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July 21st 1897

To my dearest friend and mentor Father Daniel,

I write to you with desperate haste.  I do hope the mail courier is able to procure this letter in a timely fashion for I require your knowledge and insight.  As you know, Bishop Crane bequeathed to me his post in the town of Fairview New Mexico.  The inhabitants here are finding themselves drawn to God and I find myself his living incarnation fighting for their salvation.  Silver fever has polluted the many souls here and they look to me to make it right.  We are also without a reputable physician so we have become reliant on the trite medical knowledge I acquired under Father Casper during my Monastery days.

The daughter of a prosperous business man Frank Winston, was brutally attacked.  The poor dear was taken from her bed while she slept by something awful.  She found herself clutching to life in their stable with a deep gash in her back.  Daniel, it was unlike anything I have seen in all my forty years.  No known animal or blade did that to her.  Towns folk here formed a lynch mob that did little more than prowl the out-land ranches and scare a few sleeping farmers.  These people are untamed and quick to band together, it makes me nervous.

I write to you because I fear something ungodly might be upon us.  Your work with the young Doctor Van Helsing will hopefully be able instruct me and guide me in this dark hour.

May the mighty shepherd keep you and bless you,
Father Thomas

July 29th 1897

Father Thomas,

I’m sorry to hear your new post is not going to be the highlight of your missionary career, but then again, you might find yourself canonized by the locals should sleuth this attack into a justifiable fruition.  I would much prefer to come to you for direct correspondence, for I fear it will be most grave if not resolved quickly.  Unfortunately, my own duties to the church bar me from such travel.  By the time you receive this letter I predict at least one more soul will have fallen victim to this daemonic presence and I pray it not be you.  So you must act quickly.

You are in the heartland of indigenous Navajo unrest.  You very well might be under attack from one of the most outlawed cultural practices.  Much like the satanic witches that permeated the civil unrest of the new world years ago, the local native inhabitants of this land are no stranger to their own practitioners of the dark art.  You must not under any circumstance venture out during the night.  Encourage the people of Fairview to follow this same instruction, at least until an acceptable explanation can be found.  There are certain tasks ahead of you, a few of which I pray you fail, for if you succeed, you are in a danger of the highest caliber.

I need you to start keeping track of the moon cycles.  Each day, during dawn or twilight, mark down how much of the white face is exposed.  On this same record you must note when the attacks occur.  Write to me when you have two weeks worth of observation.

Second, you must venture into the mountains and look for the Atropa belladonna plant.  The people there are sure to know it as the deadly nightshade.  Look for any sign it is being harvested or cultivated unnaturally.

Thirdly it would behoove you to gain the allegiance of the local correspondent to the indigenous Navajos of the area.  Thomas for your own safety they must understand you are a friend to all of the Navajo people.  Under no circumstance is he to know that you might possibly suspect his people of anything.  Learn all you can about their feelings toward the presence of Fairview’s settlers.

Lastly Thomas, you must persuade some of the local miners to show their support for the church in raw silver ore.  Once you have adequate enough supply, conscript the local blacksmith to make you a walking stick tipped on both ends with silver caps and also a new rosary.  This may be of use and protect you against the daemon, for most cannot bare the touch of silver.

God bless you,
Father Daniel

August 20th 1897

Father Daniel,

You were correct about the attacks, we have seen two more as I write this letter.  The local school teacher, one Miss Lori Kelstin, was found next to a nearby creek with her body completely shredded.  Daniel it was a horror that will scar me for this life and the next.  Also the banker’s son, Phillip Augustus, has gone missing.  It has posed too much for the populous to take.  This place is not safe for anyone, and more people are leaving everyday.  By the time you receive this correspondence my Sunday mass will be attended by the last horde of miners standing steadfast by their government claims.  Still clinging to the hope of striking it rich, they will die before they leave and I fear they will.  God has put me here to erase this evil from existence and I’ll see it done, if it is the last thing I do.

My observation of the moon and attacks directly relate to each other. When the full whiteness is exposed we have reason to be afraid.  The full moon brings this plague of evil upon us without fail.  By  my calculation the next attack will happen in one weeks time when the moon is full again.  Daniel, it is by the simple mathematical principle of probability that I fear for my own life now.

I sought out the Atropa belladonna as you instructed.  I found most of it quite undisturbed except for one patch on the outskirts of a local Navajo settlement.  The berries were picked clean, and some of the leaves were visibly torn off.  I was advised that the plant is completely poisonous in all respects.  Whatever animal fell victim to it’s alluring beauty would surely be dead within a day or two.

The local Navajo correspondent and I have become acquainted, also at your instruction.  The subject of the attacks seems taboo for us to talk about.  I have expressed my concern for his people in the area but he seems very indifferent to the whole situation and fears not for them.  We have discussed at length the history of his people.  It is quite obvious to me now that we have no place here.

I’ve resorted to turning the church into a fortress of God’s light to illuminate this darkness.  I enlisted the services of the remaining craftsman to barricade the windows with heavy timber and reinforce the doors with heavy iron bindings.  Something taps the outside of the building at night and prevents me from getting adequate sleep.

Jesus Daniel what is happening here? What must I do?  Please help.

Thomas

September 1st 1897

Thomas,

It is exactly as I feared.  This letter should reach you eight days time before your relief.  I’ve communicated the gravity of your situation to our people in Albuquerque.  I’ve convinced the proper authorities that it is in the Church’s best interests to extract you from your situation and leave the fate of the town in God’s hands.  I will come myself and receive you in Albuquerque.

Thomas I believe you are in the evil clutches of none other than a native Skin-walker.  No doubt the local Navajo Medicine Man has fallen from grace.  He seeks retribution for the forced March of his people to Fort Sumner by the U.S. Army Forces those many savage years ago.

He is using the extract from the Atropa belladonna to make himself a nightly potion so that he may practice Lycantrophy and manifest the daemon purely out of his own energy.  If you come into contact with the man before the beast, you must not kill the man.  If the beast is created and the man dies, the beast will turn into a ravenous vampire that will kill anything it can.  For the vampire, requires abundant amounts of the life force to survive.  Warn everyone you can to defend themselves with silver if it comes to it.

You should at all costs avoid contact with the beast.  Lay low until they come for you Thomas.  Let God sort it out.  It is not worth the risk to your life my friend.

Praying desperately for you,
Father Daniel

September 5th 1897 – message delivered via Western Union Telegraph Service.

TO: Father Daniel
FROM: Church of Christ Albuquerque New Mexico

FATHER THOMAS STATUS: DECEASED.
B. CASPER REQUESTS YOU PERSUE INVESTIGATION.
FIND HELSING.

END

September 9th 1897

TO: Doctor Van Helsing (recorded dictation from Father Daniel)

Abraham the church needs you, I need you.  One of my dearest friends was taken from me in a small desert town of the American South West.  I believe he was killed by ancient native American  lycantrophic means.  You will know what to do.  Please come at once to Albuquerque New Mexico, US.

September 12th 1897 – message delivered via Western Union Telegraph Service.

TO: Father Daniel Albuquerque New Mexico
FROM: Abraham Van Helsing England

TRAVEL TO U.S. NOT POSSIBLE.
ONTO SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT WITH J. SEWARD
L. WESTERNA LIFE AT STAKE

END

Daniel crumpled the thin telegraph paper in his fist and brought his hands up in prayer.  L. Westerna could only be one person.  Lucy, lovely Lucy, the daughter of the one woman he ever loved.  He would go to England, to Doctor Van Helsing, and to Lucy.  He would give his own blood and life if it meant saving hers.

Little Jacob took cover under his Blankey to hide from the scary noise.

“Dad?” he squeaked out.

Nothing.

A massive boom and crackle forced him to put his hands over his little ears.

‘Just a bad dream. Mom says they can hurt me,’ he thought.

His eyes began to burn and water. Was something on fire?

He left Blankey’s protection and crawled on his knees to see if the door was hot.

He dropped to the floor at the sound again and wept.

Jacob heard Mommy’s muffled voice, “Go sleep downstairs, that is disgusting. No more chili night.”

Download Children of the Garden Wars PDF

Children of the Garden Wars
by: Danny Machal

Dusk

“Hoppers of the Outlands, come forth.”  Lord Cottontail and his guards stood in the middle of the Thicket.

The bushes rustled with movement.  Camouflage piles of wood and sticks stirred with golden eyes agape.  The Outland Hoppers, around thirty in number, covered ground sheepishly and slowly.  They kept their black and brown faces pointed down as they neared the flawless white fur of Lord Cottontail.

“Who is in charge here? Why have you not rallied your fighters to take part in tonight’s raid?”

Lord Cottontail beckoned for none other than the old greying Hopper chief, Long Ear.  A path formed among the bowed noses and lowered ears, out emerged the large Long Ear towering over Cottontail.

“I am my Lord, my name is Long Ear.  We coexist in peace with the Crawlers here.  This is your conflict, not ours.”  The most massive of Cottontail’s guards stepped forward;  Cottontail ordered the guard back into line with a flick of his ear.

