Issue 2
October 2024
Genre Society
The
The Genre Society
Issue 2 October 2024 Published by Whitney Mcclelland Cover art "Ghost in the Window" created by Tytti Heikkinen
Image Credit: KELLEPICS from pixabay, Josue Velasquez from Pexels, PhotoVision from pixabay, Pezibear from pixabay
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The content provided in The Genre Society is intended for literary and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed in the articles, stories, poems, and other content are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Genre Society, its editors, or its staff. All stories, poems, and other creative works published in The Genre Society are works of fiction unless explicitly stated otherwise. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the authors' imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All content published in The Genre Society is the intellectual property of the respective authors. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The Genre Society and the respective authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. The Genre Society assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of the magazine. The information contained in the magazine is provided on an "as is" basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness, or timeliness. The Genre Society reserves the right to update or change this disclaimer at any time without prior notice. Any changes will be effective immediately upon posting to the website or magazine. For any questions about this disclaimer or the content in The Genre Society, please contact us at submissions@thegenresociety.com or visit www.thegenresociety.com. All images obtained via Unsplash. Magazine designed and published through Marq.
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Table of Contents
I'd like to think that skeleton, hanging out by a fire in this spooky season embodies the vibe I hope this magazine brings as you read it. This is the first issue featuring outside submissions from Duotrope. This is where we will be reading and assessing submissions from now on. I have read so much amazingly creative genre fiction while combing through sumbissions to curate this issue and I can't wait to read more for our January Issue! As this little magazine grows, I am excited to see how it evolves into a place for writers to submit and read weird and wacky stories. I hope to create a space for unread and undiscovered genre writers to thrive and make a name for themselves. But most of all, I am pleased to have you, precious reader, along for the ride. Please enjoy these spooky stories as you gear up for Halloween. After the holiday, send me some wintery genre tales and poetry . The next issue will debute after the New Year. Lastly, I would love to have more visual art submitted and used to decorate this magazine. This issues's cover was a submission and I am so please to feautre unique work (rather than stock images). Thank you again for reading and enjoy, Genre Lovers, -Whitney McClelland Editor and Publisher
by author
Letter From the Editor ....................................................................................................................................... 5 Poetry You are the poem I wish I could write.................................................................................................................. 6 Ela Begüm Kumcuoglu Duality .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 The Morning After................................................................................................................................................. 8 Bad Romance ....................................................................................................................................................... 8 LindaAnn LoSchiavo Interspersing Love Levels ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Rhythmic Connection ......................................................................................................................................... 10 External Epilogue ............................................................................................................................................... 10 R. Gerry Fabian Fiction Win-a-Burger ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 Glenn Dungan Child in the Garden ........................................................................................................................................... 19 Kenneth D. Reimer Out of Sight........................................................................................................................................................ 27 Paul W. La Bella Insecticidal ........................................................................................................................................................ 36 Thomas J. Misuraca The Beckoning Inferno ...................................................................................................................................... 41 Josepeh J. Dowling
Greetings Genre Lovers!
Letter from the Editor
Poetry by LindaAnn LoSchiavo
You are a path of grapes/the tender rump of a plumb/the universe crushed under my feet/the eyelashes I wish on/a whittled stem from the strawberries I wanted to grow at seven/the years flattened and rounded to my tongue/ the poem I wish I could write I wish I could be as small as a [dragonfly] to sit on the tip of your nose and listen to your stories, feel your {breath} t i c k l e my wings. I want to be where the sun sk ips the sky and settles instead in the pits of your eyes. I want to be the [dovetail] that fli ts then writes the winds o f f, because . You are the [poem I wish I could write]. You are a [path of grapes] leading back to spring. You are winter, again and again. You are the pink tears of wine after a long month. You are the {tender rump of a plumb}. You are the plum-purple of [the universe crushed under my feet]. You are F allen like [the eyelashes I wish on]. You are a whittled stem from the {strawberries} I wanted to grow at seven, the roots that anchor through the snow; you are [the years flattened and rounded] to the curvature of my tongue. You are the moon And I own the tides, and I will flit wane and wax as you do forever, hoping to become you. Ela Begüm Kumcuoglu is a student based in London. She is originally from Türkiye . Her hobbies include ballet, theatre, and karate, and she is a member of National Youth Theatre. She will be published later in this year in the 'Wildscape Literary Journal' and 'Obsessed With Pipework Literary Journal'.
Duality Tableaus of boyhood — usually sun- Filled moments —don’t include betrayals yet. My body, lean and lithe, enjoyed moonbeams’ Hypnotic kisses on the windowsills That honeyed me to sleep, revealing dream’s Chaotic circus — wolf howls beckoning. My bed-time story: Aesop’s House-dog said, "Ah, Cousin, your irregular life will Soon be the ruin of you!" Gaunt Wolf then saw A collar, liberty chained, strangled, gone. The curse condemned me, collared my freedom, Its brooding eye eradicating will, The power of familiarity, Split me like a tree grown heavy from living. I’d grown attached to my normality. Now a curse is my custodian. Full moons Personify nights a reluctant Wolf Awakens, throat-dark emotions unleashed.
by Ela Begüm Kumcuoglu
Native New Yorker. Elgin Award winner. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Ippy, Firecracker, etc. Member: BFS, HWA, SFPA, Dramatists Guild. Books published in 2024: "Apprenticed to the Night," "Felones de Se: Suicide Poems," and "Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems." https://VampireVenturesPoems.com
Poetry by R. Gerry Fabian
The Morning After "The kill of the wolf is the meat of the wolf:/ he may do what he will." —"Wolf Centos" by Simone Muench The morning after, he’s aware of red, Five knuckles glazed with dried blood — probably That fellow jogging. Bald. Imagine that. Exhaling, savagery is shorn of fuss. His heart no longer throbbing, extra teeth Absorbed by his accommodating jaw, Damp chest hair curling normally In sweaty alphabets, he stands upright, Embalming the night’s pleasures, shame withheld — As all shape-shifters must react. Regrets Rest with the moon, whose puppet he’s become.
R. Gerry Fabian is a published writer and poet from Doylestown, PA. He has published five books of poetry: Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, Wildflower Women as well as his poetry baseball book, Ball On The Mound.
Interspersing Love Levels A silent shadow with wistful whispers; a meandering moment breaking beyond a boundary; a potent promise signaling special segments; trusting tamed truancy with emboldened ecstasy; bequeathed blue bonding with silver circle pledges confirmed within wording that eliminates delayed dour doubt.
Bad Romance "Remember this, Dr. Glendon. The werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best." —"Werewolf of London" (1935) screenplay by John Colton Was I predestined to become involved? His eyes held death’s unswerving gaze. I swore I’d never open my door to a wolf Again, to self-inflicted suffering, Naively trying to find beauty there. How many times must I tell him to go? His life of teeth, excuses, savagery . . . Outrageous alibis? Or huff-puff boasts? Yes, I was curious. But our romance Replayed a broken record stuck on blame. When other women’s blood smeared our bedsheets, Their stains became one accusing finger. His eyes held lies. Their color changed from gray As granite tombstones to surreal citrine, Revealing unrelenting appetite. Who said, "A werewolf kills the one he loves"? One bite one night –unburied menace howls. Fangs sleep. Hush. None of that has happened yet.
Rhythmic Connection My friends warn me that you’re a dime-dancing woman. I’m okay with that. I like holding you as we interpret the music with sway, dip and swing. I like that way you move into me and shy away with skirt flowing, straightening and false flouncing. I like the sensuality of our feet as they follow the foreplay of bass and drums and most of all I like the beads of perspiration that develop across your forehead and swash into the air. External Epilogue You choose to love me at a time when I am below the choice of love. You want stability now that the demons of identity are so sloppily static. It ends as an early winter rainy day- cold, damp and dark. Like accidentally breaking a vase, with puddled water and wilted flowers covering the foyer floor, I accept all the blame and sweep up the remnants.
Travis sighs, sips his Dr. Pepper, and looks at the giant, luminescent burger rotating in the middle of nowhere. He’s eating one of the burgers, heated up from home and taken on his drive here. He curses at himself when a piece of bun gets stuck in his braces, and he hates himself even more when he has to turn down the music in his car to get a better look in the rearview mirror in order to excavate it. A canvas of picked pimples looks like burst pizza bubbles on his sallow skin, and his hair is determined to be permanently greasy underneath the hand-me-down Cowboy Cal’s Bronco Burgers cap, forever bent out of shape by the weight of the wire that was just a little too small for his head. Unsuccessful with the burger excavation, Travis scowls, picks his nose, and flicks the booger in the ashtray. It was a bad habit, he knew, but Audrey Winneburger, heiress to theWin-a-burger fast food chain and prettiest girl in the world, like, ever, would never go to prom with him anyway. So like, why did it matter? And so Travis treks across the parking lot, watched by the stupid cowboy and his dueling pistols. He nods to the previous worker as they trade shifts. The starry night of the desert sky disappears into a miasma of old grease and the sizzling of burgers on the grill. He navigates through the kitchen, past the automated machines and bags full of soda syrup for the soda machine that like always seems to break, like all the time. Travis sidles up the front counter, waving away a permanent cluster of flies as if parting beads in a hippy basement. This burger joint is no larger than a one car garage, and it looks especially small in proportion to the giant Cowboy Cal, which was like the only, and biggest, source of light pollution in the desert. The blanket of stars could not be seen from the glass perimeter, dominated by the yellow-orange glow of the slowly spinning and creaking sign. Being at the front counter, waiting to take orders, was like being in a fishbowl. He could not even see any of the customers until they walk through the door. Mechanically, Travis begins to refill the straws, which was the responsibility of the person leaving their shift, but whatever, and opens a new bag of pre-cut French fries in anticipation for the rush. He restocks all the little containers of sauces; barbeque, ketchup, honey mustard, sweet n’ spicy, special sauce. He was in the middle of prepping the buns when the bell chimes and announces a customer. Travis wonders who it is going to be today; no one ever comes to Cowboy Cal’s Bronco Burger unless they are coming from something or to something, like weary travelers, and the like. If they want a real burger, they could go to Win-a-burger, where the seats are padded, and Audrey sometimes visits with her friends that are really mean but she’s not, and that’s why Travis is so enamored with her. The guest is already at the counter. He wears a cowboy hat and is clicking the spiked heels of his cowboy boots. In a way, he looks a little bit like Cowboy Cal. Underneath the lips of his hat Travis sees one side of his face plated with metal. He stares at Travis with a lopsided ruby eye and gnaws intently on a toothpick. The smell of gunpowder pushes against the stale oil coming in from the back, so Travis is, like, in an olfactory Venn-diagram of sorts. It was not the worst smell, Travis thinks. One time some of the boys in the locker room held him down while Big Bill, their dimwitted leader, farted in his face. “A number twelve,” the robot-cowboy says, his voice sounds as if dragged through gravel. Travis punches the order in and asks what sauces he wants. The robot-cowboy straightens, his ruby eye flashing as a series of complex equations ask and then answer themselves in the part of his brain that has become a supercomputer. "Barbeque,” he says, after a second, but Travis already has the packets in his hand. It does not take a supercomputer to determine that a cowboy (even a half-metal one) would want barbeque sauce for his burger in the middle of the desert. Travis assembles the order and slides