cup of Turkish coffee in the air.
"Just what do you mean by that?" Jim asked, ignoring Talbot as he leaned farther over the tiny table.
Blake shifted his gaze to Jim, an older man studying the folly of youth.
Jim challenged him with his stare, daring him to answer, demanding treatment as an equal.
"Merely something I heard in the bazaar today." Blake turned his bland blue stare to the sinuous dancer weaving magic in the sultry night.
"Blake hears every last odd rumor spoken by the natives," Talbot said flippantly. "His real problem is he believes what they say. Been here too long, old chap." He pointed at Blake, who ignored him.
Jim shot him an annoyed look. "What if you truly could see into someone's soul? Would you?" Jim's intense gaze drew Blake's eyes back to the table.
"Lighten up, Jimmy boy." Talbot nudged the younger man with his elbow. "Have a drink." He poured more of the syrupy coffee into Jim's cup. "Heathens. No alcohol," he muttered with a sigh.
Blake ignored Talbot as he searched Jim's boyish face. "Would you want to see the darkness lurking in your own soul, or have it bared for another?"
"Nothing in my heart I'd be ashamed of." Jim thumped his chest with his fist.
"You're certain of that?"
Jim nodded, although a trickle of unease crept across his neck. It was as if Blake could almost read his mind, see his soul in the hot, heavily scented darkness.
"Load of toff, if you ask me, which neither of you chaps are doing." Talbot finished off his coffee and surged to his feet, his knees popping as he stood. "Sitting on the floor drinking that rubbish is for the birds. I'm off to beddy-bye."
Blake and Jim took little notice of Talbot's departure. The music throbbed around them, weaving a seductive spell, making magic possible in the deep violet night. The cloying smell of tropical blooms hung over the café. The dancer wove between tables, delicate scarves fluttering around her like the moths that swarmed the guttering candles.
"Not everyone hides evil, Blake. There are innocents in this world."
"Are there?" The ironic smile was back, Blake's blue eyes bland and unreadable.
"What of children?" Jim pushed, defensive now for reasons he did not wish to explore. "Or her?" He pointed at the dancer. Her face appeared young through the thin veil, the eyes wide and innocent as a doe's. "She can't be much older than my sister. What dark secrets lurk in her soul? I say none." Jim sat back, chin out in stubborn challenge.
"You would be surprised, I think," Blake said. "If you could look into her soul, would you take that chance?"
"It's all hypothetical, anyway. There is no way to look into someone's soul. Eyes are windows. Hogwash."
Blake merely smiled. One hand dipped into a pocket and produced a strangely worked pendant. It glittered slightly in the candle flame. Blake laid it on the table between them. "A charm from one of the wizards of the bazaar. It supposedly opens the windows of the eyes so that you can see into the soul."
"Rubbish," Jim said, but weakly, a protest of habit. "The wizards are all fakes."
"Then it won't hurt for you to try."
Jim reached out then hesitated. The music pulsed through him, drums beating and voices wailing. Like a heart beating secretly in the darkness, he thought. Strange things had happened since he forsook the boring security of life at home for the intrigue of foreign adventures. Blake had been here much longer. Blake was a believer in the strange. They often ribbed him about it in the barracks. But now, here, under the spell of music and perfumed flowers, in the flickering candlelight, suddenly it seemed not so much rubbish. Magic was suddenly possible and not at all friendly. Jim's hand hovered over the charm.
"Are you afraid?" Blake was gently mocking. "Maybe innocence is much more elusive than you think."
Jim grabbed up the charm, his hand clutching tightly to squeeze away doubt. "There are more innocents than you believe, Blake."
"Maybe, maybe not." Blake shook his head as if it didn't matter. "A word of caution. Once you have used the charm, you can never go back to who you were before."
"Meaning what?"
Blake shrugged. "The wizard who sold me the charm was quite the philosopher."
Jim turned the charm over in his hand. It was cheap, made of tin and ornamented with badly polished river stones, nothing more than a tawdry pendant resembling an eye. Curls of writing writhed around the outer edge. The letters twitched in the flickering light.
"Have you used it?" Jim asked, suddenly nervous. He wanted to drop it on the table, forget the whole conversation, but the thought of being mocked as a coward, afraid of charlatan wizardry, made him hold it tighter.
"I've seen enough of souls already," Blake answered.
"It's trash, utter nonsense, of course," Jim said, trying to sound brave.
"Of course," Blake murmured.
Jim looked up from the charm and found the dancer in front of him, kneeling gracefully at their table. The music took up a faster beat, a new performer wailing in the night air.