“Not yours? My brother we are all in this fight together.  Why a crawler last night just took one of our young from Hoppiton.  How can you sit there and say such things?  A poor mother’s child lays digesting in the belly of one of those slithering vermin,” Cottontail said.

“The child’s loss is regrettable, but you and I both know a Crawler would not attack unless provoked.  They much prefer the taste of more challenging sport.”

“If you refuse to help the cause Long Ear, than consider yourself a permanent Outland Hopper.  The same goes for all of you Heads of House.”

Cottontail threatened the community as a whole but he knew what Long Ear said was law.  It was the Hopper way.  Long Ear and other community leaders spoke for their communes, and Heads of House spoke for their own families.  It was Long Ear’s choice to make, a choice he had earned the right to make long ago.  Long Ear turned his back to Cottontail and stood upon his massive hind legs to address the Outland Hoppers.

“You are all free to make your own choices here.  I would never stop any of you from doing what you felt was right for your families.  We have prospered many ages here in the Thicket and have done so all by ourselves.  Join Lord Cottontail now if you wish to pursue the assault on the Crawlers.  You will be welcomed back should you return.”

Not one head raised, not one foot moved from where it stood, silently they all pledged their allegiance to Long Ear.  Lord Cottontail stood stewing in his fast raising temperament.  Long ear turned to the young hopper ruler and bowed his head.

Lord Cottontail narrowed his eyes and wriggled his nose in disgust.  “Come fellow white fur Hoppers, these brown Outlanders wish to be isolated, so be it.  No Hopper is to come to their aid, no matter what circumstance has befallen them.  Let them be fed to the Crawlers and torn apart by the Longsnouts for their treachery.”

Cottontail’s small executive force bounded quickly north disappearing in the dense underbrush around the Thicket.  Long Ear sighed and raised his head.  The women and the young ones joined their Heads of House in the open.  They all sat in silence with their eyes fixed upon Long Ear.  He turned and hopped to his den to rest without saying a word.

That night the Thicket echoed with the faint screams of dying Hoppers and the hisses of fallen Crawlers.  Long Ear laid in the dark saddened at how quickly the peace he had created was being dismantled by Cottontail.

Night

From the inside of a sheltered above ground burrow, two young Hoppers contemplated defiance of their Heads of House, loyal to Long Ear.

“Why shouldn’t we go?  I refuse to sit and let Hoppers fight and die for the Thicket, we should be out there helping.”

“How do you plan on us doing that?  You’re not a fighter, I’m not a fighter, we have no fighters.  Long Ear has worked hard for peace with the Crawlers and Cottontail is destroying that this night.  The Thicket won’t be safe ever again after this.  How could the Crawlers ever trust us now?  Cottontail is lucky Long Ear didn’t challenge him.”

“Old Long Ear? What could he possibly do to Lord Cottontail?”

“My father says Long Ear was a Captain in the Garden Wars.  Says he went on some secret assassination missions and defeated a platoon of Longsnouts, by himself.  He also said that Long Ear lost an entire squad once,  said he was the only Hopper to come back out of twenty.  Guess he went crazy after that, didn’t care if he lived or died.”

The young Hopper stared blankly at the sleeping Long Ear on the far end of the Thicket.  The old grey mound heaved up and down with every deep breath, creating a faint grumble of a snore.

“Nah, I can’t see it.  Long Ear is no warrior.  If what you say is true, how could he possibly have turned out like this? I mean he speaks out against the War all the time.  Something must have happen to him to turn him into the Long Ear we know.  What does your Dad say about that?”

Before the answer could come the two were interrupted by another young male Hopper.

“Hey, we got a group of three going out to help Cottontail you guys coming?”

The Story Teller’s eyes become wide with excitement.  He looked to his comrade for confirmation.  Friendship ran deep as a family blood bond among Hoppers.  He waited for the decision hoping the stories of Long Ear had inspired his comrade.

“We’ll help.”  The two smiled at each other and joined the other three.

The five young Hoppers stealthily left the sleeping Thicket and trotted toward the faint sounds of battle in the distance.  Full of young excitement and vitality they looked back at the moonlit Thicket, not thinking for one moment they might never see it again.

Later that Night

The Five covered a great distance away from the Thicket into the forest before they found any new signs of life.  Small mounds of upturned earth became concentrated among the underbrush the further they penetrated into the thick woodland.

“Crawler dens those are,” the largest of the Five said.

“Split up and start checking them, we won’t catch up to Cottontail’s front line tonight anyway.  At least we can be sure their path home is clear.  Stay within earshot, we’ll need at least two Hoppers to a Crawler to take them down.”

Hole after hole was inspected.  They expanded their coverage area checking the mounds that were further out and farther apart.

“Found a nest,” the Story Teller called out.

The Five converged on the discovery.

“Look in there, two eggs, maybe three.  Let us wait for the female.”

They waited silently in the shadows ten bounds away, a distance easily covered by a young Hopper in three seconds.  After a short while the small female Crawler emerged, her dark green scales glimmered in the moonlight.  The Five sprinted toward her the moment the slender tube-like body was fully visible.  Her head snapped up as she sensed the advancing movement.  The tail end of her body whipped the leading Hopper mid bound causing him to tumble.  She was frantic in her defense to protect the unborn.  A Mother’s guard is a force never to be meddled with, no matter the creature.

The other four began nipping with their teeth at any piece of flesh they could get at.  With her calculating targeting system the Crawler struck the Story Teller, capturing his head between her jaws.  She began to squeeze with skull crushing force.  The young Hopper let out a scream.

“Get her head off,” the large Hopper shouted.

The four began to take large bits of flesh from the same area in rapid succession until the spine was served and she relaxed her grip.  The limp Crawler body collapsed on top of the Story Teller.  The comrade pulled as the Story Teller wriggled to free himself from under the smothering girth of the body.

Filled with the fury of battle the others dashed into the den one after the other.  Smashing the eggs with their powerful hind legs, the embryonic Crawler-slime splashed their brown noses and quickly crusted on their fur.  Shortly after, they made their way outside, to the field of victory.

None of them could speak.  Thousands of new emotions rippled through every fiber of muscle in their small young bodies.  Their daze was short lived.

A large Crawler quickly emerged from the nearby underbrush.  It was a male twice as large as the female.  He paused for a split second surveying the devastation the Five had created.  The fight was on and the Largest Hopper would be the first to die.

Morning

Worry and desperation ran an infectious course amongst the inhabitants of the Thicket.  Long Ear went from burrow to burrow informing the Outland Hoppers of the runaways, and consoling the families of the Five.  A rustling from the south brought two exhausted blood stained Hoppers out of the underbrush.  The Thicket converged upon them with inquiry.  Two relieved Heads of House and three now more sullen than before huddled close around the two survivors.

“There are only two of you.  You were five in number, where are the others?” the group demanded.

“We got attacked by two Crawlers, a male and a female.  Our number enabled us to kill the female but the male out skilled us.  The other three were crushed, we ran while he was distracted with the last of the others,” the Story Teller said this as he stood next to his gullible red streaked comrade.

Long Ear forced himself into the small circle.

“Where is the Crawler now? Were you followed? Stupid young ones, you killed his mate.  His blood lust will blind him to fight to the death until she is avenged.”

As Long Ear uttered the words a thundering crash came through the canopy above the Thicket.  A Crawler now lay coiled up in a fighting stance eyeing the bloodied pair of young Hoppers.  Long Ear placed himself between the cluster of Hoppers and the Crawler.

“Get to the shelter of your burrows my Outland Hoppers.  Protect the young ones.”

At his order the Thicket was cleared as Hoppers dashed in all directions seeking the protection of their fortified burrows.  They all looked on as Long Ear spoke to the Crawler who sat jittering in rage.

“Crawler you have taken three of our young.  Surely this is adequate for your loss.  Leave the Thicket in peace, brother of the Garden.”

The Crawler uncoiled like a welled up spring and with jaws wide lunged at Long Ear.  The large greying rabbit’s torso turned to earth as the Crawler’s nose slammed into the ground.  His target moved, and moved quickly.

“Please, let you and I talk this out.  There need not be any more bloodshed,” Long Ear pleaded with the Crawler from his new position behind.

Long Ear was visibly out of breath, the onlooking Hoppers were not sure if he would be able to dodge another attack.  The great muscular ribs of the Crawler dug into the moist dirt as he drew upon newly created momentum.  Long Ear was already in the air by the time the Crawler had made the second strike.  The great girth of the large Hopper on his neck made the Crawler summon all his strength just to stay balanced.  Long Ear sank his long dagger teeth into the flesh behind the Crawler’s head.

Blood sprayed in all directions as the Crawler erratically tossed his head back and forth.  Hissing in pain and writhing in desperate agony to shake Long Ear off, the Crawler turned over to slam his back against the ground.  It proved to be ineffective and the old Long Ear stayed firmly affixed until the Crawler moved no more and lay dead in the middle of the once peaceful Thicket.  Long Ear spoke to the Thicket in a commanding rasping breath.

“Heads of house prepare your families, we must leave the Thicket.”