the tray over to him, saying, “Have a Bronco Burger Day.” The robot-cowboy grunts and takes the tray. Pivoting, Travis sees blood spots on the back of his vest, and within them a mosaic of cold steel and flesh. This man was coming from something. Travis picks at an acne scab at the bottom of his neck and continues to think of Audrey Winneburger. They were in science class just last week, and even though they were not partners (one day Travis will get the courage to ask her) their stations were adjacent to one another. She dropped her pencil and Travis gave it to her, their fingers almost touching. She said thanks and he said no problem. Had his been a different world, perhaps one where he had enough confidence as Cody Malminner, the captain of the baseball team, he could have said something bold and funny, and like, Audrey would have laughed and gone home that day, thinking of how funny Travis was and maybe I should give him a chance, because looks don’t matter, and like maybe sallow, acne-canyon skin doesn’t matter too. Maybe. The robot-cowboy leaves and holds the door open for the next customer, so the bell doesn’t ring. Travis is glad that he is here for this transition, because he has seen the Flat-man before and has missed him when he is standing at a difficult angle. The Flat-man is the name he has given to this figure which zigzags up to the counter, bending at erratic 90-degree angles. The flat-man is a two-dimensional figure, existent only on one plane of this realm, for their dimension is strictly 2-D. Flat-man looks like the stick-figures Travis used to draw in his notebook, which was full of other cartoons and comics that Travis likes to draw. He is actually quite good at drawing and used to carry the notebook everywhere. Hell, it would probably be with him now, right underneath the counter, had he not dropped it in the toilet when Big Bill gave him a swirly last week. The Flat-man does not talk, but seems to understand the nuances of ordering, and Travis understands this of Flat-man. The Flat-man takes one paper thin arm and points to the screen above Travis with all the orders. Travis looks over his shoulder, nods, and then proceeds to assemble a tray of still-to-be configured to-go burger containers. Travis arranges them in a variety of colors on the tray, and then slides it over to the Flat-man, who bends to inspect the meal, straightens to attention, and slaps the tray away, all while emitting a body language of self-righteous disgust. Travis centers himself with deep breath and proceeds to assemble a new tray of little French-fry bags and some printer paper from the back. He presents it to the Flat-man, who then bends his two-dimensional, featureless face in approval and takes the tray to one of the seats. Travis proceeds to clean up the fallen tray, confirming his theory that there are two Flat-mans (Flat-men?), one which likes the thin carboard and the other that likes the even thinner printer paper. It is a 50/50 shot every time. Travis sneaks a couple glances as the Flat-man rigidly bends onto its seat and proceeds to eat, shoving bits of the printer paper into where Travis assumes is its mouth. Fifteen minutes later the bell chimes and Travis snaps to attention. The sing of the French fry fryer recedes into the background, an ever-present hum. He scratches a boil at his neck, careful not to pick at the dried pus encrusted around it. “How can I help you?” The blob, more like a living gelatin, makes no sign that it acknowledges Travis’s presence. It is slightly luminescent and smells a little like glue. The Flat-man makes no acknowledgement of this new guest, and the blob offers no attention to the Flat-man. Light refracts off some parts of its bouncy body like an oil slick. It looks to be more poured than grown, as if born from a toothpaste tube. In its gelatinous figure parts of misshapen bones float in stasis like bits in a fruit cake. The bones are vaguely simian, as if someone has drawn the bones from memory. Travis wonders what life-form this blob is, or if it had eaten a humanoid creature and was digesting it right before his very near-sighted eyes. It is a living lava-lamp and moves as sluggishly. A form appears from its rotund shape. A semblance of a limb with a single, wiggling finger, pointing to the menu looming above Travis like a watchful eye. a number four, please. no mayonnaise though, i'm very allgeric. although i do understand if you make a mistake, for you are a young boy. what are your dreams i wonder? i wish you well. i would also like a diet orange soda, please. it is bikini season. Travis gulps, afraid of how to, like, communicate this snafu. He is actually pretty good at Spanish, passing with some of the highest marks in the class, not that anyone would really know. Travis’s father considers good grades not as an accomplishment but a duty, nothing to be celebrated, only completed. This was alright though, for Travis often found reprieve in Spanish class. The other kids are usually first-generation, their extended family miles across the border into Mexico. They are too busy worrying about themselves to make fun of Travis’s boils or his long nose or his yellow teeth. He wanted to take Italian and impress Audrey Winneburger, though. Her whole family takes a private jet to Vienna every year, and it’s really a talk of the school which of Audrey’s friends get to go on the trip with her. She’s so generous. Travis was close, just this past winter, to joining her and her friends. In study hall he was assigned in between Trixie Darling and Monica Herring, who was really good friends with Audrey. She walked down the row, giving formal invitations to Trixie, skipping over Travis, and then Monica. She walked down the row and asked Cody Malminner to come on the trip. They’ve been hanging out a lot lately before that and now they have lunch together quite frequently. Maybe next year, Travis thinks, when they all come home from their first year in college and maybe run into him getting, like, gas or something and Audrey will see that he really was the most funny, charming guy in high school and like, it’s alright Audrey don’t worry, but then Travis looks at the blob and wonders how actually good his Spanish really is. The blob pulls out a second arm from its body. Some of the strange bones pull along with it. The blob reaches out its new limb and touches the register, leaving a slight shimmer on the monitor. With its other arm it forms a three-pronged antenna, bends two tines, and waits for Travis to mimic the motion. Then the blob puts its finger on its recently sprouted antenna and Travis understands, feeling a little stupid for having had to be told this. He places his finger on the blob’s limb, ignores how rubbery it feels, and receives a psychic supercharged sound like WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE but somehow is able to unfold and decipher it: No worries, young boy, I’ve been there too. You know, when I was just a tadpole, that’s what we call them from my parts. You know, like slang. Anyways, when I was a young boy I had hardly the brain to understand any tongues, and was so afraid of looking foolish that I hardly tried at all. Anyway, enough of my jabbering. I would like a number two please, and please hold the mayo, in case you had not understood that before. If so, please disregard this redundancy of commands. You are not a machine, you are young boy. A young boy indeed. Oh, and a diet orange soda, young boy. Travis, feeling slightly nauseous, assembles the meal, mayo withheld. He wants to speak more of the language but loses all concept of it, like the waking moments after dreaming. Travis makes a fresh fish filet for the blob, simply because that was such a strangely intimate experience they shared, yet something pulls at the depths of Travis’s emotions in a way that made him feel whole yet slightly uncomfortable. As he slides the meal across the counter, he notices the blob has overpaid. Before he can correct the blob, he watches the organism slowly raise the tray over where its head would be and split like a giant, shimmering Venus-flytrap, where it drops the entire tray into its gaping maw. It was a surprisingly clean process, and the Flat-man at the neighboring table still makes no acknowledgement. Instead, all the Flat-man does is erect itself like one of the wacky-inflating tube men outside car dealerships and saunter out of the joint, giving Travis a polite wave that looks as if a human tried waving to a baby wearing oven mitts. The rest of the night is slow, as it usually is in the early morning. After the blob leaves and Travis inspects the area to make sure none of its biomatter encrusted on the seats, he got to stocking, unpacking, and even has a burger on the house, even though his boss does not let the workers do that. He has a couple guests come in. A reptilian woman buys seven number 8’s and demanded them uncooked came in around 10PM. Not long after her, a literal gas cloud consisting of what appears to be a portal to a far-away nebula floats in and asked for three large refills of diet cola, communicating through what Travis could only receive as orchestral music for a very specific brand. Then, at around 12AM, just when Travis is finishing his own ending duties to help transition for the next worker, a final customer appears, much to Travis’s chagrin. He must squint his eyes, pulls the stupid cap over his brows. In the light is the silhouette of a womanly figure, her arms outstretched. Little beads float about its billowing cloaks, as if the creature has its own orbit. The light recedes, revealing a lithe woman with long blonde hair cascading down to her hips. Her skin has the quality of porcelain. Six wings fold themselves tightly behind her back. A multitude of crystalline blue eyes along her arms stare intently at Travis and this does not disturb him. Silver glitter dots her porcelain cheeks and she wears what looks to be a bishop’s cap which goes over her eyes, molding to the bridge of her nose. Travis finds he could not speak to this guest, for she is too beautiful, and yet he is not self-conscious. She waits patiently in front of the counter, beads continuing to orbit. “Muster your strength,” she says, and this was enough for Travis to collect himself. “How can I help you?” “I desire a Number 4. With extra special sauce.” Travis assembles the meal. It is policy to give the customer only one additional packet of sauce when they ask for extra, but Travis adds an extra one on top of that because he wants to. He slides the tray across the counter and feels bad asking for payment. Wordless, she raises an eyeball lined porcelain arm and reveals the appropriate change in her delicate palm. She waits for Travis to pluck the money from her hand. It feels strangely tender for him to do so. Travis puts the money in the register and notices the angelic figure has locked up. The eyes on her arms have reddened, looking forlorn and at the floor. When starting this job Travis was told not to ask questions to the guests other than what they want for a meal. However, her utter radiance envelopes him like a cocoon, makes him want to appeal to the better part of himself. “Pardon my asking,” Travis says, “but it seems like you had a long day.” The angel blinks her many eyes. Then, with a gold-lipped smile, says, “How could you tell, child?” Travis shrugged, not expecting to get this far. The angel tilts her head, the locks of her hair shifting like the scales of holy judgement. “My celestial partner of 60,000 years asked for a divorce today.” Travis did not know angels could get divorced, or rather, he never thought about whether they could or could not. He thinks of how sad his father was when his mother abandoned them. It was about ten years ago, and they moved to a much smaller house, the absence of his mother haunting the halls like a sickness. He got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and found his father in his pajamas, sitting on the still unpacked kitchen floor, an empty bottle of whisky at his feet. Just go, Travis, his father said, just go. And so Travis went back to bed, and told himself he would never forget what it was like to see someone in such emotional pain and to be so helpless. Travis thinks of the only thing he could say to this angel at this moment, a culmination of every combination of syllables he has spoken in his life, every second folded in and cinching into the nexus of an hourglass: Before and After. He says, “Don’t let a bad day ruin the rest of your week.” He recognizes it is stupid thing to say to this celestial being who probably has a far grander perception of time than he, but it always makes him feel a little better when he says it to himself. The angel freezes, sheepishly blinks her many eyes, and smiles again. “Thank you.” It takes Travis considerable will power not to watch the angel sit and eat. It is like watching a piece of art in motion. Instead, he finishes his closing duties, becoming so engrossed with his closing tasks that he did not notice the angel leaving. When he goes to bus her table, he sees a note written on the back of the receipt: “You are a good person, Travis. Not because you knew what to say, but because you had enough bravery to care. You will make someone very happy someday. It might not be tomorrow nor the next day, but that day will come. I promise you.” It is written in gold script that refracts light. It was just a receipt, but for whatever reason Travis folds the paper and puts it in the pocket of his jeans. The note feels warm and heavy against his thigh. He finishes his closing duties, fixes himself a complimentary Dr. Pepper, and then nods solemnly to the next burger flipper on his way out, who asks how the shift went. “Just okay,” Travis says, “nothing special.” It is around 1AM, and he has school in about six hours. Tuesday nights are challenging, but sometimes they aren’t. Travis walks across the empty parking lot, the glow of the Cowboy Cal’s Bronco Burger an alien miasma behind him. His sneakers crunch on the desert sand, kicking past littered burger wrappers and soda cups. He tosses his apron and hat into the backseat. His car smells like stale french fries. Travis catches a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror, looks at the simulacrum of a pepperoni pizza that is his sallow face, and instinctively begins to pick at the numerous zits that materialized from this shift’s spittle of grease. He stops himself, feels the weight of the angel’s nice words, and instead grips his hands on the steering wheel, looking out to the blanket of stars and the universe in motion.