"I'll prove it doesn't work." His hand shook ever so slightly as he held the charm to the candle on the table.
"If you don't believe it will work, why are you afraid?" Blake's voice came from deeper darkness that masked his face as he leaned into the shadows of the night. His words took on eerie significance as they mingled with the throbbing wails of music. The flower perfume grew heavier, smothering the hot night air.
"There are innocents, Blake," Jim answered stubbornly.
Blake gave no further answer.
Jim squeezed the charm, daring it silently to work, to open the eyes of the dancer, windows to her soul.
The girl glanced up. Rings of kohl emphasized her soulful dark eyes.
Jim squeezed the charm, staring into the girl's liquid gaze. He smiled ruefully.
"It doesn't work, Blake."
The throbbing music turned to a chant that swarmed into his ears like bees. The charm in his hand buzzed angrily against his skin. The dancer knelt motionless, wide eyes sucking him in, drinking his soul. And giving him her soul in return.
He slipped into her mind, into her memories.
She crouched in an alley, fear hammering in her chest and constricting her throat. She was young, barely beyond childhood. She clutched her shawl, remembering the men's eyes, possessive and hungry. She had only walked to the market to fetch bread for supper. Mama warned her not to go alone or after dark, but she had only gone for bread. The men waited in the bazaar, stripping her with their hard eyes. She felt unclean. Tears leaked down her cheeks. She had done nothing, but she would be blamed. She only hoped the men would not follow her home. She pulled her shawl over her head, remembering too late the code of modesty that dictated fashion. She scuttled down the darkened streets, the bread clutched to her breast as a shield.
She sat in stunned silence. Her father had chosen a husband for her. She wanted to protest she was too young, that she loved another, but it would be a lie. She had been a woman for two years now, she was fourteen and old enough to marry the ancient friend of her father's. He was fat, smelled of stale sweat, nothing like her visions of a handsome young husband. She bit her lip, knowing to protest would only lead to beatings and charges of disobedience. She bowed her head, accepting her father's will. She had no other choice.
She crouched in the corner, sobbing quietly. Her husband had gone to drink with his friends. She was safe for a few hours. She moved slowly, bones aching from the most recent beating. She had done nothing to deserve his rage. It did not matter. He beat her whenever the mood took him. He forced his way to her bed whenever he pleased. She was his property, to do with as he pleased. She flinched as fabric rubbed over raw welts. New tears of pain and misery tracked her cheeks.
She cried out as pain rippled across her swollen belly. The new life within fought to free itself. She sobbed in fear as the cramps faded. She crawled through the straw of the stable, seeking comfort but finding none. The lone donkey blinked sleepily as it chewed its cud. She clawed her way up the half wall separating the donkey from the hay. Her fingers clutched wood as the pain came again, harder and stronger. She cried out, frightened and alone. She had no one to help, no one to soothe the pain tearing her in two. A flood of bloody fluid erupted from between her legs, staining her skirt. She sobbed in humiliation as the pain ebbed. She leaned on the railing, shoving sweat damp hair from her eyes. The pain struck again, stronger and deeper. She screamed as it tore her apart, again and again, until a limp infant lay on the straw between her feet. She crouched, tenderly wiping blood from the tiny face. The child, a male child, lay too still. No breath stirred his tiny lungs. She cradled his body and cried as blood pooled around her feet.
She danced in the night, weaving fantasies for men who used her and discarded her to wait, forgotten, until another night and another dance and another man. She held her pain inside, never letting it show. She showed her strength, sinuous and supple, in every moment of every dance, in every instance of abuse and neglect. She danced for the future of daughters yet unborn, that perhaps they would not live in shame and fear, that her daughters would laugh in sunlight and know happiness.
The spell broke. Blake slipped the dancer a coin.
She pulled her veil over her eyes, melting into the night.
Jim sat with tears running across his face, dripping unnoticed from his chin. The charm fell from his limp hand. Candlelight glittered over the magical runes.
"One less innocent soul," Blake said quietly as he closed his hand over the charm.
***
About The Author:
Jaleta Clegg loves to build worlds with words. She writes science fiction, silly horror, and dabbles in other genres. Find more information at www.jaletac.com.
###
I Didn't Know His Name
By Darcia Helle
© Copyright May 2011 Darcia Helle
The sky wept for the man about to be buried. Fat drops splattered and spread until the greedy earth sucked them in. The shower of tears added weight to the dirt, causing miniature mudslides in the growing hole.