Long Ear placed his fangs in the familiar holes on the Crawler and dragged it out of sight.

Sunset – two children play in an overgrown meadow far from home.

“Do you see that Danny?” Katrina stared ahead and quivered at the approaching wall of mist.

“I see it. It’s coming at us fast,” Danny took Katrina’s hand. She squeezed hard and inched herself close to him.

A torrent of wind propelled the thick white blinding mist, engulfing the two kids. Katrina shut her eyes burying her face in Danny’s chest.

“Danny I’m scared,” she shouted, crying.

The screaming wind died. Katrina opened her tear blurred eyes.

She stood alone, sobbing.

The mist had taken Danny away from her.

Shakespeare leaned against a brick wall contemplating ancient prose.

‘Let’s face it, this stuff was drudging to read and made even the most poor pauper wish for the guillotine,’ he thought.

There was an explosion of brick and a brightly dressed man appeared.

“Art thou bored?!” the man shouted.

“Is this entirely appropriate? You can’t just…” but he was interrupted.

“Step into a SLIM JIM!” the rough looking man was forceful.

He proceeded to bite vigorously on a stick of meat. A snap was heard and the nearby grain mill exploded, showering them with bits of debris.

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Reconstruction

(about 1500 words)

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“Eh, where you at mate?” Logan snapped his fingers.  “Didn’t you hear me?”

“Hear you when?” I said.

“Just now? Here you are, off on some distant planet.  Here I am,
spillin’ me bloody guts out about me mum.  All the while your off
rodgerin’ in some dream world with lord only knows what.”

“Sorry mate.  Just kinda spaced out ya’ know?” I wasn’t that sorry.
Whenever Logan was drunk, the first, second, third, and last subject
he ever talked about was his ruddy mother.  He would go on about how
she secretly wished for the Reconstruction to fail, or how she wasn’t
treatin’ his dad fair, an gettin’ round to the other toms on the
block.  She was a right fair git don’t get me wrong, but a bloke can
only be told the same tale so many times.  Besides, if Logan knew what
I knew through me dad, about the Reconstruction, he’d join his ruddy
ole mum and burn flags.

“Eh, you’re hopeless mate ya’ know that?” Logan said brushing the
golden shoulder length hair from his eyes.

I spaced out again.  It’s getting time to head to our  respective
lofts over on third street anyway.  We both live in the same men’s
dorm.  I’m not sure he’s going quietly or if he can even walk.  He
isn’t that much bigger than me, but we are both fairly short stout
blokes.  I’m fortunate to be a little more firm in the sinew than he
is though, so I can muscle him about if it comes to it.

It came to it only once before it did.  Some tom gets spouting off
about how the lass Logan was seeing is getting round.  Naturally this
strikes a chord with my hot tempered friend and he sees fit to break a
beer bottle on the bar.  Grabs the bloke by his arm and starts slicing
at his chest, all barbarian like.  I nearly broke his arm myself
getting him out of there.  Of course I took a slice to the arm while
trying to save him from arrest.  Bloody F5 Agents are crawling the
streets these days just looking for a good reason to send a young
bloke to a labor camp.  He looked alright tonight though.  As long as
we don’t run into any rebel Chavs looking to challenge her royal
Majesty’s new glorious way of living, we should be just fine.  Those
Chavs got it right if you ask me.

“But ya’ aren’t askin’ me, are ya’ mate?” I said to Logan.

“Ashkin’ you wha’? Logan slurred.

“That’s all I needed, let’s go mate.  Your mum’ll be expectin’ a call
that we got to the dorm safe.”

“Aye, Darren, so ish’ be.  Le’sh get on with it.”  Logan stood up and
started for the door.  He’s walking straight tonight.  This is a good
sign.  We should make it back without incident.  He stopped at the
door before opening it, wiggled his arms behind himself and into his
blue jumpsuit.  He zipped up the front, covering the yellow work shirt
and puffing out his chest to expose the embroidered image of her
Majesty on his left breast.  Bound for a warm room and a soft bed, we
set off into the icy night air.

Three blocks is all we had to make it.  Three bloody blocks, but no.
Logan catches a glint of something gold in the only eye he has managed
to keep open.  Turns out the gold glint is the toggle on the vest of
some Chav.  A Chav spray painting a big ol’ red X on the Queens vide
in the middle of some off shoot alleyway.  There she sits, smiling in
all her glory, and some Freedom Fighting Chav comes along to tag her
like a game of political bingo.  This strikes a chord with my hot
tempered friend.  He decides it’s time to teach this Chav a lesson.

“I’ma crush his vide in with my royal lovin’ boot Darren I am.  You’s
watch this.”

The idea of fighting seemed to sober him up right quick.  I’ll stay
out of it because I know just as well as that Chav does, it is illegal
to deface an image of her Majesty, caught by the wrong people and you
will pay the price.  She has worked so hard in the Reconstruction.
Bared so much of the burden, she is our personal Jesus she is.

Logan seemed right sober on the physical like, but in the head – he
is drunk enough to send me to the F5 Court himself for showin’
sympathy to a Chav, or even acknowledging that he might not be as well
pissin’ in her royal soup as to raise that spray can.  Like it
mattered, we were all headed somewhere if the F5 caught wind of the
disturbance.  Either way, I had to say something.

“Go easy on em’, eh? He’s just a young tom not knowin’ what he really
thinks.  Bloody parents are probably activists.”  This struck a chord
with my hot tempered friend on account of his mum.

“Bullocks Darren,” he glared at me and that was that.

Logan started off down the alley.  The gas lamps behind him created a
ten meter shadow monster moving toward this Chav, but the Chav stands
there smiling, vide to vide with Logan.  Like he isn’t scared.  Two
paces out and Logan has stopped.  He is eyeing the Chav deciding the
best way to make him understand how important it is to never shat on
her Majesty’s image.  Four more Chavs emerge from the shadows and
charge at Logan pouncing in the air.  Their boot heels point at his
chest.  He is quick to the reflex and grabs a Chav in mid air like.
The lad’s body is deflected straight into the bricks, he hits his vide
and lights out.  One Chav down, four to go, or maybe three.  The
original grinning bloke still stands in the back.  Hasn’t moved an
inch he hasn’t.  Just what is he playing at?

The other three set to work on Logan getting him on the ground.
Boots are busting him in the ribs, about the vide, and pulling at his
queer inviting hair.

Looks like he might have the upper hand now.  You see, Logan isn’t
feeling any pain, just throwing punches.  Every time he lands one and
hears a Chav yelp he is renewed in spirit.  Looks like he’s holding
his own, I’ll keep watch for the F5.  Fights are good for wearing
blokes out right quick like.

I look out the alley entrance in both directions, and see nothing but
steaming drains.  I hear the growl of Logan but with a high pitched
flavor.  I look back and the original Chav has got himself a broken
steel pipe he has.  He’s getting to work on Logan’s vide and I see my
mates blood start to stain the street – he goes limp.  I start running
toward them.

The main Chav takes the jaggy end of his steel and puts it to Logan’s
throat.  Prepared to shiv him in the neck and send him to Charon.

“Eh, easy mate,” I said, stopping and holding out my hands.

“You don’t want to be doing that.”

“Oh aye, I think I do.  You two toms can lick the royal Queen’s bum
all ya’ want.  Tis a bad day in the Isles when a young bloke can’t
stand up for what he thinks is good an decent.  Not without getting
the Queen’s blind hounds trying to stomp him and his mates,” he said.

“Look mate, I know where ya’ comin’ from, but I tell ya’ this just
isn’t the way.  He’s drunk and just got a temper is all.  Now let’s
just part ways, you drag your mate and I’ll drag mine, before we all
end up in the F5′s mitts,” I pleaded.

This Chav is ready to make this his defining moment in the
resistance.  He was going to make my mate a martyr, and himself a
legend, I could see it in his eyes.  There was nothing I could do.

He raised his arms and the jaggy steel cast a claw like shadow on
Logan’s swollen vide.  Light flooded the alley from both ends.

“Bleeding Christ it’s F5,” the Chav shouted.  He dropped the steel
and the four ran toward the alley exit closest; hoping for an opening
to give the Agents the slip.

An Agent stepped into the light wearing a black jumpsuit.  His chest
puffed out and the Queen’s embroidered vide on his breast displayed
his allegiance.  He gripped the chrome metal baton firmly in his hand,
which according to him, was just an extension of her Majesty’s own
arm.  The Chavs sprinted at him and split off in pairs, as to rush
past on either side.

“Evening lads,” he shouted.

In a right quick automatic reflex, he turned that baton all
horizontal like.  The ends extended and anchored into the brick walls
of the alley.  The Chavs all ran into it, hitting in the vide or the
throat, knocking them to the street.

“Four rebel Chavs walk into her Majesty’s bar,” he laughs.

As they lay gasping or clutching their vide with blood inking through
their fingers, he goes to work on them with the retracted baton.  An
Agent takes my arm from behind.

“Lets go, worker,” he says to me.  I move toward Logan and his grip tightens.

“…but my mate, what about my mate?…Logan,” says I.