Glenn Dungan is currently based in Brooklyn, NYC. He exists within a Venn-diagram of urban design, sociology, and good stories. For more of my work, see my website: whereisglennnow.com
Win-A-Burger by Glenn Dungan
Image Created Via Canva AI
“It’s just a nightmare.” “Perhaps that’s true, but things are rarely just things. Sometimes a cigar is not a cigar.” Ralph looked up sharply, more irritated than he should have been. “What?” “Nothing. A psychologist joke.” “I thought you were just a counsellor, not a psychologist. Isn’t that what you said that first day?” “Yes, that is what I said.” A chill entered the woman’s voice. “Now, may we return to the matter at hand? You were describing your nightmare.” Ralph shrugged, “What’s the point? It’s always the same. It’s been the same since before I started seeing you. Nothing ever changes.” “You can’t believe that, or there’s no hope for these sessions.” “No, I didn’t mean....” Ralph paused, momentarily confused. “I said the nightmare never changes; that doesn’t mean.... Oh, forget it.” God damn it. The sessions had begun to upset him as much as the nightmares did. The counsellor waved her skinny hand. “Okay, never mind the dream.” She placed a strange emphasis on the word dream. “How are you functioning in your regular life? Have you experienced any flashbacks since last we spoke?” “No. Things have been good.” Good, of course, is a relative term. “How is your son?” Ralph tensed. “I told you: I’m not going to talk about him.” She shrugged in an unprofessional gesture of frustration. “And how do you expect progress when you place limitations on these discussions? You cannot compartmentalize your life and hope for reintegration.” “Lady, if I didn’t put up barriers, I wouldn’t function at all. That’s how I survive. Jesus, have you looked around lately?” Her eyes grew as frosty as her voice. She glanced perfunctorily at her watch then chilled him with an icicle stare. “I believe that’s quite enough for today. I trust you can see yourself out.” Ralph chuckled as he got up to leave. At some level, he realized that his behaviour was self-destructive, but it always amused him to get under her skin. Had he reflected on it, he would have also realized that his jabs were a puerile but successful attempt at avoidance. There were places that Ralph simply did not want her to take him. Whenever she probed too deeply, he twisted like a pig stuck with a spear. Ralph stepped from the makeshift office building into the twilight city. The streets were charcoaled grey under a thin layer of ash, and he felt the immediate, familiar assault on his lungs. He wanted to turn back inside just to breathe the conditioned air, but Peterkin would be home already, and Ralph knew he should return to the projects. He also knew, however, that there was an occasional midweek rations shipment that came to the central city distribution depot, and he was desperately short on provisions. The centre was only a few blocks away, so he turned and set off in that direction. The damp ash made the concrete slick, and Ralph adopted the walk-shuffle that had become ubiquitous on the city streets. Had there been any humour left in the world, people might have smiled thinly at the unlikely comedic-tragic succession of dead-eyed figures acting out the choreography of a macabre dance— zombies on Soho. Except, of course, there was no Soho anymore, and the new medium of dance was brimstone and fire. The falling curtain was ash. The encore would be lung cancer. Not the South Pacific paradise I read about as a kid, Ralph thought, and a cascade of remembrances rained darkly in his mind. He shook his head, trying to dispel the destructive images. They plagued him so frequently, they had taken on the aspect of a ritual. Thank god he had Peterkin. “Hi, chief,” the man at the distribution centre greeted Ralph. He did not know Ralph’s name, nor did Ralph know his. Hardly anyone used names anymore. Humanity had become an indistinct smudge of misery, and names rang false—no more than echoes of everything that had been traded away. So Ralph was always either “captain” or “chief,” two cheerful, non-specific monikers unwittingly applied by a man happy to have a work placement that allowed him to bring relief to others. The therapist helped Ralph wrestle with the demons of his mind; this man appeased the demon of his belly. That demon always returned, but at least when it was fed its silence was absolute. Ralph could almost forgive the man the use of the word “chief,” but that simple appellation negated the half-hour Ralph had just spent with his therapist. The man knew why Ralph was there, why anyone came there; however, he followed the protocol of his own ritual— something only he fully understood. He smiled and waited for Ralph to ask. “Anything come in?” “Sorry, cap. The cupboard’s bare.” Yet there was a conspiratorial glint in his eyes, and Ralph understood that the cupboard wasn’t completely bare— there was food, only it had not been issued by the provisional government. Occasionally, there was a certain black market meat that could be obtained provided one was willing to sell one’s soul. Ralph disregarded the silent invitation, nodded and turned to leave, then he paused and glanced back. “Thanks.” The man’s face brightened, “Maybe next time.” The smile was infectious, and despite his earlier machinations, Ralph found his lips tracing a grin as he walked away. He had travelled a block towards Peterkin and home when he heard a nightmare voice from behind him. “Ralph, is that you?” At first, he thought he was suffering another of his episodes, but no, this was real— still the realm of nightmare but real nonetheless. Once he recognized the voice and discounted the possibility of delusion, Ralph’s first impulse was to walk faster— to flee. The ash underfoot, however, made that impossible, and he did not welcome the humiliation of falling. Falling.... Not like...no, not like that. Ralph shivered. He stopped and turned. “It is you.” The man stopped as well. He was thin, emaciated. Not so tall. A far cry from the boy that Ralph had known, yet there was still something familiar in the eyes. “Yes, it’s me,” Ralph said. “Where’s your other half?” Pain etched sudden lines on the other’s face. Ralph let the question drop. “How are you?” The absurdity of the question made Ralph laugh. How am I? He was alive; they were all alive— almost all. Satan had shaken loose the bond of atoms, but he had failed in his final retribution. For the present, he had failed. And there was Peterkin. At the end of it, at the beginning of it, there was Peterkin. The man on the street smiled uncertainly at Ralph’s response, so incongruous with his expectations. Ralph extended his hand, and they shook. “All things considered,” he said, “I’m fine. I have a son.” Perhaps it was an odd thing to say, so suddenly, devoid of context, but Ralph knew why he had said it. His conversation with this man had to be predicated upon that declaration. And, he reminded himself, the person before him was a man, not the boy he’d known so long ago. The sins of the child should not be laid upon the adult, even when the opposite was so terribly true. “Do you have time for a coffee?” Ralph was startled, but quickly recognized the anachronism. Obviously, neither one of them could afford a coffee. “Steamed weed?” This time they both laughed. “Good for...” the man began to reply, then paused as if waiting for someone to complete the common expression. “...what mists you,” Ralph finished. They found a nearby shop, ordered drinks then sat facing one another across a worn tabletop. For a while, they rallied with small talk—news of the shattered world that struggled to rebuild itself and inevitably fell into the same instinctual modes of self-immolation. The Sydney Doctrine had been ratified, essentially outlawing the use of thermo-nuclear weapons, but everyone knew that genie would not be forced back into the bottle. The wars in Central America continued. The word of the week was that a fish had been caught off the coast of Refuge City, but no one really believed that story. Rumours upon rumours. All they knew for truth was how the ash continued to fall, and the sun had little warmth in it. Soon, though, that shallow well of topics ran dry, and the two sat in uncomfortable silence. Into that emptiness, the past began to flow, seeping through the porous walls of memory. Finally, Ralph asked a second time, “Where’s your twin?” That same flash of pain. “He’s dead.” “Oh. I’m sorry.” Ralph knew it was wrong to ask, but the niceties no longer seemed that important. “How’d he die?” “Suicide.” The single word fell heavily between them. Of course it was suicide. Ralph had become accustomed to the idea. But for Peterkin, he would have gone that route himself. He wondered how many of them from the island had taken that way out. As if reading his thoughts, the single twin asked, “Have you heard of any of the others?” Ralph grimaced. “Why would...?” he began and then caught himself. He had been asked “of” not “from.” Ralph sighed; he knew he had to let that anger go. That’s what the therapy was all about, but before he could surrender the anger, he had to identify its source: he needed someone to blame. At first, it had been easy to hate the other boys from the island, but the more time pulled him from the tragedy, the more difficult it became to place blame on a group of children. He grew to pity them, and himself not most of all, for he had not been driven to do all that they had done. Not all. He shook his head, “No.” The twin leaned forward. “I’ve heard things. Here and there.” Ralph nodded, feeling numb. “The chief was murdered a few years ago. At least, that’s what I was told: stabbed to death in a bar. He got what he deserved.” The chief. The image of a child laying broken in the surf rose unbidden to Ralph’s mind. He gasped. No one deserves that, or if one does then we all do. He glanced down at his hands. “What about...Roger?” he heard himself rasp. The twin flinched, as if the name itself inflicted pain. “He’s in New Hydra.” There was more; Ralph sensed it. He waited. “He’s running a company— CEO or something.” It was obviously painful to say it. The other story had an element of poetic justice— evidence that the world was righting itself. Roger finding success was simply wrong, and Ralph knew he would have a difficult time dealing with the unexpected and unwelcome news. Ralph studied the twin for a moment. Was this really an accidental meeting? he wondered. Is this why he stopped me? To tell me these things? “What about you?” Ralph asked. “Are you living in the city?” That same flinch, and there came no answer. Ralph glanced around the room, noting how much darker the day had become. Including his companion, he sat in the company of ghosts. It was time to go. The twin sensed it too. There was nothing to be gained from this meeting— no shared memory of youthful joy that they could draw on, nothing to counterbalance the world as it was. Time to go. Ralph needed to see his son. Their farewell was brief and without emotion. Ralph hurried out the shop and almost welcomed the leaden streets beyond. The shuffle home took Ralph less time than usual. He was driven to distance himself from the twin and the other ghosts awakened by their short conversation. A single twin, he wondered, are there phantom pains when one twin dies? Does the sense of being incomplete ever fade? As much as Ralph felt a need to escape, he was compelled by a more intense desire to reach home: He needed Peterkin. He needed his son to bring colour back into his existence. When he reached the projects, however, Peterkin was not home, and there was no note to explain his absence. Emptiness hung thickly in their tiny refuge. Their apartment was small— two cramped bedrooms, a bathroom, an open space that functioned as kitchen and living room. There was no place where they could sit at a table and eat, but there was rarely any food anyway. What made this tiny space endurable was one window that overlooked the green area in the centre of the project complex. Ralph had deluded himself into believing that it was a garden, even though the few plants growing there were stunted and only just hovered on this side of subsistence. Still, it was a protected area where children could gather to play safely even after darkness had fallen. Ralph spent many hours by that window, staring past the shadow veil of grey and losing himself in the innocent pastimes of the children who gathered below. Ralph rummaged a meagre meal, then carried the food to the threadbare couch positioned before the window. When he looked below, he almost immediately spotted his son at the far end of the enclosure. Peterkin was with his friend, Lues, and another boy Ralph did not know. That boy looked younger than the other two and stood a little apart. Their clothes were smeared by the ubiquitous ash. They must have been rolling in it to get as filthy as they appeared. Ralph let his head drift forward so that the glass cooled his brow. He signed, Peterkin was his panacea. Ralph clung to the innocence of the boy like a castaway fanning the embers of a dying fire. His breath caught in his throat. Peterkin was such a small, small boy— just a littlun— a wholly inadequate premise for the redemption of a species, but such was the role that Ralph had thrust upon him. There he was; boney, narrow shoulders standing as a bulwark against the essential nature of humanity. Ralph drew a long, shaky breath and blew it out between tense lips. The window fogged momentarily, obscuring his vision of the boys. He remembered the day Anna told him she was pregnant. She had cried, and Ralph had burned with an anger he could not understand. She had wanted to abort the child— kill it in the womb, an attitude that further enraged Ralph. He hated her for bringing an innocent into that world, yet, paradoxically, the thought of killing that innocent drove him into a fury. Her determination to abort fueled his determination to save the fetus. It was that which drove them