I didn't cry for the man whose grave I was digging. I didn't know him. The man could have been a wealthy philanthropist, donating millions to help eradicate world hunger. Or he could have been a pedophile. As with most people, he probably spent his life in the middle of these two extremes. He'd be known by many, truly missed by only a few.
I stuck my shovel into the wet dirt. The metal clanged against something hard and I spent several minutes digging out a baseball-sized chunk of rock. The cool rain dripped down the back of my lightweight jacket, raising goose bumps on my flesh. Despite the chill, sweat sprang from my forehead and armpits. I'd been digging for twenty minutes and had barely made a dent in the ancient land.
Mud sucked at my sneakers. I stepped back from the hole and wiped the rain from my eyes. This would be the man's final resting place. He'd be watched over by the crowd of trees and the animals and insects that made this space their home. The earth would slowly reclaim him; the ultimate form of recycling.
I didn't know the man's name. Names were nothing more than labels attached to us at birth. We could just as easily be assigned serial numbers.
The rain eased to a slow sprinkle. I stuck my shovel back in the ground, came up with a pile of fresh earth. I set it beside the hole, went back in for more. Lift and dump. Lift and dump. A mindless activity, perhaps, though I found it profoundly stimulating. I had chosen this place, beneath these trees, and intended to treat this final resting place with the respect it deserved.
I didn't know his name, this man whose grave I was digging. I didn't know when he'd come into the world or how he'd lived his life. I would know the intimate details of his last moments. I would know where he'd been laid to rest.
How we lived wasn't as important as how we died.
My shirt clung to me, wet with both sweat and rain. I lifted another shovelful of dirt, added it to the pile. The clouds rolled and divided. A slice of blue sky brought a glimpse of the sun. It had come to say a final goodbye.
A tree root impeded my progress. I worked diligently, breaking it with the blade of my shovel, dissecting it to allow space for the body that would rest here.
I didn't know the man's name. Anthony or Andrew, Thomas or Timothy. The name didn't matter, though I would like the intimacy that one provided. I could give him a name, Christen him anew on this day, in this place where he'd come to the end of his journey.
I dwelled on this momentarily as I dug. No, I thought, as I uncovered another large rock. Names came with baggage. Identities bound us to who we'd been, the person others had come to know and expected us to be. Names created portraits, with colors and symbols, distinctions and associations. We grew to look like the name and the name grew to define us.
This man, whose final resting place I now dug, would remain anonymous to me. He would leave the world the way he came, a clean slate in which the portrait could be anything of his making. No boundaries to define his life or his death.
An hour into the digging and I was halfway there. New England dirt could be difficult, challenging, relentless in its struggle to remain intact. The earth here was never eager to give up its depths. That quality made it all the more perfect for its intended use.
Many would say that what I do holds no value. Digging a hole, moving earth from one place to another then back again. Many would scoff, call what I do menial labor. We have machines now to do most everything for us. We need not strain ourselves unnecessarily, whether that strain be physical or intellectual.
I vehemently disagree, as you might suspect. Digging a hole is not simply about creating an empty pocket within the earth. The process brings me to a place of solitude. The dirt beneath my fingernails, clinging to my skin. The rich, intoxicating odors of freshly bloomed flowers and long buried sediment.
Birth and death rarely meet.
The spot of final rest is never a random choice. I do not spin my shovel and dig where the blade points. I take my work seriously and cannot leave such things to chance.
While conception is often a random, thoughtless moment in time, death can never be. To start a complicated life or a simple story requires little. You see, no one would know the difference, whether you'd done it right or wrong or not at all. That thing, the life or the story, did not exist before you chose to bring it about.
Perhaps your child or your story was conceived by accident. The conception, that brief moment, is rarely remembered and matters not. The life lived, the story told, become the focus.
Death, however, destroys that which exists. The moment takes something away and gives nothing back. That end, whether it be a slow fizzle or a grand explosion, can overshadow all else. Death becomes the defining moment of the life lived.
I didn't know his name, this man whose final resting place I'd finished digging. The rain had ended and the sun now worked to dry the dampness left behind. Drops of water slipped from the leaves above. The sound became like a thousand tiny fairies performing a farewell tap dance.
The time had come for earth and man to meet. I looked over now, at the man I'd left tied to the tree. His frantic squirming over the past two hours had caused the ropes to dig into his flesh. Blood trickled from the raw wounds. The gag forced his tongue to remain still. I did not know this man's name and I didn't want him to say it aloud.
I untied the ropes, releasing the man from the tree. The binds on his ankles and wrists remained. I bent at the knees and hoisted him up. He wasn't overly heavy but I was tired from two hours of digging. The strain of lifting him made my legs tremble.