I struggle and turn back to look at the Agent.  I see the reflection
of my own vide.  The eyes stare back at me.  In that split second I
remember everything.  Everything that led to this moment.  How they
came to power, how it all happened: the Queen, her Agents, the
Reconstruction, the dorms, the Rebel Chavs, the work camps, and my
father.

Lights out.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 13 – Download PDF

Chapter 13: Good Cop, Bad Cop

“Remfred Brody, step up on the line please,” the young officer ordered.

The flash of the camera exploded in Remy’s eyes, he squinted.

“Turn to your right side please.”

Again the flash.

“Turn to your left side please.”

Booking. It was a longer process than registering a car at the DMV. They took more than finger prints these days. The system required a scan of your palms and the sides of your hands. Remy sat in a room with other people waiting to be processed into the system or housed in a jail cell. The only thing that made this room different than a kids area sickroom at a hospital, was the sliding steel bars on the exits.

It smelled like sick and bleach. There was a television, drinking fountain, and a series of solid plastic chairs all locked together in rows. Remy was in a room with the drug addicts and the drunks picked up last night. You couldn’t put your feet up, you were not free to leave your seat for any reason, and the officer who drew the short straw got stuck with this processing shift. It was shit work, nothing exciting. The system hardly ever handles any harden criminals these days. These are just regular folks who made a small mistake or became the victim of unfortunate circumstance. Remy fell into the second. The bolt slid back on a door behind them. Stenciled above this door in large block letters was the word, “Interview.”

“Brody. Where is Brody?” Remy stood up.

“Right here sir,” Remy said.

“Come on back.”

Remy recognized the young man from Smitty’s shop last night. It was the same police officer who told him to get outside and later hustled him into the back of a squad car. He had a likeness to the older man that Remy tried to help. More clean cut though, and permeated the small room with his egotism. The polished name plate pinned to his breast read, “Martian.”

The room was small and contained only two steel chairs bolted to the floor, a hard solid plastic table, one florescent light with one of the two tubes burnt out, one steel security camera box in the top corner, and two doors opposite each other. Remy could only guess that the door he didn’t come in lead to the personal jack off room for cops. They watched suspects being tormented into confessions of the crimes they didn’t commit. The two men sat opposite each other as Martian read through Remy’s file.

“So you were divorced and the kid decided to go with his mother?” Martian said.

“Yea that’s right. She wanted it to go smoothly and split everything 50/50 but I just told her to take it all.”

“Brody, you’ll refrain from elaborating unless I direct you otherwise. Yes or no are your only answer options at this time.” Martian scanned the pages in the file.

“Says here you are ex-military but everything about it is classified. Medical discharge due to knee injuries sustained during service. There are disabled vet programs for people like you. You know that right?”

“Yes,” Remy said.

“So you choose to be homeless?”

“No,” Remy said.

“No? Than why are you on the streets?”

“I grew up being taught that a man had to make his own way. Provide for himself and his family. That’s how it’s done. I’m just making my own way sir,” Remy said.

“So you’re the proud type of bum?”

“Yes,” Remy didn’t like the word bum, but there was no other way to describe himself. No one would hire him or give him a second glance. He was homeless but it wasn’t for lack of trying to make a better life. Failing as a husband to Dana and a father to his son Roger, made him realize maybe it was just time to fade away from existence. He had already squared it away in his mind that he would die on the streets, it was just a matter of time and place or temperature.

“How did you know Andrew Smithe?” Martian asked accusingly.

“Never heard the name,” Remy said.

“The owner of the underhanded pawn shop Brody, how did you know him?”

“Oh, Smitty and I go back a ways I guess. He’s a household name among the homeless. He’ll take just about anything if it’s in good enough shape, and he always pays in cash without asking any questions,” Remy replied.

“When was the last time you saw him before last night?”

“Well, I sold him a microwave I happened upon a couple days ago…”

“You mean you stole?” Martian interrupted in a harsh accusing tone.

“No, it fell of the truck or something. It was just sitting in the alley abandoned,” Remy snapped back in the same manner as Martian’s accusation and shifted his body forward. He watched Martian’s face turn a slight shade of red. Remy shuffled in his seat realizing the error of not keeping his cool.

“You got a problem with me Brody?”

“No sir,” Remy said.
“Then you better mind your fucking manners and just answer the questions.”

“Yes sir,” Remy said relaxing back into his chair.

The buzzer sounded and the lock on the door to the jack off room clicked. The door swung open. The older fellow from last night emerged.

“John, a word please?” he said. Martian stood up and put his palms on the table leaning over into Remy’s face.

“Don’t move Brody, I’ll be right back. You’ll explain to me just what exactly you’ve been doing the last couple days.”

“Yes sir.”

The two men left the room and Remy was alone. These types of things were supposed to be routine. Remy had no convictions to speak of, but he had been arrested numerous times just for being who he was. Martian acted like Remy was taking regular shits on his lawn and wiping with his fresh morning paper. He didn’t understand what the guy’s problem was. After a few minutes the door opened again.

“Remy I’m Detective Arthur Martian. I wanted to thank you for your efforts last night. I don’t think you had any involvement in Smithe’s attack,” Arthur said.

“How is the knee and the ass?”

“Oh, about as good as yours I guess,” He shuffled to the chair opposite Remy and delicately sat down, wincing as he did so.

“You’ll have to forgive my brother John. We’ve had a bad round of luck in unsolvable cases lately,” Arthur said.

“I read about the Snoogins’ case in the paper. Bastard is still at large I guess. You think he attacked Smitty?”

“It’s a possibility. Remy, I’d like you to talk to me about your microwave,” Arthur said.

Remy looked down. He knew how crazy he would sound but he told Arthur anyway. He told him about how it just appeared, and the plates of Thanksgiving feast it kept producing. Told him how last night he saw the front door open and the plate of food again inside it.

“You think I’m crazy right?” Remy said.

“There is no doubt you are crazy Remy. A man with a classified war record is never quite right in the head. However, I do believe you are not a liar and are telling me what you believe to be true.”

Arthur proceeded to tell Remy about the Snoogins investigation. About the blender, and all the holes in their findings. How there was no evidence that anyone else was with her and her house was without power. Yet, she was dead in her kitchen and her arm chewed up in her own blender.

“That is some crazy shit,” Remy said.

“Yes, it’s definitely a different type of investigation. When we collected the evidence from Smithe’s shop this morning the microwave was unplugged. I do not believe it was ever plugged in. The plate of food we found inside matches your description.”

“You think that Smitty opened the microwave and it burned his eyes out?” Remy asked uneasily.

“I don’t know what I think yet, but I’d like you to work with me and be apart of this before someone else gets hurt. I’m going to have them release you soon and I’ve arranged for a bed at a local shelter.”

“I don’t need no shelter,” Remy said in a haughty tone.

“If you would rather a cell I can arrange that instead.”

“No sir.”

“Good. Stay close to the shelter then, I’ll call on you there when I need you,” Arthur stood up and held out his hand. Remy took it and gave it a firm shake.

“Yes sir,” Remy said.

They shaved our heads and stripped us of our possessions.

We’re forced into uniforms and our identities raped into numbers, some have forgotten their own names.

My steady surgeon’s hand used scalpels to save people’s lives once. Now it holds hard plastic and is weighted down with chains.

“Next!” the voice ordered everyone to shuffle forward.

It was her fault for making me teach him a lesson. She was the unfaithful demon, I was the angel of justice, of love.

“Next!”

A ladle scrapped the steel drum as the last bit of prison gruel was served on my tray.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 12 – Download PDF

Chapter 12: Come together, right now! Over me – Love, Smitty.

Since he had parted ways with the microwave Remy wasn’t able to sleep very much.  At some ungodly hour he found himself rummaging through the dumpster at the cafe across from Smitty’s shop.  He popped up for air just in time to see the whole street light up in a flash of bright white light.

Arthur Martian was pulling out of the cafe when he saw the flash.  He slammed the Eldorado’s brakes and jumped out of the car.

The girl in the cafe was in the bathroom taking a piss so she didn’t see it, but she heard the old brakes.  Not uncommon at this time of night.  Half the city was drowning their sorrows in booze or drugs and then driving home to families they hate.  Bound to be a few near miss accidents.

The cook  at the cafe, he saw it, but his green card was about to expire and he was fresh out of county jail for a DUI and driving on a suspended.  So he tried his best to ignore the flash.

A dog tied up outside saw it too, but he just figured it was one more step toward canine dominance over the planet so, he didn’t do anything.  One less human to be disposed of, as far as he was concerned.

The old lady who never leaves the cafe saw it.  Her large hat tipped up from the aging 1993 Edition of Cat Fancy at just the right moment to catch the flash through her greying cataract eyes.  She wasn’t quite sure what happened but she liked any excuse to call the cops.  She was the one that phoned in the disturbance of the peace.  Arthur was already out of his car when the dispatcher asked what units were in the area.

Remy shuffled across the street to take a look.  Some guy in a tan trench coat was already there and kicking in the door.