apart. She was more than happy to leave him and the child. Ralph shook his head, dispelling the memory. Years had passed. It was done, and he had Peterkin. The boys in the garden played a game that Ralph did not recognize. Lues had picked up a sharpened stick and was waving it about. A remembrance stirred in Ralph and forced him to suppress a shudder. That damned meeting with the twin.... What game was this? What kind of play could be found in such a world? Ralph set aside the plate of food and stared below, seized by a sudden apprehension of what he might see. He noticed that he had begun to wring his hands and forced them flat on his thighs. The question rose again: What kind of play could be found in such a world? Then, as he watched, Lues said something harsh to the younger boy. The exclamation was followed by a sudden strike with the stick, and the boy was driven down. The attack seemed without provocation. Lues began laughing, enjoying the pain masking the face of his victim on the ground. Peterkin stood to one side, a witness to the violence. Ralph jerked back from the window. There was a momentary tableau where Lues stood above the injured boy, the stick held at the end of a bony arm, poised to inflict another blow. There was no anger, no viciousness. Lues seemed intrigued. He was exerting control over another living creature, and the sense of power fascinated him. Ralph felt transfixed with horror. Then he turned from the window, unwilling to watch the scene play out. All the colour had drained from his face. With movements of wooden hopelessness, he arose and went silently to his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and lay down. He turned his face toward the wall, his back to the garden. And he waited. A black rain began and drove the boys inside. It washed the ash from the leaves, coating them with an obsidian sheen. Peterkin came home and spent some time in the washroom before crawling into his own bed. Ralph lay in his room and listened. An hour later, Ralph rose in the darkness and made his way to Peterkin’s room. It was cold. Frail, artificial light filtered in through a grimy window, casting a Rorschach test pattern of blotches on the sleeping boy. The walls in the tiny room were unadorned, but Peterkin had lately taken to sketching bright-eyed figures on the plaster. Ralph squeezed beside his son on the bed and reached an arm across the boy’s shoulders. Despite his new resolve, tears began to blur Ralph’s eyes, and he was forced to smother a cry. Peterkin was really such a small boy. Ralph knew it had been unfair to place so much on so tiny a figure, yet there had been nothing else to cling to. Civilization lay in ruin, and all that remained was his earnest hope in the innocence of a child. Then that play in the garden.... Their tormenting of that boy.... Had they been about to chant? Had Ralph perceived movement at the periphery of the garden? Something circling the boys, waiting for an opportunity? He had seen all this before, and he finally understood how he had deluded himself— how a desperate hope had blinded him to the truth. Peterkin was no salvation, he was just another one of them. No more. No less. How could Ralph have brought such a child into such a world? Anna had been right. Ralph lay still for some time. He knew what had to be done, but it was pity, not hope that stayed his hand. It was also pity that compelled him. The tears flowed freely now, eroding the sorrow until resolve was laid bare. Ralph lifted Peterkin’s pillow from beneath his head, gently, so as not to wake him. But Peterkin did awaken, and a little cry of pain escaped his lips. He looked up at his father, and twisting so that Ralph could see the back of his shoulder, said quietly, “It hurts, papa.” When he’d returned home, Peterkin must have used the mirror in the washroom to put the bandage on his shoulder, but it now hung loose, and Ralph could see the open wound it was meant to cover. Letting the pillow fall to the side of the bed, Ralph examined the bloody cut and the bruised flesh surrounding it. “What... what happened, son?” There were tears in Peterkin’s eyes. “He was going to hit Willy again. He was going to hurt him. Why would he do that?” A fury began to rise. What had Lues done to his son? “And he hit you instead?” “He didn’t mean to, but I had to protect Willy.” The realization dawned. “You stepped between them?” Peterkin nodded, controlling a sob. He tried to look at his wounded shoulder. “Is it bad, papa?” Amazingly, the skin around the injury had begun to heal. “No, son,” Ralph said, his heart swelling. “It’s not so bad. It’s really not so bad at all.”
Child in the Garden by Kenneth D. Reimer
Kenneth D. Reimer lives on the Canadian prairies. He enjoys travelling the world and recording its wonders. His favourite form is the short story, but when inspiration demands it, he takes on the challenge of writing a novella or novel.
Paul La Bella is a father, husband, and budding author. He works as a land surveying project manager by day, writes stories after the kids are tucked away for the night, and is currently at work on a horror novel.
Mike Ferri inched the silver Volkswagen along Interstate 84. He could see the heat radiate off the hood of the car in wavy currents, and he thanked God for air conditioning. His wife Janine sat next to him, dozing peacefully. She somehow retained her youthful beauty, even with her mouth open and a bead of saliva trickling down her chin. He looked in the rear view and saw their two children, Mikey and Rose, strapped into booster seats, and playing quietly enough with the toys that Jan had packed them for the trip. Outside of the small, comfortably air conditioned Volkswagen, the sun beat down in the hot July afternoon. Horns blared and fists were shaken while people reluctantly settled in and waited for things to start moving again. The radio played rock and roll while the air conditioner hummed its own mellow tune. It’s nice, Mike thought, when you have this little break, time when you’re forced to stop. He didn’t feel like he had stopped since Rose was born, and he knew that Jan felt the same. But sitting here, surrounded by idling cars in the middle of a congested highway in upstate New York, Mike felt almost at peace. He was unable to move or accomplish, he was forced to sit, listen, stare, think. He breathed deeply through his nose and settled into the cool leather seat. The cars continued to crawl along the heat softened asphalt, and the Volkswagen approached a sign, one of those solar powered utility signs that seemed to scream at passing cars in bright little bulbs of orange. Warnings like: CLICK IT OR TICKET, DRIVE SOBER OR GET PULLED OVER, and Mike’s favorite, which was displayed last May fourth, SLOW DOWN, YOU MUST. SPEED IS THE WAY TO THE DARK SIDE. These little witticisms were usually enough to lighten Mike’s mood, something about the government trying to make the highway a little less depressing. But today, the sign only read: ACCIDENT NORTH OF EXIT 8. RIGHT LANE BLOCKED. As he slowly passed the sign, the car in front of him came to a dead stop, as did all of the other cars on this stretch of I-84. Mike heard the whooping of an approaching ambulance. He looked in the rear view and saw that Mikey and Rose had fallen asleep. He adjusted the mirror and caught the flashing lights of the ambulance as it sped along the shoulder of the right lane. The cars behind them tried moving over, but there was nowhere to go. The right shoulder narrowed to a walking path, and eventually disappeared a few cars behind Mike. There the ambulance slammed on its brakes and came to a stop. After a minute three people wearing shirts with EMT stitched across the chest of pale blue button down shirts jumped out, laid bags of equipment onto three gurneys and rolled them along the highway. Mike saw as they raced past the Volkswagen, but paid little attention. The radio had just come back from a commercial, and the D.J. had promised a live cut of Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin. “Okay folks, how we doin’?” the D.J. said in an over jovial voice. Zaney sound effects followed, which reminded Mike of old Tom and Jerry cartoons. They ended with a boinging sound and the D.J. continued: “The Rock N’ Roll Doctor promised you a live cut of Me and Bobby McGee, and the Rock Doc don’t make no empty promises.” Mike noted the contradiction and his disdain for radio D.J.’s everywhere intensified. “But before we delve into that, a little back story. After all, is it not my job to inform as well as entertain?” “This track is the last known recording of Joplin before her untimely death on October 4, 1970. Rumor has it that she performed an unscheduled and unannounced set at a little bar in Hollywood called The Rambling Rose. Legend says that a journalist was at the bar and recorded the set on a little tape recorder. So here it is, you heard it here first on WKXP, Me and Bobby McGee.” Faint crowd noise faded in, followed by a soft acoustic guitar. Finally, Joplin’s unmistakable cackle. The guitar picked up a little steam, it found the rhythm, and Mike’s spine tingled with anticipation. Janis said a few words over the guitar, and then she began to sing. Her voice was hard, yet somehow soft, like the hands of a gentle old grandfather who spent his life as a stonemason. Mike let it envelope him. Her voice made him feel as if he were being cradled in the arms of someone who seemed to know a difficult to obtain truth about the world. But just like the sweetest dreams it was suddenly interrupted. Static poured from the speakers. He tapped the screen in a vain attempt to find a clear channel, but every one of them issued the same hissing static. He switched the radio off and looked to the car next to him. An elderly couple sat in a wood paneled station wagon, and judging by the erratic movement of their hands and stern faces, they were arguing about something. He turned his attention back to his family who were still peacefully, albeit ungracefully, asleep beside him. Mikey had his arms raised above his head, his hands nestled between the mop of red curly hair and the plushy blue car seat. Rose’s neck was bent so far forward that Mike thought it might snap off. Jan’s head was resting on the back of the seat, her mouth agape and the bead of saliva now approximately the size of a pea and ready to split. He smiled. His love for them frightened him, and he could never quite put his finger on why that was. He would catch himself at the dinner table, listening to Rose explain why it was so important that she have her stuffed teddy bear sit next to her while she ate, and a dull ache would fill his heart. Or when he and Jan decided to paint the old picnic table last summer, how Mikey dipped his entire fist into the bucket of red paint and chased Rose around the backyard laughing. He put an arm around Jan and tugged her close to him, and that same dull ache seized him as Mikey ran up and down the lawn chasing his big sister. It wasn’t sorrow, or an overwhelming feeling of love that he felt during these times, although he did love them. It was fear. But fear of what? He thought of Me and Bobby McGee, and the answer literally sang out to him. It came in waves of gritty, beautiful frequencies and the music played in his head as clearly as if it had come from the speakers of the car. Janice Joplin sang the lyrics that put words to his feelings. Goosebumps stood out on his flesh, and the realization startled him in its simplicity. If something were to happen to them, to any of them, I would die. There it was, a clean acknowledgment of his feelings that had troubled him about his family. They weren’t nothing, they were everything, and he realized then that everything could vanish like that. He no longer mattered, and that was fine, but they did, and that was terrifying. He brushed a strand of Jan’s hair behind her ear. She stirred, closed her mouth, and adjusted position, wiping the pea sized ball of spit away with the back of her hand. His love for her welled up and tears threatened, so he looked away. He shielded his eyes to the glaring sun, dropped the visor, and looked to the car next to them. He was hoping to catch a glimpse of the argument between the old couple, maybe it would distract him from the tears that seemed to sit at the back of his eyes, but the car was empty. He registered slight confusion, but quickly wrote it off. They probably went to investigate the accident, he thought. According to the green and white sign just ahead, exit eight was only a quarter mile up the road. They would have had plenty of time to get out, walk the thirteen hundred or so feet along the stopped cars, and make it back before things started moving again. Only, the couple looked pretty old to Mike. Not ancient, maybe, but old enough that a quarter mile walk would be more of an endeavor than an impulsive action. He stretched over the steering wheel and tried to see into the car in front of him. Just barely, through the half tint of the rear windshield, he saw that the car ahead of him was also empty. He looked around at the cars he could see from his position. They were all empty. Then the silence hit him like a brick to the chest. The horns, the shouting, the sirens, all ceased. Outside of the comfortable silver Volkswagen where the A.C. hummed and the radio hissed and his family lay asleep, the world was as quiet, and as empty, as a grave. Mike tapped Janine’s leg. “Jan, wake up,” he whispered, “Jan, somethings wrong.” She groaned in annoyance and turned away. He threw the car in park, rolled his window down, and stuck his head out like a dog. The heat hit him, dense and suffocating. He opened the door and stepped out onto the blacktop, feeling his shoes stick to the spongy asphalt. He walked along the frozen mechanical wasteland, peering into vehicles that spat exhaust as they idled. They were all empty. His heart sank in his chest; an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, of loneliness, rushed through him, as if he were the last person on