I walked him to the hole. His eyes locked on mine. I saw his story there, details of a life lived, as he pleaded with those eyes. But I didn't want to know those details.
Down on my knees, I lowered him into the hole. A puddle had formed there at the bottom and he shivered at the chill. I picked up my shovel and tossed the first pile of dirt over his legs. He squirmed and twisted. I stuck my shovel in the mound of dirt. Lift and dump. Lift and dump.
I saved his face for last. The weight of the soil kept him still now, though his head rolled back and forth. Fighting till the end. I looked into his eyes and absorbed those last moments. An entire life condensed into this brief exchange.
The dirt splashed over his face. He sputtered, spit at the dark loam. Then he was gone. I continued on, lifting and dumping the earth. His hands, bound together, pushed through the mound and clawed for freedom one last time.
I didn't know his name, this man whose final resting place I had chosen. In the end, his name hadn't mattered. They never did.
***
About The Author:
Darcia Helle writes because the characters trespassing through her mind leave her no alternative. She has published seven novels and has several short stories floating around cyberspace. You can learn more about Darcia and her writing on her website: http://www.QuietFuryBooks.com
###
Red Route
by James Everington
© Copyright 2011 James Everington
Another of the signs went by outside, and Eliot tried to resist looking at the death count – but wasn’t that number one higher than last time?
Annoyed with himself he looked back at the road ahead. Much safer - the signs themselves were a distraction, Eliot thought; more tax payer’s money wasted. The road was designated a ‘Red Route’, deemed especially dangerous, and regularly spaced signs showed monthly death figures, for this year and last. This year’s figure was higher, already.
On average one person a day – Eliot could see why the road was considered dangerous, for those who didn’t know it as well as he: the route cut through the flat Lincolnshire countryside, but unlike the Roman-straight Fosse to the north, this road curled and snaked its way around the landscape – the signs lining its sides were written in a continuous language of zigzags, exclamation marks, and suicidal pedestrians, not to mention the ubiquitous casualty stats. And it was single carriageway all along, encouraging blind overtakings, and it ran east/west, so the sun was always in somebody’s eyes.
Eliot was heading west, although through the bright fog of tiredness he was finding it hard to remember the route more than three junctions ahead. He didn’t know why he felt so fatigued, he was used to the driving, but he felt curiously light-headed, not able to concentrate, not quite present. Outside, the flat countryside stretched for miles, and despite how far the eye could see the land seemed empty too, devoid of anything for the eye to catch hold of except the stubby hedges, the arrangements of the fields, squat churches. It was summer and so sunset was slow, and Eliot found himself looking forward to the darkness that would smother the oddly desolate views around him. Only the road seemed alive, insistent, twisting itself into curious bends and curves.
Eliot sighed for what felt like the thousandth time as he approached a car dawdling in front – tourists, no doubt, meandering back from the coast. Eliot didn’t slow down but sped up – after here there wasn’t another overtaking opportunity for miles. Best to go for it, to get it over quickly. He pulled out as he was thinking about whether to do it, and the white car he was overtaking seemed to speed up, as if chastened. Idiots, he thought as he passed, glancing left at them – two old dears, both looking half-dead, the old man gripping the wheel as if he daren’t let go, the old woman’s head slung back, asleep?
When Eliot looked back at the road there was a car coming straight at him, lights on even in the dusk-light, blazing. Eliot screamed as it filled his vision - he flung his hands up in front of his face, and futilely shut his eyes.
He opened them – nothing had happened to him, and the road ahead was clear. Shaken, he pulled back into his own lane, slowed to a speed less than that of the car he had overtaken. Was he so tired that he was hallucinating? He could picture the car coming towards him, how in that last second it has looked like it was made of light... Another of the Red Route signs went past and he felt angry – it was those ghoulish signs that had unnerved him! They didn’t make him feel more cautious, but more fatalistic – one a day and it was dumb luck whether it would be you, years of experience and knowledge of these roads notwithstanding.
God, I can’t wait to get home, Eliot thought, with only a slight mental pause before the last word. Get me home. The comforts of his destination seemed hard to visualise, for he had been on the road all day. His limbs ached and there was a tight belt of pain across his chest. I just want to lie down in the dark, he thought, as outside the cat’s eyes lit up in his lights. It was that time of evening when the sun was so low that it seemed brighter than at midday. And there was nothing in the flat landscape to impede its glare – no wonder people have accidents here, Eliot thought, your eye is drawn outwards, looking for some elevation, some landmark to let you know that you’re not somehow still where you were ten minutes ago.