Arthur felt the pain shoot up his leg when the glass door didn’t give.  He let out a roar as the joint in his knee compressed and the cartilage snapped.  He surprisingly kept his balance and teetered on the good leg.  The fat man was on the floor inside laying next to a shotgun.  He wasn’t moving, maybe not even breathing.  Arthur put two rounds through the heavy duty lock and one through the glass.  Instantly the burglar alarm went off screeching in his ears.  Crystals rained on the carpet as he made a hole with the butt of his gun to reach the handle inside.  He pushed the door open with his shoulder and collapsed into the shop.

As he lay there on his back he pointed his gun in all directions prepared to unload on the first thing that looked remotely threatening.  The cheap alarm system shorted out within seconds and it became quiet.

“You okay buddy?” Remy appeared outside the door.  Arthur whipped around on his back.  The shattered glass under him made tiny stinging cuts into his thighs.

“Get on the ground,” Arthur commanded.

“Easy there friend,” Remy held out a his hands.  “You hurt?”

Arthur relaxed his grip on the .38 and lowered the barrel.

“Leg is fucked up.  Butterball here is worse off.”

Remy shuffled over putting his good leg toward Arthur.

“Can ya’ stand?” Remy asked.

“Yea, I think so.  Here help me, on three,” Arthur said.  Remy crouched as much as his leg would allow and put his arms under Arthur’s arm pits.

“1…2…3,” Remy hoisted Arthur up to his legs.  Arthur was surprised at the smaller man’s strength.  This wasn’t the first time he had hoisted almost dead weight.  Arthur extended his legs and took his weight off Remy’s grip.

“Fuck!” his leg gave out and he fell back on to the glass.  Little daggers dug into his ass now, and blood started to seep out of the small lacerations.  The adrenaline was wearing off and the pain began to take over.

“You better just sit there for now,” Remy said as he looked over at the heap of Smitty.

“Smitty dead?” Remy asked.

“Smitty? You know this guy?” Arthur winced.  Was bad enough he shot a cat, now his damn ass was going to need glass picked out of it.  He felt the pre-embarrassment of the coming days.

“Yea, he owns the place.”  Remy went over to the body to see if Smitty was still alive.  He picked up one of Smitty’s meaty paws and felt for a pulse.  It was weak but he would make it.

“Jesus, his face,” Arthur nodded toward Smitty.  Remy looked at the black indented circles that used to be Smitty’s eyes.

“Looks like he took a flaming arrow to each one,” Remy said.

“Poor bastard,” they both said at the same time.

The black and whites arrived bathing the store front in flashes of blue and red.  Remy didn’t like dealing with cops but he knew it would be alright.  He’d get the normal drill of questions: Who the hell are you and where were you when it went down?

Now that Arthur knew that Remy knew Smitty, he was sure to be a suspect.  At least if they held him for questioning he would get a cot to sleep in and a hot meal or two, then he would be released.  Being homeless doesn’t make you a criminal, but it always makes you the prime target for the blame.

“Art!” John dashed to his brother’s side.  He looked at Remy.

“You, outside, now,” John said with expected accusing eyes.

“Easy on him John he just wandered by and offered to help.  Isn’t that right…?”

“Remy,” Remy said.

He nodded and made his way to the curb as paramedics rushed past him to tend to Arthur and Smitty.  Gazing through the bars on the windows he watched the frantic activity inside.  Remy caught a glint of something shiny.  Among the organized chaos of the Trauma Unit, behind the bobbing heads, and among the fury of blue latex gloves, the familiar microwave sat on the floor.  The door was open.  Inside Remy could see the fluffy white of potato mountain, and the small specs of neatly stacked peas.

“No, way,” he said aloud.

“No way what?” the young officer said.

Remy turned and found himself eye to eye with a boy.  Just a boy.  This kid was all too familiar to Remy.  He watched many of these King Kong dicked gunslingers die because they thought they were invincible.  Itchy trigger fingers and underestimations of the enemy found many a mother getting a hand delivered letter and a pine box filled with what was left of their child.

‘Oh, sorry ma’am.  The letter says your son died a hero, that must be true.  They would never tell you it was because he wanted to earn Daddy’s respect and get a medal.  That is why he charged into that hut, guns blazing, only to have his throat cut by some Charlie waiting in the rafters above the threshold.  No, he served his country well, and did exactly what he was told to do.  ‘Go son, go and make us proud,’ Daddy said.  Now mamma is crying wondering what happened to her baby boy, and daddy is crying out to God to bring his son back.  While Satan sits in the parlor enjoying a highball of fine whiskey from the liquor cabinet carving, “you get what you wish for” into the fresh mahogany bar that Daddy and Son built and stained the summer before he shipped out to basic; they both sit here and wonder, why him? Why us?  War is hell folks, deal with it.’

Fingers snapped in front of Remy’s glossed over face.

“Back to reality pal.  I got some questions.” Remy sighed holding back the tears.

“Hmmmmm,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“Hmmmmmmmm,” I was louder this time.  She ignored my plea and went to the metal work bench behind my naked, restrained, body.

My feet and hands were shackled by chains attached to metal rings in the floor, ensuring my absolute immobilization.

First, the sound of a drill was heard.  Then, the sound of a chain saw in proper working order.  None of this made me cringe as much as the bench grinder did.

She ripped the tape off of my mouth.

“Guess you can’t say the safe word with tape on.”

“Proceed,” I said.

Running Shoes – By: Danny Machal

Part I

‘My name, is Berry Augustine.’

‘I’m thirty five years old and I’m a sick man.’

‘I’m also now, dead.’

‘At the age of twenty nine I was surprised to find there was a woman who would marry me.  My lovely wife Dana; she must have been sick too.  No sane and healthy woman would ever get involved in my situation.’

‘She is sad that I’ve gone, but she’s also the strongest woman I’ve ever met.  She’ll never stop loving me or forget me and the void I’ve left in her will be filled quickly.  She is just that kind of person, a survivor.  Not like me.  I was weak.’

‘You see, they told me I have obsessive compulsive disorder.  The three letters OCD would somehow define me to a lot of folks.  I’m a person ya’ know? I’m not just an ATM for the pharmaceutical corporations, and it isn’t like I’m contagious.’

‘I ask them why it is wrong to have unexplained feelings toward certain things in life.  Is the feeling of uncertainty in love no different?  Is the unexplained superhuman strength of the mother who lifted a car to save her child any different than what I feel?’

“Yes, Mr. Augustine it is different.  You have a sickness and we can help you,” they say.

‘I really never saw any problem with my supposed illness until it killed me.  Even then I only saw it for a few seconds and that is pushing it.  You’re asking your self two questions right now.  The first being how I died.  The second is most important.’

‘What exactly was my diagnosed OCD a result of?’

‘So I’ll answer quite simply.’

‘Sometime in my early twenties I became unable to wear a pair of shoes more than once.  I couldn’t help it, deep down it just felt wrong.  It felt wrong to me like rape and murder feel wrong to you.  It just wasn’t something I could ever do.  Even fleeting thoughts of, Re-use as I came to call it, made me sick.  Sometimes I would actually manifest physical illness in myself.  Some places I couldn’t ever go into, say a bowling alley, not that they wanted me there anyway.  Every time I tried it always ended in a violent torrent of projected sickness on the walls of the entrance.  I don’t remember the day or the moment I started to feel this way, it just was.  Maybe my brain has blocked out some painful memory to save me from the real cause.’

‘Imagine waking up everyday and having to lace up a new pair.  The house you live in smells of  new machined rubber.  You have a room with three hundred sixty five boxes of all shapes and sizes; the year’s cache of footwear.  Nike, Vans, Airwalk, Reebok, Adidas and a lot of no name Super Store knockoffs fill this room top to bottom.’

‘Even at twenty dollars a pair it is a little over seven thousand dollars a year.  This personal eccentricity was a large financial burden on me.  There were stretches of time when I didn’t eat so that I could just leave the house.  When Dana came along it was easier.  Both our incomes kept me comfortably in shoes.  I was mystified to the very end why she stayed with me – eternally, I will always be grateful for her.’

‘It was hard to deal with the part of myself I had no control over.  The lurking annoyance of unwelcome rules made me a slave.  Martial law had been declared in my brain and I would rather die than break it.  So I did.’

‘Being dead, is a lot like being in jail.  Everyone you meet in this place is only interested in the event that got you here.  Here’s how it went down for me.’

Part II

“Babe lets go,” Dana shouts at me while holding open the back door in our kitchen.

“Just a sec, putting shoes on.  You know these runs cost us a lot of money,” I shouted back down the hall.

“Running is good for the heart and soul, especially when done first thing in the morning.  Worth the investment if you ask me.”

“My little stock broker never misses a good investment does she?” I sprinted past her and out the door.

“Cheater,” she shouted.  We were off to the park to run our laps.

This had become our routine for a while now.  My psychiatrist suggested that regular exercise would be a good thing for my depression.  Didn’t help.  Not one bit.  Only thing it did was get me good at running and cost me an extra pair of shoes four days a week.