Earth. Then it was gone. They all went to see the accident, he thought, it makes sense, by the look of things, we’re gonna be here for a while. Might as well have a look. He decided to walk the quarter mile and join the others. He started to walk back to tell Jan, but decided against it. He didn’t want to freak her out, or the kids for that matter. Anyway, he’d be back in ten minutes, fifteen tops. Mike walked along the center of I-84, peering into empty cars and testing their scorching roofs as he passed. A few minutes later he came upon the wreck. Three cars, a black Dodge, a silver Ford and a blue-green Toyota, all seemed to have gotten into a fist fight. A cop car stood idling across the road maybe twenty feet before the wreck, standing guard like a mechanical gargoyle. The Ford was one of those pickups country singers were always going on about, although Mike didn’t think this one did much in the way of hauling loads or kicking up dirt. Aside from the dented front end, it was immaculate. Mike thought it likely that the pickup was the toy of an affluent suburbanite who only got to play with it on the weekends. The Dodge, however, looked like someone found it rotting away in a junkyard, slapped a new plate on the bumper, and called it a day. Dirt was caked into the crevasses of the hubcaps, and although the factory might have painted it black, up close Mike saw that its new primary color was a decaying shade of rust. It crept all along the tire wells and veined through the entire bottom half of the car like a reddish cancer. The Toyota got the worst of it. Its front end was completely caved in, as well as the rear, the two almost meeting in the middle. Mike thought that the Dodge might have stopped short, its driver not paying attention to the flow of traffic, and got rear ended by the Toyota. The Ford came next, smashing its bulk into the Japanese model. It tore through the blue-green shell as if it were a child's pinata. The thin metal was bent and cracked and misshapen, like a compressed accordion. As he approached, it struck him that the large crowd of onlookers, the ones who were supposed to have abandoned their vehicles to get a closer look at the wreck, were not here. Then he saw something that sent a chill up his spine. The gurneys that the E.M.T.’s had rolled passed his car stood next to the wrecked Toyota. They were empty except for the bags of equipment that never got the chance to be put to work. A wave of fear fell over him like an oversized blanket, swaddling his body and rendering him immobile. He could no longer push aside the initial confusion of seeing the elderly couple's empty car, could no longer rationalize the fact that everybody on this highway seemed to have vanished into thin air. Everyone except him and his family. “My family!” he shouted, and the words sliced through the eerie silence. He ran back to the car, to his family, bobbing and weaving the idling tombs like a wide receiver going for a touchdown. His thigh snagged a side view mirror and it sent him spinning to the hot blacktop. He caught himself with his hands, saving his face from the searing road, but did considerable damage to his left wrist. He pushed off the ground and icy pain rang up his arm. He pulled his hands from the pavement and fell, twisting his body so that his right shoulder collided with the asphalt instead of his tender wrist. Mike finally got to his feet, cradling his left arm against his chest, and could see the silver hood of the Volkswagen. He started again, this time being mindful of mirrors and license plate bolts. His breath was ragged when he reached the car. It was empty. Mike’s vision narrowed, and he no longer saw the highway, or felt the sun burning his neck. Everything around him and the Volkswagen disappeared into a hazy fog that seemed to swallow the world. His ears clogged, and his heart caught in his throat. He ripped the passenger door open to a vacant seat. He looked into the back and all he saw were two empty booster seats, his children's toys lay scattered on the floor among candy wrappers and loose change. “Jan! Mikey! Rose!” He screamed. He spun around in a panic, looking around for someone, anyone, who could help. The initial shock of his shattered wrist wore off and splintering pain pulsed under his watch. He screamed their names again, screamed for help, for anybody to help. Janis Joplin’s voice sang in his head, her raspy, haunting voice. Then it dissolved into her unmistakable cackle. It grew louder and louder, and Mike had the feeling that she was laughing at him. The horror that he had only recently identified, the fear that crept its way into every happy memory of his young family was now as real as the pavement under his feet. Only, the pavement under his feet began to feel fake, like at any moment a fissure would open up and he would fall into a void. Or the pavement would simply disappear, like the elderly couple, like his family. Nothing was real but the fear. It seemed to take shape, grow hands and arms and grab him by the throat and squeeze until all the passages were closed forever. “Jan! Mikey-” A horn. His head whipped around and it felt like the movement caused his brain to slam against his skull. The horn cut through the silence of the deserted highway like a razor, silver trumpets amplified in the hot July stillness. It came from behind the car. The horn brayed without pause. Mike looked back into the empty car, as if thinking he might’ve just missed them the first time he looked. The growing irrational part of his mind, the one ruled by fear, thought this might be the case. It wasn’t. He closed the door and turned toward the direction of the horn. It was bright and clear and close. “Help!” he shouted. He moved into the shoulder to avoid any more collisions. Here he could trot unencumbered, and he did. The horn grew louder, more clear, but he never seemed to reach its source. He ran with his wrist cradled to his chest, like a man holding onto something dear. He ran and he yelled, cupping his mouth with his good hand. The horn brayed on, got louder as he moved down the highway, but there was no one in sight. No source for the sound. If he were told that he ran five miles he wouldn’t believe it, but that’s what he did. His wrist hurt like hell, and his breathing grew more and more ragged, the hot, dusty highway air burning his lungs with each heavy gasp. His run slowed to a jog that slowed to a walk, and if he didn’t stop now he thought he would just die, right here, right on the shoulder of Interstate 84, right beside a red convertible blaring it’s- The red convertible’s horn rang out and it hurt his head. The car’s roof was closed, and the candy red paint job glistened in the glaring sun. Hope, real hope, sane hope, gave him a jolt of energy. “Hey! Help!” he screamed. He peered in through the tinted windows, but couldn’t make anything out. He knocked on the windshield, but the horn kept on. Suddenly the hope began to fade, the impossible reality of the situation crept back like a sunrise over a distant hill. A new wave of panic swept him, his heart throbbed, he found himself praying to a God he didn’t think he believed in to pluck him from this nightmare and bring back his family. The horn stopped, and then there was silence. He walked over to the driver's side and opened the door. It was empty. Desperate sorrow engulfed him, and for the first time in his life, he wished for death. He fell to his knees and cried, filling the emptiness that now shrouded the world. Another horn. And another. Not braying— not continuous, tortuous braying— but short honks. And then shouting. “What’s the fuckin’ hold up here?” someone said. “Hey buddy, get the hell outta the road, it’s gonna start movin’,” said another. Mike jerked his head away from the convertible and saw a thousand cars, and they were all filled with people. Someone screamed. He turned his head and a blond woman, who was sitting in the driver's seat of the red convertible, held up a pink bullet shaped object and pointed it directly at Mike’s face. When the pepper spray hit him he forgot all about the pain in his wrist, and all about his family. “Ahhhggghhhrrrrrgggghhhh!” The fine mist tore through his lungs and ravaged his eyes. “Fucking creep!” the blond woman said as she slammed her door shut. *** After ten minutes Mike could open his eyes again. The coughing subsided, but every now and then he took too hard a breath and it started again. He sat on a rusting guard rail with his face in his hands, trying to regain his composure. The first thing he saw when he cracked his eyes open was the blond woman in the red convertible. It didn’t seem as though she had taken her eyes off him the entire time. Mike looked away in shame, as though she had caught him peeping at her from a tree. He stood, wiped his eyes and nose, and held out a hand to the woman, a hand that said ‘I’m sorry for the mix up.’ She gave him back the finger. The haze around his head was too great to shake, the pepper spray forced him further down the foggy hole he was in, and all he knew was that his head hurt, his wrist hurt, and that his family- “Jan,” it was a whisper, a secret meant only for his ears. He ran back towards the Volkswagen, the air whistling in his throat, his hand clutched to his chest, and looked in the cars as he passed. He stopped at a blue minivan and looked at his reflection. He didn’t recognize the man staring back at him, as though the fear and panic physically deformed his appearance. His eyes were bloodshot and there was an unfamiliar sheen to them. The children in the back seat of the van all screamed. Mike didn’t even notice them, he was overtaken by the strange man staring back at him, but they reminded him of Mikey and Rose. He turned and continued back toward the Volkswagen. After a time his head cleared, as did his throat and eyes. As he ran, he timed out his breathing, counting 1, 2, 3, 4 as he inhaled through his nose, and 1, 2, 3, 4 as he exhaled through pursed lips. It relaxed him, the counting, the breathing, until he reached a meditative state, the panic seeming to wash away from him with each clunking step. His wrist ached, but the pain only added to the serenity of the moment, as if his shattered wrist was the only thing keeping him from lifting off the ground and flying through the air. Over the sea of tan and red and blue and silver hoods, he found his car, his silver hood. It was a hundred yards up the road, but it was unmistakable. Seeing it gave him an extra boost, and he tugged his wrist in close to his chest and ran faster. Jan’s door swung open before he stopped. She had put her hair into a ponytail and it whipped around her head as she turned towards him. As he approached, he saw her expression change from anger, to confusion, to all out shock. “Jesus Christ, Mike where have you-” He cut her short and planted a kiss onto her cool lips. They had kissed a thousand times before, but none came close to this one. He wrapped his good arm around her neck and pressed her lips tighter to his. He released her with a loud smacking sound, and she stood for a moment, slightly dazed. “You’re back,” he said and hugged her, “the kids-” He let go of Janine, almost dropping her to the pavement, and opened the back door. Mikey and Rose were still asleep in the back seat. Mike turned back to Janine. “You’re back, you’re all back,” “Mike, what are you talking about?” Jan said. Previously hidden lines emerged on her face as the sun, and his haggard appearance, forced her to squint as she looked at her husband. “You’re the one who disappeared. Mike, where the hell were you?” His smile faded as the possibility that he was losing his mind dawned on him. Did he imagine the whole thing? The elderly couple, the empty gurneys? His fucking family? He didn’t think so, but here they were, safe and sound in their comfortably air conditioned silver Volkswagen. He wasn’t going to argue with the reality he had just emerged from, nor the one standing in front of him now. Two things seemed to be true at once; one was sane and rational, the other crazy and impossible, but there it was. They had disappeared and they had come back, like some kind of cosmic practical joke played on him by a being whose existence was as impossible as the situation he found himself in. He wanted answers, and he didn’t. Besides, how would he go about sleuthing out the truth? Who would he ask? Where would he start? The truth was, the only truth he did know, was that he didn’t care to find out. “Mike, where did you go? I was worried you finally cracked up and ran away,” She smiled, and he swam in her deep blue eyes. “Hell,” he said, “I’ve been in hell.” Jan only looked at him, her puzzled expression giving way to what Mike saw as a subconscious understanding, nothing more than a slight adjustment in her facial muscles, as if somewhere deep within, Jan knew too. Cars began to move slowly up the highway. “Oh good!” she said, “Come on, before people start yelling at us.” Jan hopped back into the passenger seat. The door slammed and Mike saw Rose stir, stretch, and finally open her eyes. They met Mike’s and she smiled. He waved at her through the window, and smiled back. When he sat in the car the cool air blowing from the vents washed over him. It felt good, almost better than the kiss he shared with his wife a few minutes ago, but not quite. Rose was asking Janine how much farther they had to go, and exclaiming that she had to pee. This woke Mikey up, who joined in on the questioning, but in slurred, half sleeping speech. “I hongery, mama, I wan’ sumpin’.” Little by little the traffic began to move. Jan handed Mikey a juice box and Rose a book. They were content and Mike shifted into drive. Janine took a deep breath and released a sigh. “Thank goodness, I couldn’t sit here for another second,” she said. Mike looked at her as she stared out of her window, then into the rear view at his children. “I don’t know,” he said, “I wish we could stay here forever.” He lifted his foot off of the brake, and the silver Volkswagen crawled ahead.