The white car behind him had switched on its headlights too now, shining in his rear-view – the old man who was the driver was nudging forward impatiently. Eliot refused to speed up for them. His near accident, or hallucination, or whatever in hell it had been, had left him even more tense. He went past a junction with a minor road, going god knew where in this countryside, and mentally ticked it off his list – past that left turning, then past a right turning a few miles later, also leading to Nowhere, then the crossroads... He couldn’t follow the route home any further than that without losing track. But he knew this road; he would remember when he got there.
Feeling more confident again, Eliot sped up so as to lose the bag of bones driving behind him; but the white car behind kept pace. Someone has got a bit of blood in them after all, he thought, and he looked in his mirrors expecting to see the weak eyes of the other driver peering over his steering wheel. But all he could see was that damn light, sunlight and headlights both, glinting and reflecting across the whole of the vehicle, and his car too. At least dip them you old fool, Eliot thought.
The sun was equally as blinding to the front, but he still saw the red numbers as he passed them – one a day, he thought, is it really so much as that, for a single stretch of road? Three hundred and sixty-five ghosts a year added to the tally; this road must be thick with them, if only you could see them. Maybe those lights, he thought, that you think are gnats and flies in the dusk, are really the pinpricks of all the souls that died here... – Eliot wasn’t normally given to such brooding, but it made sense. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be those who died suddenly, with deeds undone, their life’s tasks incomplete? And which deaths were more untimely than those that happened at seventy miles an hour: one second routine, hand drumming along to the stereo maybe; the next your body slammed to a stop with all the bloody energy you had thought you were in control of?
What deeds have I left undone? Eliot thought. If it should be me today, then what... But there was a myriad of things, he thought, not the horror-tale hokum of a secret untold or a will unsigned, but the normal stuff of existence left undone at the tail-end of a tired day. But then everyone, he thought...
He was distracted when the car being driven by the old man made a move to overtake him. They were about half a mile from the next right turning. What in hell is he doing? Eliot thought – he knew there were two tight bends before the junction. He slowed down, but when the white car pulled level it too slowed down to match, so that the two cars moved in parallel. Although they were side by side Eliot still felt dazzled by the lights of the white car; he still had to blink when he looked to his right to see what the hell...
He met the eyes of the old lady in the passenger seat, and they were dead. Open, certainly; malevolent, maybe, but obviously dead, as was the slack-jawed hang of her denture-less mouth, the crazy twist of her neck. She both blazed with light and was translucent – through her he could see the old man, arms stretched for the wheel, rictus grin tight on the bloody oval of his face.
Eliot slammed on the brake, and felt his body lunge forward sickeningly before the seat-belt bit. He didn’t slow to a full stop, but almost stalled, his hand automatically reaching to the gearstick to prevent this as his eyes followed the path of the bright car in front of him, still in the wrong lane and heading towards the tight corner. The light of the car was white, in contrast to the bloody glow of the low sun, squashing itself flat against the land. There was a screeching sound, whether of brakes real or remembered Eliot couldn’t be sure, and the car that he was watching jerked to a hideous and total stop, as if it crashed into something, although nothing could be seen. It crumpled as if the impact was real too, and as it did so the light that lit it from within faded, and with it the vision of the car itself.
He slammed his foot on the accelerator now, desperate to be away, to reach... home. He took the first bend at great speed but on the correct side of the road. At the point where the white car appeared to have hit something unseen, he could see nothing other than very faded skid marks. There, he thought, that’s where they died and what I saw was... The sharp turn of the next bend took all his concentration to manoeuvre around, and all he could think of was the crossroads ahead. A car passed in the opposite direction, a reassuringly normal looking estate with no ghost light to it, and the driver didn’t even seem to notice Eliot’s mad speed as he passed.
Tiredness Kills! a sign hectored Eliot as he drove, and then the inevitable Red Route sign – despite his panic he still looked at the number of deaths as he passed. “Fuck,” he said quietly to himself, forcing himself to slow down to the speed limit. You’re just tired, he thought, taking his cue from the other sign. It was all just a hallucination. He just had to get to his destination, straight on at the crossroads that were coming up – straight on, he could remember that now, if nothing else. Straight on, and there was no point in stopping for those pissing little roads to the left and right that lead nowhere, and from which no one ever emerged. He knew this road. God my chest hurts, he thought; but then it had done all day.