We came upon a sharp turn in our imaginary race course.  Dana was gaining on me so I figured I’d play it sly like.  I pulled a low in and high out to get in front of her.  I got about half way around the sloped embankment when my legs were promptly swept from under me.  The hit was powerful and I got some good air time sliding to a stop on my behind.  It hurt and I probably bruised my tail bone.  When I sat up to get a look at my attacker he ran over and licked me across the cheek.

“This is why there are leash laws.  Get away from me you mutt.”

I pushed the massive black lab with both hands.  Pushed a little too hard, I guess.  The fella lost his footing and fell over.  At least now he knows how it feels.  I wasn’t that sorry.  I got to my feet and knew I was lopsided; sloping down more than the grade of the hill, uneven, and not balanced.

“Damnit, shoe came off.”

“Looks like you’re one legging it home, Captain Ahab style,” Dana smiled and picked up my shoe.

“I can go get the car if you want.”

“Nah, I’ll be alright.  Let’s just walk home,” I said.

“Let’s take the bus.  The stop is right here,” she suggested.

We sat down on the bench and waited.

Waiting at a bus stop is like being in a room of Gladiators before the main event.  You know you all have to kill each other, but who will strike first?  The buses in this city can get full sometimes so you need to establish your spot in line at the moment the bus is in sight.  In our case the bus was elusive and came with little warning.  Like a small quarterback behind one of his linemen, the bus came quick behind a cement truck.  We all jumped up from our seats.

I lost my balance forgetting I only had the one shoe on.  I tried to stop myself but ended up sprinting a few steps forward and falling off the curb.  Lost my other shoe too, ‘thanks Gravity.’  I landed on my back and time slowed down.  This seems to be pretty consistent with most people’s recollection of their death.  It is like God’s last evil prank is to mess with your perception of time at the worst possible moment in your life.  Of course he couldn’t ever do that for the moments you’d want to remember forever.  Dana and I’s first kiss, our wedding day, any of those big life moments you wouldn’t forget if only you had a little more time to soak it all up.

Dana locked eyes with me for the last time.  In that brief moment I was reminded of our wedding vows, ‘forever and ever, our eyes said to each other.’  She moved toward me instantly but it was too late.  I heard a high pitched squeal long enough to register the sound, was indeed, brakes being slammed.  I turned my head just in time to get a face full of rubber.  By the time the cement truck came to a stop, the road looked like Paul Bunyan had stepped on a large packet of ketchup, forcing it to explode.

‘Good bye Dana, I love you.’

‘Well, that was it for me – headless, shoeless, and lifeless.  I sometimes wonder if it was rubber itself that had it out for me.  Maybe those rubber-band balls I made as a kid weren’t such a hot idea, and maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t in my best interests to squeal my tires or, drag my feet on the cement.  I suppose my soul will be reincarnated soon.  I can only hope I don’t come back as a bird nested high in a rubber tree, because if I do, I have a feeling I’ll fail my first flight test.’

We are little people.

My Father never hesitated to point out the things we weren’t capable of.

The constant mental abuse battered against my Mother’s mental ramparts.

She might be a small midget, but her pride was as large as a full grown man.

Smuggling a syringe from her work, she would make him a special Hawaiian pizza that night.

I typed the word ‘arsenic’ into the WolframAlpha frame work after we got back from Dad’s funeral.

No results were returned about it killing anyone.

—————————————————————-

Danny says –

1) I’ll record the audio for this story later today.

2) Give Blood and Thanks is postponed until tomorrow night.

3) Working on a REALLY cool story that I need to get finished up for GreatHites.

4) I’m going to do NanoWriMo this year.  So the time  has come for me to kick around ideas and start outlining.  Click the link to learn more about NanoWriMo.

5) I’ve got so much crap in the hopper right now it is disgusting.  I need to get the word count up and that is all there is to it.

6) I love you guys

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 10 and 11 – Download PDF

Chapter 10: Coffee and steak make Arthur Martian’s gears turn.

“Refill sir?” the waitress asked.

“Sure,” Arthur scooted his cup toward the edge of the table.  She filled it and spilled a few drops on the packet of Snoogin’s utility records.

“Hey, watch it,” he said.

“Sorry.”

Her sharp features turned a shade of pink.  The girl couldn’t be more than nineteen years old.  She looked at the ground, paused, then turned to walk away.  Short cropped black hair bounced in rhythm with her slim hips.  He recognized that type of behavior.  Pausing like that, it indicated she was waiting to be dismissed by him, the man.  Arthur could only guess what sort of asshole broke her.  If he had a dollar for the head of every stepfather he slammed into a door or a wall he would probably have close to a hundred.  His eye’s stayed locked on her as she gracefully floated back behind the counter.

Arthur had always been a bachelor type of guy.  Never married and no kids to speak of, never saw much reason for it.  The way he figured it, he would die early from smoking and eating red meat.  ‘Could also get shot on the job,’ he thought.  Why put anyone through that?  He picked up the summary of Emily’s last couple months of bills.

He skimmed through February’s phone records, then March, and finally April.  The numbers all checked out as indicated by John’s numerous high-lighted calls and notes in the margin.  Little brother was thorough and successful in impressing Arthur, just like he intended.

You can tell a lot about a person from their payment history.  Emily for instance, never paid a bill on time in the last year.  Coincidently she started falling behind right when her husband’s pension was taken from her.  Another elderly victim of the running joke that is the federal government’s financial aid, Social Security.

It didn’t take long for the utility companies to disconnect their service’s once they found out she was dead.  Phone service was within a week, May first if you want to get specific, and Arthur did.  Cable and internet service was gone by May third.  Arthur put down the papers and picked up his steak knife.  He carved off another bite of the bloody eight ounce New York strip, now cold.  He reached for the steaming mug to wash the meat down and looked a the smeared drops of coffee on the power bill.

‘Disconnected: April 23rd, 2009,’ it read.

Arthur did a double take and choked on the steak.  He slowly took a sip of hot coffee with a trembling hand to remove the anxious obstruction in his throat.  After he was sure he wouldn’t turn blue and suffocate he picked up his cell phone.  His callused thumb (from pulling back the hammer on his pistol so much) held the number two.  The LCD glowed, calling ‘Jonathan Martian,’ it read.  He put the speaker end to his ear as it started ringing.

“Hello,” the sleepy voice said.

“John, did you check with the power company about Snoogin’s house?”

“Dude, it is two in the fucking morning, don’t you ever sleep?” John said.  Now alert and agitated.

“Did you?”

“Uhh yea, they said it was off.  I told them to turn it back on so we could resume our investigation.  That house is on precinct payroll for power as we speak, so hopefully you didn’t leave any lights on when you were playing animal control the other night.”

“Let’s play a game John.  It’s called don’t be a smart ass.  Now listen up.  Emily’s power bill says the service was disconnected on April twenty third.”

“So?” John just wanted to get back to sleep.

“According to the coroner Emily was killed on April the twenty-sixth.  From what we gather she was completely alone with her arm in a blender chewed to hell.  It might just be me, but I have never heard of an industrial strength battery powered blender.”  There was no response on the other end of the call.

“Still awake?” Arthur said.  He was pleased with himself.  They finally had an anomaly, something to work with, not quite a lead, but something that would finally enable them to remove the thumb from their ass.

“Yea, I’m still here.  How in the hell does a blender get powered on in a house that is off the grid? Generator or extension cord is the only way.”

“All of the neighbors statements indicate no one talked to her for at least two days before she died.  No generator was heard in quiet suburbia that night.  John, that blender was plugged in the wall when we got there.”

Chapter 11: And when he broke the seventh seal there was silence in Heaven.  For about half an hour.

Beep beep beep!

Smitty lived alone above his shop and heard the beeping coming from down stairs.  He reached in the small space between the wall and the fridge, guess snacks will have to wait.  Most people would keep a broom there but most people didn’t have ten thousand dollars of merchandise and a business right below them.  Smitty pulled out the twelve gauge and slowly put a cartridge in the breech.  He held the slide with his hand to muffle the snap and click.

Beep Beep Beep!

When he reached the bottom of the stairs he flipped the lights on.

“Alright mother fucker, get out,” he shouted and pointed the gun into the lobby of the store.

The alarm pad blinked red indicating it was still armed.  Smitty looked at the microwave Remy had brought in, it sat on the floor in front of the counter.  The inside light was on, and the display was indicating something had been cooked.  It was blinking between the words “Done and Open Door.”  Smitty didn’t smell anything.  Slowly he approached the microwave observing it through the bead at the end of the gun barrel.

Beep beep beep! ‘Done. Open door.’

He got down on his knees and laid the gun on the carpet.  Bending down, he put his hand on the door of the microwave and jerked it open.  A flash of white light and heat engulfed his face burning all the hair; eyebrows, eye lashes, and the beard all gone in an incendiary instant.  Smitty rolled  to his side and screamed from the pain.  His eyes, the pupils were being strained like someone was forcing him to stare at the sun.  Nothing but white light and burning pain, then he fell silent as his body prepared to salvage itself by shutting down.  The chubby fingers fell limp and uncovered his eyes.  There he laid seeing the faintest outline of the microwave.  A mechanical Angel of death engulfed in the white light of God.  The single door was still open to reveal the portal to heaven or hell, he wasn’t sure.  The pronged tail of the Angel was still zipped tied and bunched up next to it.