Out of Sight by Paul W. La Bella
INSECTICIDAL By THOMAS J. MISURACA
This house, our dream home, was too good to be true. It was a fixer-upper, but surprisingly within our budget, and in a good school district. There was nothing like the feeling of owning our first house. “Welcome home, wife,” I said to Vanessa. “Welcome home, hubby.” A peck on the lips escalated quickly. “Perhaps we can Christen the new bedroom,” Vanessa suggested. “But… Kyle…” She glanced over at him. “Sleeping like a baby.” “We have too much unpacking to do.” Though we were moving from a cramped one bedroom apartment, we still had what felt like thousands of boxes to unpack. “It can wait.” As Vanessa leaned in for another kiss, something fell from the ceiling into her hair. “Oh!” I pulled back, jarred by the good aim and bad timing of the tiny creature. “What?” “A bugfell on you.” “What kind of bug?” She sounded terrified. “A silverfish, I think.” Vanessa panicked. “Get it off of me!” “On it.” “Hurry!” she barked at me. “I can feel it crawling on my head.” “Not like it’s going to bore into your skull.” “Adam!” I dug through my wife’s hair to pluck out a squirming creature. “It’s a fast little bugger. Lookslikeaface hugger from-” “Not helping!” I snatched the invader. “Got ‘im!” “Shumsh it!” It was smushed. “What if it laid eggs?” Vanessa asked, terrified. “I’ll pick them out of you like monkeys do. Shall we swing upstairs?” I hoped to pick up where we’d left off. “The moment’s ruined.” I deflated. “Stupid silverfish.” Vanessa looked to the ceiling as ifshe’d expected it to rain insects. She skittered into the guest bedroom. “Let’s focus on- Oh, yuck!” “What?” “Walked through a spider web,” she said, then made an odd spitting noise. “Got in my mouth, too.” “This place needs a good dusting.” “And bug spray. Costco sized bug spray.” We spent the rest of the day cleaning and figuring out which boxes went where. Though the silverfish and spiderweb incidents weren’t mentioned again, I noticed Vanessa scratched her head and rubbed her mouth more than usual. I didn’t tell her about all the swarm of ladybugs feasting on the plants near the trash bins. Or the beetle I found crawling up my arm. At least I didn’t see any termites or carpenter ants. That night, a cricket lulled us to sleep. The next morning, we enjoyed some quiet time. “We’re living the dream,” I told Vanessa. “Spending a quiet Sunday morning in our living room.” “I pictured less mosquito bites,” she responded while scratching her arms and legs. I’d forgotten that I’d woken up to find my body was a minefield of bites, but seeing her scratch her welts triggered the itchiness in mine. “They feasted on us last night.” “We should check Kyle.” “When he wakes up.” I wanted some quiet time with my wife. Just the two of us, drinking coffee, reading and- “What’s that?” she almost jumped out of her chair. Her eyes glued to some spot on the floor. “Where?” “There!” She may as well have been pointing into oblivion. “I don’t see anything.” “Look where I’m pointing!” I did. It took my eyes a moment before I saw a huge centipede. And it was coming right at me! “Kill it!” My wife begged. So much for finishing the funnies. I rolled up the paper and smashed the bug repeatedly. Not even Jason, Freddy or Mike Myers could survive such an assault. “Oh God!” my wife screeched. “There’s two more!” Two more ran even quicker towards us. Like a Whac-A-Mole champion, I smacked them to death. Poor Garfield and Snoopy were covered in centipede guts. “I’m calling an exterminator first thing tomorrow,” Vanessa said. “Hasta la vista, buggies.” “You’re a dork.” “And that’s why you married me,” I said and sat back to finish my coffee. Which now had a fly in it. I decided I’d keep this one to myself. Unfazed, we attempted to make this house our home. We hoped to unpack most of the boxes that lined the hallway. Or at least make sure they got into the right rooms. I lifted one of the boxes to take into the guest room. Underneath was a nest of wiggly earwigs. I gasped. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing, I-” But she already saw. “Gross. Where’d those come from?” “They were under the box.” “How’d so many get under there so quickly?” “No idea.” “If they got into those linens…” “I’ll put it in the laundry room for now.” “If we didn’t have a laundry room, I’d be done with this insect infected house.” I couldn’t agree with her more. Some creepy crawlers were nothing compared to the creeps we encountered at the laundromat. The guy who stripped down to his g-string was more disgusting than the army of earwigs I found under every single box. We practically unpacked the entire house that day. I kept quiet about any little creatures I found lurking. Like the beetle I flushed down the toilet, and all the roly-poly bugs that lived in the shed. That night, we celebrated with a bottle and a half of wine (I didn’t mention the fruit flies I found getting drunk in mine). The baby monitor was on and we were happy to just snuggle and sleep. Sex could wait for another night. We fell asleep to a chorus of crickets and the sounds of our baby gurgling happily. Kyle’s crying woke us. Groggily, Vanessa said, “It’s your turn.” It was always my turn. I dragged myself into his room and leaned over his crib. “What’s the matter my little-” Vanessa heard me scream through the monitor and was in his room in a flash, “What’s wrong?” “He’s... he’s covered in ants!” Black waves of ants swarmed over our baby. Vanessa swooped down and picked him up. “Bathroom,” she commanded. We ran into the bathroom and turned on the lights. Roaches covered the walls. They scurried frantically to avoid the brightness. Vanessa dry heaved. “Other bathroom,” I suggested. “I’m not going down there in the dark. You stand guard and stomp on any roaches that haven’t scattered.” I lost count of how many I stomped. All the time wondering where exactly the others had scattered to. Vanessa turned on the shower and even with the craziness around her, gently washed Kyle. Her nightgown was soaked, but she only cared that our son was safe and clean. Kyle laughed at this surprise nighttime shower. “He’ll sleep in his bassinet in our room tonight,” my wife decided. “We’ll clean his crib in the morning. Or burn it.” “Should we… go to a hotel?” I asked. “We’ll sleep with the lights on.” “This explains why the house was so cheap. We must live on a giant ant hill. Or over an abandoned cemetery.” “I’m never sleeping again.” “Sorry. “It’s OK. More time to read.” Vanessa picked her latest tome off the bedside table and opened to where she’d left off. “Figures.”S he deflated. “What?” She showed me a moth squashed betweent he book’s pages. “Maybe those bugs were seeking revenge for that,” I tried to joke. Before she could hit me, the lights went out. “Not good,” Vanessa said. “Do you think the insects cut the power?” I asked. No longer sure if I were joking. “If that weren’t so ridiculous, I’d believe it.” “That hotel is sounding good right about now.” Before my wife could agree, she shouted, “Wait!” We froze. “What’s that at the end of the bed?” What I thought was a shadow from outside began moving. Our comforter was covered with bugs. It was too dark to make out what types. All I saw was a mass of skinny and fat bodies writhing towards us in a whirlwind of sticky, thin legs and wavy antenna. Vanessa threw the sheets off us. “Get the baby!” she commanded. We jumped out of bed at the same time. Crunch! Insects covered the floor. “Jesus!” Vanessa swore. I couldn’t find my slippers, but it didn’t matter. I had to save Kyle. Insects wiggled through my toes while I grabbed my son. Vanessa and I ran to the door, bugs crunching under us like autumn leaves. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the walls were also covered with insects. So many, it was like one big, squirming mass. Black dots fell from the ceiling. I didn’t dare look up. We ran to the stairs. Vanessa was too fast. She slipped and tumbled down them. “Vanessa!” I screamed. Kyle cried. “Don’t come down here!” She called back in panic. “It’s worse. They’ve had more time in the dark. The stairs and handrails are covered with them.” “I’ll cover Kyle and-” “No! Go in the bathroom and call 911. I’ll go for help.” “The bathroom’ll be covered in roaches.” “Just keep them off Kyle.” I had no idea how to do that, but didn’t have any better ideas. The stairs now looked like a death trap. “I love you!” I shouted. She didn’t reply. Hopefully she escaped the house and went for help. I ran with Kyle into the bathroom. Under my feet things crunched louder. A few got in some painful stings. I had to ignore the pain and get Kyle to safety. Not that I had any idea how to do that. In the bathroom, roaches blackened the walls. I waved some off with the light on my phone. I covered the foot of the door with a towel, but they’re crawling trough the sides and the top. I can’t get a signal in here. I pray Vanessa returns with help.
Over 130 of Tom Misuraca’s short stories and two novels have been published. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. He is a multi-award winning playwright with over 150 short plays and 14 full-lengths produced. His musical, Geeks!, ran Off-Broadway in May 2019.
Despite growing up in social housing below the poverty line, books were never in short supply in Joseph's household. He owned his first library card at five and has always been obsessed with stories. He's published one novel, the dystopian thriller, Mandate: THIRTEEN, released in 2023 via Manta Press.