He passed the sign that announced the crossroads but he didn’t slow down. Someone had scrawled something on the sign, even all the way out here, but he couldn’t see what the graffiti said. The whole of the road now seemed lit up as if he was driving straight into the half-submerged sun; the red glow and the white of his own lights. He slowed very slightly as he approached the junction, but then accelerated again, for he could see in this flat and horrible countryside that nothing was approaching from either of the dead-end village turnoffs...
But then something was, a blaze stronger than mere headlights coming for and engulfing him from the left, and all at once the answers to many things – why his chest had seemed to hurt all day even before the seatbelt had locked; why the last car he had passed had seemed not to see him; why he had been unable to remember anything beyond this junction – became clear to Eliot. But not the why, the unfinished deed, for in fact Eliot could remember very little about his life... He screamed as he remembered screaming, as the bright car hit him from the side and the world turned and toppled in the blood-red sunset. This is where, he had time to think; then that light too went out.
Another of the Red Route signs went by outside, and Eliot tried to resist looking again at the death count – but wasn’t that number one higher than last time?
Annoyed with himself, he looked back at the road ahead.
***
About The Author:
James Everington was born in 1976 in Nottingham, England. After writing somewhat dark fiction for a number of years, he feels it is time to send some of them out into the light... His collection of dark and surreal horror fiction 'The Other Room' (from which Red Route is taken) is available on Kindle now.
Connect with James at: http://www.jameseverington.blogspot.com/
###
Make a Wish
by Susan Helene Gottfried
© Copyright 2011 Susan Helene Gottfried
Mitchell shifted from foot to foot and stared up at the ceiling. It didn't matter that he'd gotten used to hospitals, thanks to Amy. He still hated the places for anything more than a quick in and out to visit her and then free.
Today was nothing like that. Not even close. This was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done. And one of the most rewarding, too.
"He's really quite fond of you," the woman -- her name was Kristie, Mitchell thought -- said. She put a hand on his arm, cautiously, like she expected him to slap it away.
If this hadn't been a public appearance, Mitchell might have smiled at her to help her relax. No go, though. The world knew him as a grouch and he had no problem maintaining that impression, even now when a smile would make him a friend for life. But this was a public appearance, and he was being touched by someone he didn't particularly know. Reaching into the crowd for hand slaps during a show was one thing. Strangers putting their hands on him like they owned him was another.
He wrote it off as a job hazard. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't such a big one.
They paused outside the hospital room. The photographer bent to mess with his camera. Mitchell took a deep breath. "Now remember..." Kristie said.
"He's sick. I get it. I've seen sick people before."
"No," Kristie said, putting her hand on his arm again. Her fingers dug in the slightest bit, making Mitchell start. "He's not just sick. He's dying. If I could have gotten you out here two months ago, before he took this downturn, you'd have been visiting a sick kid."
Mitchell pulled back, instantly angry. "No one said a damn thing about this to me until last week. You mean you tried and someone on my end thought this kid wasn't important?"
She paled, the lines of her makeup suddenly obvious. "No! It was us. We thought we had more time. We..." She licked her lips and glanced around, then slowly met Mitchell's eyes. "We thought we had more time."
Mitchell felt a pang of sympathy. "My sister's a doctor," he said. "I get it."
"Okay," Kristie said, snapping into her role as event director -- or whatever it was. Mitchell didn't pay much attention to titles. "His parents are in there with him, so if he's asleep, let them wake him. Then you can pose for pictures, I'll have the photographer leave, and you can spend a few more minutes with him. I'm afraid that's all he can handle right now," she added with a watery smile.
"We'll play it by ear," Mitchell said.
"We can't alter the plan," Kristie said.
Mitchell wished he could growl at her and tell her they damn well would alter the plan if that's what the kid needed them to do. The world worked well because of rules. Mitchell got that. What he didn't get was why people couldn't wise up and roll with things. This was about the kid, not about making sure it got done right -- whatever that meant. As far as the kid was concerned, just seeing his hero beside his bed would make the whole thing perfect.
He shoved past Kristie and stuck his head through the door. Behind him, he could feel the photographer pressing against his back, wanting to capture the instant when the patient saw the rock star. Kristie didn't make a sound; Mitchell wondered if she'd expected him to take charge.
Like she had predicted, the boy was asleep. The parents' eyes widened; the dad got up.
The guy looked like he hadn't slept in a week. So did the mom. At least they'd showered recently and had clearly put on nice clothes for him. He wanted to tell the mom to take her jacket off; a mother keeping vigil by her son's bedside should be comfortable. He was the one who needed to impress, not her.