Smitty lost full consciousness within seconds.

hint: I wrote this story only after reading the wikipedia entry on mosquitoes.

“Buzzalina, come dear, tell me what happened,” the surgeon said.

“Oh doctor, I’ll never be a mother now.  I should just kill myself; I’m useless.”

“There there, sweet, sweet girl.  Things will be okay.”

He held her while she wept.  No, she would never bare any children and she would probably ensure her own end.  A broken proboscis almost always means instant death, she was lucky.  One could call it a miracle from up above – a testament to the power of faith and the prayer of her family.

A.P. – Cybernetics Inc. releases organic flesh like covering for metal replacement limbs.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 8 and 9 – Download PDF

Chapter 8:  A Thanksgiving Remembered.

A neon Burger King sign illuminated the brown shuffling figure that was Remy.  He smacked his lips at the sight of a discarded Whopper in the parking lot.  Picking it up, he put it under his filthy rags of clothes and set out to find a location to eat.  A place where he would be hidden and out of sight.

The burger meat was cold, the bun stale, and the cheese hard.  Surprisingly he didn’t have to pick off any insects.  Usually, depending on how long the food was on the ground, the ants always attacked first,  then the bees set to work, and if it was a  substantial piece of organic protein, the maggots would soon take up residency.  Remy was only forced to pick off maggots one time, before he knew the ins and outs of being a condemned person.  It was right after she took everything and changed the locks on the doors.  His drinking drove them away, it drove everyone away.  He had no where to go but the gutter, and there he stayed, just like he deserved.

************************************************

“When is your mother getting here?” he shouted from his chair in the living room.

“You need to go and get her from the bus station.  Damn, don’t you remember anything?”

“Don’t patronize me woman, I remembered.  What time?”

“You need to leave in about ten minutes, and you need to stop at the store to get some dinner rolls,” the female voice ringed in his ears.  He loved her to death but she never stopped sounding like the little squealing high school girl he asked to Prom all those years ago.

He opened the drawer on the end table and thumbed open the flask filled with his favorite companion, Mr. Black Jack Daniels as he affectionately called it.  Good ole fashioned southern fire water, just like his daddy used to drink when mamma wasn’t lookin’.  He took a pug off the steel canister and an extra because he had to deal with the Mother in law.  His buzz set right in letting the awkward smile and distant gaze come back, he was to drunk to drive, that was for certain.  You see, he was one of those functioning alcoholics.  Able to be piss drunk and still perform regular tasks just as good as a sober person would.  Well, almost just as good.  He grabbed his keys.

“Give us a kiss babe,” he puckered and she pecked him.

“You okay to drive?”

“Sure I am, just had a little taste to take the edge off.”

“You better watch that, you know how your father got with that stuff,” she said.

“Don’t compare me to Dad, you know I hate that.”

“Sorry I brought it up, be nice to my Mom.  It is Thanksgiving after all, let us try and be civil.  If Roger and I have to be on our best behavior than so do you.”

“Well maybe if she wasn’t such a condescending bitch.  She comes in here every holiday to white glove the place, and then criticize our parenting,” he said.
“It’s just her way,” she defended.

“Des, it’s insulting.”

She walked over and put her arms around his neck.  The long silky red hair flipped back and Remy caught the sent of flowers.  The pair of deep set blue eyes stared into his.

“Let this be a peaceful day for us, for me?” she pulled herself into his chest and grabbed a handful of hair behind his head.  It was one of those kisses you see in a soft core porn flick.  Since they aren’t going to show any actual sex the foreplay better be damn theatrical.  Remy left for the bus station.  He would pick up her Mom, but forget the rolls.  The first of many things he would forget, thanks to Mr. Black Jack.

Chapter 9: Ground Control to Major Winston.

John Martian dropped off his old Datson at the body shop and had a buddy take him home.  He bumped a pole last night and didn’t want his Dad to see the damage to the back fender.  He still lived with the parents; envious of his older brother who had the balls to get out.  But John was the breadwinner, the prize boy, and he didn’t much mind living at home still.  Free rent, food, and the company wasn’t so bad, I guess.  He came in to find his father sitting at the table with an open letter from the Police Academy in his hands.  Some follow up to John’s acceptance judging by the look on his  father’s face.

“Why? Are you stupid? Your brother is out there everyday risking his neck for what?  A city of hoodlums who should just as well kill each other off and be done with it.”

“Dad it isn’t like that and you know it.  Art is doing good work and saving lives.  Plus, I can do this, make good money, and take care of you and mom.”

“If you live long enough,” his Dad said.  John was at his end with the argument about this.  His father always dictated every decision and aspect of his life.  He was his father’s puppet, and he was fed up.  He would be a cop, just like his brother.

“Fuck this.”

John’s Mother gasped in horror looking at the junior and senior Martian men.  John squared up like a young buck lion ready to challenge the Alpha Male for control of the pride.  He would never hit his father, he loved his dad.  He just wished he could have the approval of his best friend, have him be proud of this choice.

He would go into the Police Academy no matter what, in fact he had already paid the fees with the money he had saved from being a mall Security Officer.  Driving around in circles all night and running out skateboarders with his flashlight was safer than being a full fledged cop, but John wanted to see action.  Arthur always had crazy cop stories to tell whenever they were together.  John wanted that sort of life, and he wanted it bad enough to risk his father’s disappointment.  As any boy who has ever been in trouble with his father knows, “I’m disappointed in you” stings a thousand times worse than a smack to the head.

“Watch your mouth.  Jesus, in front of your mother and all,” Winston Martian snapped back.

John left the screen door swinging from the force of his palm.  He would take the side alley and sneak a cigarette to clear his head.  Yet another thing his father would disapprove of.  After about ten minutes of pacing around a small cement alcove, he heard a crash.  The sound of metal fusing with other metal; a nasty car wreck.  He started walking around to see where it happened.  Then he heard his mother scream.  John, started running.

Gold Elvis writhed in panic and toppled a bottle of oil onto the griddle.  The flames ignited a White Elvis rhinestone cape triggering the sprinkler system.  Gold Elvis fell to the floor, an umbrella popped open.  The Benihana chef acted quickly with a Ginsu Tracheotomy.

“Beginners luck,” he said, wiping the blood on his apron.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 6 and 7 – Download PDF

Chapter 6:  Hoooooooooot Pockeeeeeeeeeeet

“Record setting temperatures are expected in the City this week with humidity levels in the forties.  Community weather gurus are urging people to keep hydrated and stay indoors.  More on that after the break.”

Remy watched the TV through the rusty steel mesh outside Smitty’s front window display.  The microwave hadn’t produced a damn thing in two days and he was starving.  He opened the windowed door nearly every ten minutes and kept getting the same empty disappointment.  Under normal circumstances he would be gathering up cans, or holding his “will work for food sign” on some street corner, but it was just too damn hot to be in the direct sun.  He held onto hope the microwave would produce again, even tried to leave it alone for a few and come back to it, hoping for another Breakfast Dinner.  Looks like his Guardian Angel has moved on to another lost soul, back to the one man show.

The sign on the door said Smitty would be back at 1:30, said he was, “out to lunch.”  That fat-fuck was constantly eating and living chubby off the misfortune of others.  People from all walks of life could stumble in his store and get pennies on the dollar worth for wedding rings, watches, stolen goods or any electronics, Smitty didn’t care, he took it all.  If the cops collected the inventory lists of all the house robberies this month, guaranteed, half of that stuff was at Smitty’s dingy Swap Meet.  Remy heard the slow clinking of metal approaching from around the block.

Smitty couldn’t be more than a decade younger than Remy was, somewhere in his mid-forties if one had to guess.   He was a butterball sort of man, bald, with a greying short beard that traced his round face, and the unmistakable jingling ring of keys as he maneuvered his great girth to and fro.  He was like an obese pet pig with a bell collar, you always knew when he was coming your way.  Remy hated Smitty’s sort, but he hated most of the beings he interacted with on a daily basis.  There was a time he commanded the respect of men who would die for him, and a family that loved him.  Smitty sucked in a big breath so he could talk and walk at the same time.  It came out more like an asthmatic wheeze.

“Fifteen … feet from the … door … transient.  Unless … your … doing … bus…iness,” you had to feel sorry for him on some level, but mostly it was just pathetic.  Remy took a few steps back, looks like Smitty couldn’t hold out the two minute walk back before beginning his lunch.

“Did it hurt?” Remy asked.

“Did what hurt?”  Smitty put down the grocery bag bursting with snacks from the corner gas station and fumbled with the keys to unlock the shop.

“The mustard and ketchup grenade that went off on your chest.  Looks about the size of a .65 millimeter hot dog launcher with all the bells and whistles.  Chili primer, relish propellant, and no doubt, a nacho cheese firing mechanism.  What are the barrels on those things these days? Bout’ a foot long?”