The bartender leans against the wall polishing glasses with his rag, watching two sullen men perched at opposite ends of his otherwise empty bar. On any average night—where the hum of conversation mixes with the swollen scent of liquor and hormones—the script is already written; a testament engraved in stone which the actors only need to play out for him. But this is no average night. Slivers of early evening sunlight slip through the window shade, slicing hot yellow trails across the weathered floor. A small color TV sits on a shelf above rows of liquor bottles, with a dusty clock hanging on the wall next to it. The volume on the evening news is low, but there are no competing sounds, except the steady whoosh of cars heading upstate and the relentless beat of the old clock, always ticking forward. “Wildfires continue to sweep the state, showing no signs of easing. Residents of Jackson County are preparing to evacuate tonight.” The news director cuts to the eye-in-the sky, where a shaky panning shot reveals square-miles of dense woodland, reduced to blackened matchsticks. On the horizon, the fire’s front marches onwards, consuming all in its path, an unstoppable marauding army. It does not differentiate between fields and forests, or towns and plains, because there is no discrimination in the inferno’s beating heart, where oxygen is king, and all material is equal. “Areas previously considered out of danger are under threat after the prevailing winds shifted to a westerly direction, with a strengthening of air currents from the ocean. Despite the strong winds, there’s no let-up in the latest heatwave which has the state at a near standstill. Over to Belinda with the latest weather report…” The shot melts into a weather map, with ten-mile-wide arrows sweeping in wide arcs from the Pacific, signifying winds which appeared hours before the wildfire was destined to hit the coast and run out of fuel. Beneath the television’s flickering glow, one of the customers watches while his glass rises and falls mechanically between the bar top and his wet lips. He wears his hair greased tightly off a widow’s peak so symmetrical it could have been sculpted by sentient hands, with two perfect inlets of shiny pinkish forehead, straddling a rocky outcrop of thinning strands. Tucked into the slim waist of his jeans, his red and black plaid shirt hangs loosely from his frame. Between sips of his drink, he flicks the flint of his silver Zippo lighter on and off, but his gaze never wavers from the news broadcast, even when he opens his mouth to speak. “Hell of a bonfire, ain’t it?” Before the bartender can respond, the symphonic roar of an aircraft passing low overhead renders conversation impossible. Whiskey tumblers and beer glasses rattle on their shelves. At the din, the bar’s other customer slides his hands from sweat-slicked cheeks, cupping them over his ears. Lank, shoulder-length hair flops around his face. His shoulders slump further forward, and his elbows slide outwards, until his heavily stubbled chin almost touches the bar’s pockmarked surface. A bar stool scrapes across scuffed wood. Widow’s Peak is light on his feet, and his steps are as soft and considered as his words. “You OK there, friend?” Slowly, the long-haired man’s head lifts, as if a voice from God himself has summoned him from a stupor. He looks around the room like it is the first time he’s seen it, glancing at the bartender and the television before swinging his head around to meet the voice. He shakes his head and looks back to the empty beer bottle in front of him, never having met his inquisitor’s cool stare. “Uh, what’s it to you?” “Ain’t nothin’ to me. Just got a look that says you could use an ear.” His attention shifts to the bartender. “Scotch and soda for me, and another beer for this gentleman.” The bartender springs into action and pulls an ice-cold bottle from the cooler. In one motion, he rips off the top with his blade and slides it down the bar, where it comes to rest against its empty cousin. He takes a fresh glass from the shelf and examines it for smudges. It is flawless, so he plants it upon a black cocktail napkin, scoops four ice cubes inside and pours a double measure by eye. The brown liquid streams into the glass in a perfect arc. He cuts off the flow with a shake, and spins the bottle by its neck, returning it to his speed-rail, then he opens a club soda and places it by the glass. Widow’s Peak grunts and drops himself onto the empty stool beside the long-haired man. He picks up his tumbler and swirls the cubes around the glass. They clink and sing, cracking from the shift in temperature caused by the Scotch. He takes a sip and places the glass back over the damp circle left behind on the napkin. “Gonna be the mother of sunsets tonight.” The long-haired man does not reply. He stares instead at the television, where the rolling news coverage continues moving inexorably forward, raking over the hot coals, examining every inch of information. He raises the fresh bottle to his lips and drinks, then pushes the cold glass to his forehead, where beads of sweat have formed in solidarity with the condensation on the neck of his beer. His white shirt has heavy dark patches under both arms. “What unit did you serve in, friend?” Widow’s Peak asks Their eyes meet. The long-haired man sees him properly for the first time, recognizing the hollow stare of another veteran.“Uh, Air Force. I was a pilot.” “A birdman, huh? What did you fly?” “A Super Sabre, mostly.” He lifts his free hand and holds it flat for them both to examine, revealing a slight tremor. “Believe it or not, I used to be as steady as they come. You?” “Regular army. Three tours, with the 101st Airborne and the 506th.” The long-haired man’s eyes narrow even further until they are almost closed. Widow’s Peak nods slowly. “You better believe it. I went back for more. Twice.” “I believe it, don’t worry.” The long-haired man raises his bottle, and Widow’s Peak clinks it with the bottom of his glass. “So, what’s eatin’ you up, friend? Them aircraft flyin’ low overhead, right? Every time I hear a chopper in the sky, the sound takes me straight back.” He points towards the ceiling fan above, with its slowly rotating blades engaged in a losing struggle to move the bar’s soupy air. “Hell, even that’s enough.” “The fire…” The long-haired man’s gaze drops to the floor as his voice trails off. “Guess you flyboy types saw a lot of shit burn, too, huh? Seen enough flames to last me a thousand years.” At the thought, Widow’s Peak reaches for his Zippo and fondles it, before returning it to his breast pocket. “Do you know what napalm does to people? It sticks to their skin, like white-hot jelly. You can’t get it off, it just burns right through. The brass said they used that evil stuff to clear the jungle, but everyone knows they kept dropping it because it terrified Charlie.” “You’re not wrong, friend. Them suckers weren’t afraid of much, but when it rained fire from the sky, they was scared, alright. One time, this Viet Cong came running out the jungle, naked as the day he was born. Hands up in the air, screaming, ‘Tôi đầu hàng, tôi đầu hàng.’ I surrender. You boys been probing their bunker positions all night with Snake ‘n’ Nape. His legs were like jelly. Smelled terrible. He’d crapped himself, and I ain’t never seen a sorrier motherfucker. Swear that was the only time I ever saw Charlie hold up a white flag.” “Poor bastard.” “Yup. Look, man, I know it’s rough on the soul, but you don’t know how important it was for the grunts down on the ground. When the fighters roared past and lit up the fuckin’ jungle, it made us feel like God was watching over us, you know?” The long-haired man laughs bitterly. “What, you don’t believe that? I never met an infantry man who didn’t love you motherfuckers up in the sky.” “How about our boys who we dropped bombs on, huh? Why don’t you ask them how much they love the pilots who smoked them? Or ask their parents.” “Friendly fire?” says Widow’s Peak, and the other man nods. “Shit happens. One time, in ‘68, I think. Goddamn A Shau Valley. Hell on earth, I swear. We shoulda never been there. It was NVA territory every bit as much as downtown Hanoi. Anyway, we were supporting some units from the 327th division on some god forsaken operation. This greenhorn lieutenant fucked up the co-ordinates. Called an air strike on his own goddamn position. Wasted seven of his own men. Another fifty or so wounded.” “Christ.” The long-haired man’s head lolls forward, and he claws at his reddened eyes. “Did we blame the pilot? Fuck no. That’s like blaming God for this fuckin’ shit-storm outside.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the television. “We blamed the asshole who screwed up the fire mission. They shipped the bastard back to the world before someone fragged his ass. Of course, he didn’t suffer a scratch. He sure has a sick sense of humor, don’t he?” “If you believe in God, yeah. Do you?” “I don’t rightly know, but I’m certain of one thing. If there’s a heaven and hell, then I ain’t headed anywhere nice.” Widow’s Peak jabs his index finger towards the Earth’s molten core as if it lurks just below the surface. “Well, you’re not alone, buddy.” The long-haired man runs a hand through his greasy locks, scooping the hair out of his eyes. “I dropped a stack of nape a few klicks outside some firebase, close to Da Nang. It was during Tet. Killed six Marines, burned up a load more. Never knew squat until we got back to base. We couldn’t tell from up there who was who, yet I see them every time I close my eyes, running around in circles, their skin on fire like human Jack-o’-lanterns. Then they just drop to the floor, lying still as glass, the flames dancing in the breeze. Is that how men looked when they burned?” “Pretty much, friend. That’s one stink you never forget. First time you catch a whiff of bodies burnin’. Gasoline and human cracklin’. The sound, too. Like pork skin on a hot grill.” Loosened by the alcohol and wisps of smoke which hang in the air, tears flow from the long-haired man’s eyes, etching hot streams down the deep creases etched into his cheeks. “I just want to go back and undo it all. Question the coordinates, abort the mission, anything. I wouldn’t care if they court-martial my ass, kick me out.” He raps his temple with the palm of his hand. “I’d do anything not to have to relive it every day up here.” Widow’s Peak places his hand gently on the fellow veteran’s shoulder. His voice drops to a soft whisper. “It ain’t your fault. How could you know, huh?” The long-haired man wipes away the tears with the back of his hand and drains his beer. He smiles and says, “Another round, bartender, please.” Widow’s Peak heaves a deep sigh and whistles the breath back out through his nose. He taps the bar top with his fingers and asks, “You want a story? I can tell you a story.” “Sure, why not? Let’s release all the fucking ghosts.” “OK, brother. Not that I think it matters, but I reckon you’re a man who can keep a secret, and I’m sure as hell this guy is solid.” The remaining shards of ice clink as he jerks his empty glass towards the bartender, who can’t do anything but listen while he fixes two more drinks. Still, he knows he is an intruder in their conversation and keeps his gaze lowered away from the two men, except to acknowledge their requests with a respectful nod. “Look, I ain’t never told nobody this, not even my wife. You know the last thing she said to me?” “What did she say?” “The last thing she said when she walked out the door. I’ll never forget. She didn’t even look back over her shoulder; it was her sweet little tush speaking. It said, 'Johnny, get yourself a goddamn shrink.' Reckoned I should get a real good one, too, because if anyone needed help, it’s me. She didn’t know the half of it, friend. You married?” “Uh-uh. Doubt I ever will. I’m Chris, by the way.” “Well, howdy, Chris. How long we been talkin’ and I ain’t even introduced myself? She always said I had the manners of a pig.” Johnny extends his rough paw and the two men shake. “Anyway, it was on my third tour. We’d been patrolling the edges of the A Shau valley on and off for weeks. Seemed like I never could escape that damned place. Search and destroy, they called it. We did a lot of seeking, I know that much. And eventually we did some of the latter too, but it wasn’t no NVA.” Now, Chris is listening with all his attention. Two fresh drinks sit on the bar, untouched and warming slowly. The news anchor drones on, unheard. Perhaps there are other voices, whispering and insistent, which have joined in, uninvited. “We’d lost three or four men to booby traps, and a few officers to a sapper attack the previous night. Damn, it was hot. You think it’s bad today, but it’s nothing like the heat out there. Several more of our boys got medevacked out with heatstroke or what-have-you. Or malaria from drinkin’ water straight from the river. One canteen didn’t last long in that humidity. All this without seeing a single fuckin’ live enemy solider. They was like ghosts, I swear. We’d find their campfires smoking out in the bush, fish-heads and even a blackened corpse or two from air strikes. But anytime we made contact, they vanished. Probably had miles of tunnels right under our damn feet.” On the street outside, an amplified voice shrieks through the quiet. “Prepare to evacuate. All remaining residents must leave within the hour. Prepare to evacuate…” Johnny waves away the intrusion and continues his story. It must be heard. Nothing less than a 15,000-pound bomb could stop it now. “So, the brass ordered us to check out this village down in the heart of the valley. Look for enemy supplies and whatnot. Said we’d better come back with something. Our