Mitchell stepped into the room and shook the dad's hand. He introduced himself and welcomed Mitchell.
"Mitch," the boy's mom said softly as Kristie and the photographer slipped into the room. They whispered, probably about how dark the room was and how that would mean they'd have to use flash. Mitchell wished the photographer wasn't there. There was something tranquil about the dark room and the quiet people in it.
The dad turned on the lights. The kid barely stirred. Mitchell blinked, hoping the photographer wasn't shooting yet. Nothing like being caught wincing at the light.
"Mitch," the mom tried again. She took her son's hand, her face a mixture of pain, grief, and disappointment. Mitchell wasn't sure, but maybe there was some failure mixed in.
"Let me," he said, stepping up behind the mom. He put a hand carefully on her shoulder.
She edged her chair closer to the wall.
He made himself give her shoulder a friendly squeeze. "Hey, Mitch," he growled in his best stage voice. "Wake the fuck up and say hello. What sort of rude pussy do you think you're being?"
The mom drew in her breath. Mitchell heard the dad take a step closer.
But it worked. The kid opened his eyes, looking first at his mom. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
"Hey," Mitchell said, not bothering to try to hide a smile. "Over here. You've got a visitor." He could see how weak the kid was, that this visit was too late to do much good. He wouldn't be able to do much more than slip away with a dream fulfilled. If he even got to savor it, it'd be a miracle.
"Wow," the kid breathed. Mitchell had to lean in to hear him, getting too close to pretend he didn't see the sunken and darkened eyes, the too-prominent cheekbones. The kid smelled, too. Like medicine, like hospitals. Like death was near.
He'd read about that. Never thought it was real.
"Hi," Mitchell said, pulling away a fraction. "I heard you think I'm cool. Came to see for myself."
The kid glowed. Literally glowed. It started with those horribly sunken eyes; Mitchell saw hope come back into them. It spread from there until even his skin lit up with the unexpected surprise. "You came," the kid said. "I kept asking and no one answered."
"They were busy talking to me," Mitchell said, glancing up at the photographer, who was shooting away. "Trying to work out my schedule. I'm glad I did," he added as the kid pushed at his covers. He wore a ShapeShifter t-shirt. Mitchell told him it was a good one. "They're all good. Know why?"
The kid shook his head, his eyes lolling closed.
"I won't approve anything lame. Every single design for a shirt comes to me. If I don't like it, it doesn't go up for sale. I brought you a whole bunch of new ones, too. A couple aren't even for sale yet."
"I won't wear anything else," the kid said. "I told Mom and Dad..." he licked his lips. His eyes shifted, finding his parents. The mom sat forward with a cup. Mitchell took it from her and held it for the kid, steadying the straw with two fingers. He didn't need to hear the end of the sentence to understand it.
Kristie had been right. He was too late. The kid was ready.
Mitchell's hand shook as he handed the water to the mom. She took it from him, covering his hand with her free one. Their eyes met; Mitchell felt like an entire conversation took place in that one glance. The dashed hopes for her son, the pain of having to watch this happen, the uncertainty of how to go forward from here.
Mitchell had seen many wounded people in his years with ShapeShifter. But he'd never been right there with the pain as it was fresh and happening.
Mitch reached up. "Can I shake your hand?"
Mitchell took the hand. The papery skin, the feel of those bones, the knowledge that if he squeezed too hard, he'd make the kid's hand about as thick around as a guitar string. There was nothing left of it. The bones felt ready to turn to powder.
The flesh on Mitchell's back rippled. His throat, his golden throat, tightened up.
"I know," the boy sighed. "You look at me and you see what's coming. I won't look in the mirror anymore. Know how hard it is to brush your teeth without a mirror?"
That was enough to loosen Mitchell's throat. "Yep," he said with a grin. He pointed at the bed, wordlessly asking permission to sit.
The boy nodded and shifted. Mitchell had no doubt that if the kid had the strength, he'd have moved over.
Mitchell tried to be careful, but Mitch winced. The mom gasped as if her son's pain was her own. The dad closed his eyes briefly, as if praying for strength.
The photographer moved in closer. Mitchell turned to the boy. "Of course, when you have dorks like this following you around, you damn well better make friends with mirrors. Feel like posing for him? Maybe he'll go away?"
The kid winced again. "Not really."
Mitchell waved at the photographer. "Okay, then. We'll go with what he's gotten so far."
"But..." the photographer started to sputter. Mitchell cut him off with a glare.
"I don't care about the--" he cut himself off, reminding himself that he was there with a mom and a dying kid. "I don't care about the plan. We honor Mitch here, and if he's not up for more pictures, then you're done."