body count had been lousy for weeks, and the division commander was gettin’ heat from way up on high. Shit rolls downhill, don’t it?” “Always has.” “We lost another kid on the way out. Can’t have been a day over eighteen, probably never gotten laid in his lousy life. Bastards used one of our own Claymores. Shredded his legs like they was made of paper, took both off above the knees. Couldn’t do nothin’ to stop the bleed. Every time his heart would beat, it sprayed jets of it all over the place. Not blood like when you cut yourself. This was thick, and so dark it was almost black. Kept gushing onto the dirt until the trail was covered and there was more out than in. Must’ve been one hundred degrees in the shade, but the poor kid was shiverin’ and cold. Went so pale, like wax paper. He had these eyes, so blue and honest. Even as the life drained out, couldn’t lie to ‘em. He asked if he was gonna die and I told him yeah, he was gonna die. Doc tried to give him morphine for the pain, and he waved him away, said he didn’t wanna die feelin’ zip. I held his hand, watched him slip away. I’ll always remember the look on his face. Wasn’t no peaceful death like in the movies. He looked so scared. Before he went, he pressed somethin’ into my palm.” Johnny pulls out his Zippo and holds it up for the other man to examine. There is a faint inscription etched into the smooth silver. “Always kept it close, ever since. Then they bagged him up and the Sarge, real mean bastard he was, he said to take a good look at this dead boy, because that’s what happens when you lose concentration for one second out in the bush. Motherfucker was right. Still, I wanted to frag his ass right there.” Johnny takes a moment to gulp down half his fresh drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before continuing. “When we hit this village, we was all feelin’ pretty mean, too. And of course, we found piles of AK-47s and RPGs, and enough rice to feed half of China. It was Charlie’s country, man. Them villagers were probably just as scared of him as they was of us. What choice did they have? The NVA wasted their own sometimes, to send out a message.” The saloon door swings open. All three men shield their eyes from the intruding sun, which hangs low in the sky, silhouetting a lone firefighter within the door frame’s peeling wood. A charred smell wafts inside—the mother of all campfires—along with his raspy warning. “Time to leave, people. Wind’s changed direction. Fire’s coming this way.” Chris holds up his hand. “Yeah, we’re leaving. Don’t worry about us.” But the men do not move, and the firefighter shakes his head. “Your funeral.” “Fuckin’ A it is,” Johnny says under his breath. From somewhere beyond this room, other voices whisper in agreement. Another chopper roars overhead and banks back towards the ocean after dropping its futile load of seawater into the seething mass of flames. The room shakes from the downdraft. The firefighter stares up at the sky before jogging away. Behind him, the door swings shut, returning the room to its darkened state and allowing the story to continue. “Our LT got wasted in that sapper attack I told you about, so Sarge was platoon leader. We tried to interrogate ‘em for some intelligence to please the brass, but we didn’t have no interpreter anymore. Sarge started slappin’ people around, and a few villagers tried to di-di. Some kid, fuckin’ new guy with an itchy trigger finger, he fired first. Maybe it was an accident, maybe not, but then half the platoon started to rock ‘n roll. The air was filled with cordite, then it just went eerily quiet for a few seconds, with four or five bodies flappin’ in the wind. Then the wailin’ started. Little kids and old Momma Sans. It was fuckin’ bedlam, man. Sarge had this huge, booming voice, louder than every other noise, even though he wasn’t hardly hollerin’. “Waste the lot,” he said. “Waste every last one.” So that’s exactly what we did. We lit ‘em up…” The weight of his tale released, Johnny slumps forward, his wiry back bowed, the bones of his spine rippling through his shirt. Tears flow from his red-ringed eyes, which are irritated by the gathering smoke, and he wipes them away with an oil-stained hand. Even the bartender has stopped his close-down routine. Instead, he leans against the varnished wood of his bar. The heaviness of Johnny’swords has weighed down his shoulders, too. Johnny sniffs and runs his rolled-up shirtsleeve across his nose, before draining the remnants of his drink. He turns to face the bartender, holding out two fingers. “Couple of neat scotches, and one for yourself. Make ‘em as large as you can. Where was I… So, when it was over, nothing moved except the ripple of the breeze comin’ over the mountains. Then this baby started cryin’ from among the piles of corpses. There was this one kid who kept his rifle slung over his shoulder the whole time. He wouldn’t look. When somethin’ bad goes down, it’s one and all, man. Everybody’s culpable, no such thing as innocence. At least he coulda been smart enough to fire over their heads or into the goddamn ground. Must’ve been plenty who did, and maybe their souls were saved. Or maybe not, because just being present that day was probably enough.” He reaches for the glass with three thick fingers of neat scotch inside, and drinks half in one greedy gulp, then slams the glass down again. “The sarge grabbed this kid round the neck and pulled him over to the pile of bodies, where this baby was crawlin’ around, not a scratch on the poor bastard. He gave the kid his Colt-45 and said he gotta finish it. The kid just stood there, starin’ at the baby, same as I woulda. Hopin’ to wake the fuck up. But this weren’t no nightmare, man, and it weren’t goin’ away. The sarge cocks his M-16 and levels it at the kid’s head and… well, you can guess the rest, ‘cause he didn’t have no choice.” In one more swallow, he finishes his scotch and spins the empty glass across the bar towards the waiting bartender. “We dug a trench and rolled the bodies in, then covered ‘em in gasoline and burned the lot. So, when I talk about the stink of bodies, I know what I’m talkin’ about. Sarge reported thirty-seven NVA killed to the division commander. No wounded, no captured, and no questions. Body count is king. One American KIA, and that was the boy with the blue eyes. To think I pitied that kid, a few long hours before. After what went down, I’d a swapped places with him in a heartbeat.” Johnny has no more tears to cry. Chris doesn’t ask what happened to the Sarge, or any of the men, least of all the kid who wouldn’t fire his rifle. Any answer would be meaningless. Instead, he sips his scotch. Between long pulls he asks, “Can I ask you something? It’s going to sound like I’ve lost it.” “Shoot. No secrets now, friend.” “Have you heard the voices calling? Today, I mean.” “All day long,” Johnny says, nodding slowly, like he’d been expecting this question. “Growin’ louder as that fire draws nearer. I can’t bear it, man. Makes me want to rip my ears out, if I thought it’d stop the sound. But it won’t.” “I’m so damn tired. I just want it all to stop,” says Chris. Johnny stares long and hard at his new friend, then stands, sending his stool skittering backwards and clattering to the floor. The sound makes the bartender jump, but the two veterans do not seem to notice. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?” “I’ve got no place to be,” says Chris. “I think maybe you do.” Johnny sways from the booze, but his words are clear. “Maybe we both got somewhere to be.” Their eyes meet, and they share a look which the bartender can only try to understand. The bartender makes it his business to know people. He reads them the way an expert mechanic reads the hum and throttle of an idling engine. Alcohol is like pumping the accelerator—that high-revved whine which reveals all flaws. He knows young men with hard stares and empty heads, besotted by the violence smoldering around them. He recognizes proud older men who never seek confrontation yet refuse to shy from it. But, as much as he knows men, he cannot know all. “I think I’m ready.” The deep lines on Chris’s face have lessened somehow, as if a great wrong has been reversed. He looks younger than when he first walked in the bar. When he raises the glass to his lips to finish his drink, his hands no longer shake. “Alright, then. Guess we better let this fine man close his bar.” Johnny says, pulling out a thick roll of notes from his back pocket. He drops the wad onto the bar top, nods to the bartender and says, “Thanks, friend. See you around.” The bartender nods in return and watches the two veterans leave, blinking and stumbling into the fading light, which is obscured by a hazy sheet of gray. The sky behind it is bruised and glowing. Dusk has come early tonight. Outside, the well-tuned engine of a pickup truck roars into life, idles for a moment, then hums away in the opposite direction to the remaining dribbles of traffic. The bartender doesn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, but he’s been hearing a noise growing in his ears, too. Insistent, perhaps, but possible to ignore, with some willpower. Still, he knows he must get away from this place. Despite his certainty, he digs in a drawer for the packet of smokes he once stashed there. He hasn’t smoked in two years, but right now he needs a little help, and it seems a fair trade. With the book of matches he left inside the carton, he lights his cigarette and takes a lingering look around the saloon while the first deep drag fills his lungs, and the nicotine caresses his tired skull with nimble fingers. Evidence of the approaching wildfire is creeping all around him now, and his long exhalation becomes one with the smoke. When he steps outside into the brutal evening warmth and stares up at the blood-red sky, another powerful voice, this one rising from deep in his stomach, tells him he won’t ever see his bar, or the two veterans, again. On the short drive, neither man exchanges a word. The thrumming engine of Johnny’s Dodge pickup provides the background music, while they trundle up the incline. Ahead, clouds of tar drift across a sheer wall of violent red. The truck at last passes the hill’s brow, and both men gasp in awe. Spread across the valley, the fire’s full majesty fills the windscreen; a glowing mountain which dominates the horizon. In its doomed foothills, silhouetted swathes of forest canopy vanish beneath rolling orange waves. The truck doors slam in unison. Johnny points towards the inferno.“Do you see ‘em?” “I see them.” After a moment of hesitation, the two men set off down the track, towards the blaze’s beating heart. “Are you scared?” Johnny shouts over the ferocious roar, which is like cupped seashells in his ears. The voices are there too, and they no longer whisper. Now they are a chorus of cries, beckoning the two men closer, towards a place where they can have their sins cleansed, their innocence returned. When Chris shakes his head, heavy tears spill from his cheeks and hiss onto the scorched earth below. “I’m not scared. This is where we are meant to be.” Johnny takes a last look over his shoulder. The creeping fire has cut off any escape. A jet of flame crashes over his Dodge, while a newsie chopper buzzes low overhead, trying to steal intimate moments belonging to nobody else. He can’t see it through the thick carpet of smoke, but he knows it is there. The thrash of rotor blades slicing through oxygen-starved air is forever etched into his mind. With synchronized strides, they keep walking, deeper into the pyre. A fifty-foot wall of flame barrels towards them in slow-motion, like the ocean swell of Satan’s own break. A bubbling sea of fire which rolls forward, always forward, consuming all it touches. Both men lapse into racking coughs as oily smoke engulfs them. Their hands reach out to grip one another so they can be sure they are not alone. Fingers of heat reach down their throats, and their lungs crumple at the touch. Still, they walk on. If Chris could speak, he would describe the six scorched Marines standing rigid and proud, once fine specimens of youth, wearing stiff salutes to mark his arrival into this theater of the everlasting. Arcs of flame puff and whirl around them like thecorona of a dying star. Behind, the charred corpses of those slain by his ordinance are stacked so high they block out the setting sun, feeble and pale, almost insignificant against a seething backdrop of nuclear yellow. With each step, the rubber soles of his boots bubble and hiss. Yet still he walks on. If Johnny could talk, he would tell you about the rows of Vietnamese—old men and children; women and little girls, but no soldiers—standing on either side, a grim guard of honor, their charcoal cadavers riddled with bullet holes, their pristine souls briefly returned from eternal sleep to guide him into hell. The Zippo lighter he has been clutching melts into his palm, becoming part of him forever. With each step, his skin crisps and smokes, falling away to reveal layers of muscle and sinew. Yet still he walks on. The flames and the voices scream even louder and their eardrums burst, but the two men do not notice. They stare at the apparitions which surround them until the heat boils the liquid in their eyeballs, and blackness descends. Yet, even sightless, deaf, and dumb, still they walk onwards: two soldiers’ last march into oblivion. The wave’s peak breaks. It crashes over the men. Ravenous flames devour the two dwindling, skeletal figures, reducing them to ash and steam. For the briefest of moments, the beating heart of the inferno flares whiter than virgin snow.
The Beckoning Inferno by Joseph J. Dowling
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