The boy smiled.
The photographer slowly moved his camera to his side. "You're right. I'm sure we've gotten enough."
"If not," Mitchell said, winking at the boy, "there's always photoshop."
Mitch giggled. The photographer apologized again and went to stand beside Kristie. Mitchell had forgotten she was there.
She made a motion to him to wrap it up. Mitchell looked down at his not-really namesake. The kid was fading.
"I gotta go," Mitchell said, getting ready to stand up.
"Stay until I fall asleep," the boy said, reaching for Mitchell's arm.
This hand on his arm, Mitchell decided, was okay. He looked over at the boy's parents for guidance.
They nodded, small, hopeful smiles dancing on their lips.
"Only until you fall asleep," Mitchell said. He took the boy's hand off his arm and held it, instead. He could feel his own warmth radiating through it.
Mitch sighed and let his eyes shut. Just when Mitchell thought the boy had slipped into a dream, he opened his eyes. "From now on, call me Mitchell," he said.
Mitchell Voss, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of ShapeShifter, a band who liked to tell the world to fuck off, pretended he didn't see the parents of a very sick little boy smile through their tears.
***
About The Author:
A tone-deaf rocker-at-heart, Susan Helene Gottfried worked in retail record stores, in radio stations, as stage crew, and as a promoter while earning two college degrees in creative writing. You can find Susan rocking and writing on her website: http://www.WestofMars.com
###
The Last Chance Motel and Mausoleum
by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick
Copyright © 2011 Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick
It's just not possible to tell this story without profanity, so yes, there is profanity. When the story is about a place called Shit-Struck…you're just already there and have to deal with it. The thing about Shit-Struck was that everyone who was there, they wanted out. Andie Jo could tell it was getting worse, because she'd been counting the pass-ons. There were seven now in the last year. That's good business in a small town when you get one a month.
When everyone in town wants out of town, you've got a problem town. When people arrange their demise so they could finally leave, you must be talking about Shit-Struck. It didn't start out that way - whenever that was – when someone decided a town needed to be where this one was. No one could even remember why the town was there in the first place.
There were man-made hills of tailings about a half mile east from town. They kept the sunrise from being real, for thirty whole minutes later in town than for the folks on the other side of those hills. Andie Jo had a plan for stuff like that extra, unused dirt, but her best plan had just come to her as she was thinking of the first plan.
Shearstuck, California may have had something to do with the uranium mining back in the Fifties, but no one was really sure anymore. It only had ten good years behind itself, when something went wrong with the money and the place began to become what it became. Surrounded by dusty government land, most of which had abusive warning signs posted on every dirt trail, Shearstuck seemed to turn into dust itself. Lots of years later the tired locals were drinking late at the Bar one morning, and one of the smartest called the place Shit-Struck and…well, it stuck.
Situated stupidly, it was only a few miles off the interstate, but there had been no direct exit made to the town. You could see the lights at night, but if you happened to run out of gas, it was a painful walk through scrub and gullies to get to the only filling station in town. Interstate motorists always complained how far they had to drive, just to get gas, and why didn’t someone put a truck stop out on the highway? Locals accepted the complaints, and the cash, and never had an answer for the question.
Andie Jo had a wicked story to tell, when someone would ask what a girl like her was doing there. But she didn't get anything of such questions from the regulars anymore; they happily purchased her beer, but they were all wary of her.
She loved dirt. She liked to do things with dirt. Shit-Struck had an abundance of it.
People said just talking to Andie Jo could mess them up a bit, and she liked that - but she didn't like they thought she was weird - when the subject was her interest in dirt. There were a lot of things one could do with dirt and her current thing was called the Reptilliarium. It amounted to nearly a dozen big stock tanks that she had pulled out of town from the bankrupt lumber yard. The road still had the gouges in the pavement; people teased her that she could have rolled them all out and spared some bumps for everyone else. She never even smiled with them at that.
But, she had the tanks all buried to their rims in the back of the Bar, all fenced in like they were precious. Each one held a handful of the biggest and nastiest snakes anyone could imagine, or look at for a dollar. Didn't rain enough to worry about the tanks filling up and the snakes getting out, but they were filled in a bit with dirt to give the snakes something natural to slide round on. Andie Jo fed them road kill mostly, and sometimes she hunted rats for them with a pistol, in back of the Bar, when the road kill was scarce. But the Reptilliarium was only a good idea to her, and not her first. Her best idea was going to change her life, and it wouldn't even let her escape Shit-Struck.
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