“You being a smart ass right now?  Fuck off before I call the cops you piece of street trash,” poor Jabba got his feelings hurt, Remy grinned.  It wasn’t because he was fat, Remy didn’t care, it was because he was an asshole to the core and being fat was really all you could fuck with him about.

“Easy Smitt’s, I got something to bring in.  I think it is right up your alley to cook all these hot pockets you just got.”

In the end Smitty only gave Remy thirty dollars for the microwave.  It was worth hundreds and they both knew it, but Smitty had the upper hand.  No one else would even consider paying for shit homeless guys brought in.  Maybe that secretly exposed Smitty’s heart to help the people less fortunate than himself; his artery clogged grease trap of a dick-head heart.

Chapter 7: You stop laughing right “meow”

The price of a diet coke at the station’s vending machine was getting more and more expensive.  Arthur got to work at 7:30am every single day like clock work.  At 7:31am the quarters rolled down the change slot to purchase his diet coke, which went from fifty cents when he started, to a dollar and seventy five cents now.  He found it disgusting how the price of everything goes up in such high percentages, his paychecks certainly weren’t growing at that rate.  He made his way to the small desk and opened the top drawer.

“Jesus Christ, come on you damn children,” Arthur shouted to no one in particular but loud enough to make the room fall silent.  He had that sort of commanding demeanor about him, that is what made him a good investigator.  People rarely lied to his face.

Inside the drawer was a small stuffed cat crusted over with what he could only guess was ketchup.  He pulled it out and threw it in his trash.  A small “meow” came from somewhere.  Arthur shot dirty looks in all directions.  A hand slapped his shoulder.

“Morning brother, arrest any pussies last night?” John said.

“You’re still free, so I guess not.”

“From shooting cat burglars to being a comedian, my brother you’re going places.  Did you find out anything last night?” John said.

“Not really, the place is clean.  Why was the power shut off so soon?”

“We didn’t touch any utilities yet.  We’re not that stupid.”

“Well it’s off, so get it turned back on, and get me the packet of records on her utility bills, I want to check out her phone records,” Arthur said.

“Sure thing, what are you thinking?”

“I have no clue to be honest.  At this point, aliens came down from outer space, probed her, and left.  Did the coroner check for any anal intrusions?  I’m thinking the aliens are the best lead we have.   A woman with her arm chewed up in a blender was found dead in her home, no sign whatsoever that she had anyone else with her.  Maybe she got off her meds and fell into the blender while it was on with the lid off.  Now go get me those utility bills,” Arthur said.

Arthur took a sip off his coke and waited for the Chief to get in.  Still had that leak to deal with today.  What a day it was turning out to be too.

“Meow.”

Arthur grabbed his coat and stormed outside to have a smoke.

There are billions of stars in the sky.  Eastern philosophy says that man’s destiny is written in these red giants, supernovas, pulsars and constellations.  That’s what my Dad says anyway; he is an astronomer at UCLA.  He is my hero, and someday, I’ll be an astronomer, just like him.

When I was thirteen he got me a high powered telescope for my birthday.  I was lucky to have the upstairs room, and he was beaming proud that I used that telescope every day.  My father gave me the greatest gift a boy could ever want.  I gazed on the perfect symmetrical moons of Suzi Morris’s tits every single starry night.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 4 and 5 – Download PDF

Chapter 4: Plymouth rock blues.

Beep Beep Beep!

Remy blinked his eyes, ‘What the hell did I drink last night? My head hurts like hell.’

He looked up at the starry night sky in the moments between full consciousness and sleep.  Then he felt the weight on his chest and the memory came rushing back to him.

Beep Beep Beep!

The microwave sat square on his chest, but it felt heavier somehow.  He slid out from under it and laid it to rest on the ground next to him.

‘Hell of a price to pay for a good meal.  You are a heavy son of a bitch.’

Remy got to his knees using the microwave to push, it was warm to the touch.  He squinted  and braced himself as he reached up for the blood inspection on the back of his head.  A huge lump is all, but it still hurt pretty good.  The bum leg was throbbing and pulsing with a mild pain, nothing he couldn’t handle.  He inspected the microwave for damage – still looked like it came out of the box, even his finger prints were gone from the buttons.  He opened the small windowed door on the front.

“Holy shit! Double dose,” he said aloud to himself.

There it was, another turkey dinner.  Emerald peas, fluffy white potatoes, gravy lake, turkey slabs and the delicious cranberry sauce.  He took the plate out and sat cross legged.  His trusty spork in hand he enjoyed a second hot meal of the day.  Someone was really up there watching over him.  He didn’t much believe in that god stuff, but there had to be something out there.  They could have helped him get the damn microwave off his chest, but he wasn’t going to argue with another free meal.  If the meal was still this hot, they must have just put it in moments before he came too.  It was too bad, he would have liked to thank them proper.

Remy sat and stared at the microwave, it stared right back.  It looked different somehow.  The street light outside his little alley made the glass front into a mirror.  Mirrors were something to be avoided in a situation like Remy’s.  The oily grey streaked brown hair would soon need to be cut, he couldn’t have it at the shoulders.  The short wiry beard would also have to go soon, he could never grow a full beard.  Genetics kept him out of the height of fashion in the 70′s.  Remy was having second thoughts about selling the microwave.  If this thing was going to be used as a drop off point for food from his Guardian Angel, then he better keep it around and accessible.  Despite being knocked out most all the day, he was still tired.  He put the microwave next to his Maytag home so that it was sheltered from street view but still accessible.  The laces on his boots gave with ease and he slipped them off and set them on top of his new mechanical friend.  No one would steal anything if it was under your shoes, it was one of the unwritten laws of courtesy amongst the homeless in the city.  As the sandman made his decent, Remy decided he would keep the microwave until he needed the money bad enough.  Or at least until he was hungry enough and it stopped producing.

Chapter 5:  Jumpy alien boy!

Detective Martian’s squeaking breaks broke the stillness of the night air.  The neighborhood Snoogins lived in was dead.  The residents were no doubt locked down thanks to the fantastic media coverage.  It was just like he thought it would be.  The pictures that were beaming to people on the 7 o’clock news contained footage of the coroner rolling the body out and his own brother carrying what was left of Emily’s arm in a clear plastic bag for the whole damn world to see; the blender at least was in a dark container.  Although the news coverage mentioned the blender too.  Some asshole was spilling everything and probably on the take for it.  He would need to bring it with the Chief tomorrow.  He parked his car outside Snoogin’s residence and ducked under the crime scene tape.

He got to the door and used the key he had copied from the evidence room.  He reached inside to flip the light switch on.  Nothing happened.

‘They cut the power on the first day of investigation, what a bunch of fucking morons.’

Arthur felt around in the pocket of his oversized tan trench coat for his flash light and clicked it on.  The beam of light revealed the innards of Emily’s house.  Arthur began to make a quick mental inventory and room assessment like he was taught to do in the academy.

One baby blue lazy boy couch with matching reclining chair, one dark oak table with clawed feet, four matching chairs, crocheted coasters on the end tables, one cat litter box, one scratch post with the name Mittens carved in the side, things are clean, and nothing is noticeably out of place.  He made his way through the living room and dining room bypassing the kitchen for now.  The hallway had plastic lining the floor, this is where things were bagged and tagged by the forensics guys.  The plastic crinkled under Arthur’s size twelve brown Dunham Windsor shoes.

The bathroom door was propped open with a plunger stuck to the white tile acting as a doorstop.  Arthur examined the high window above the bathtub for any scrapping marks or tiny specks of anything that would be out of place on a window ledge that high.  The window was locked tight and didn’t show any sign that it had been opened in the last five years, just judging by the depth of the dust.  He clicked the flashlight off, put it on the counter, kicked open the toilet seat and unzipped to take a piss.  Starring at his moonlit face in a mirror that hung above the toilet, he released his stream of justice into the waters of crime.

Arthur looked at himself in the mirror.  He hated mirrors, he looked too much like the damn old man he had been trying to forget but just couldn’t shake.  Walking in his father’s shadow was bad enough, why was he cursed looking like his twin brother?  They both had the high cheek bones, the thin dark hair that hung down the forehead, the broad chin, the constant neglect of shaving which lead to their identical stubble as soon as he was old enough to grow it.  Arthur was giving his junk a third  firm shake when he heard a window creak open in the bedroom.

Cautiously and quietly, he withdrew his .357 Magnum revolver from the shoulder holster.  He pulled the hammer all the way back effectively giving his hand cannon a hair trigger.  He gripped the wood grain handles with both hands and peaked out into the hallway.

Slipping out of his shoes he carefully placed his steps on parts of the plastic that flushed with the floor.  There was a draft coming from the open bedroom window, the entrance to the room was two feet away.  He waited about ten seconds for any signal of movement, a sound, a shadow.  He raised his gun chest level and leapt into the door way prepared to fire.

The only sound to be heard was his heavy breathing, a combination of adrenaline and cigarettes.  Arthur looked down the sight of his gun into the lifeless room.  The breeze from the open window blew the hair down into his eyes, he shook his head to put it back in place.  The bushes outside rustled with movement, Arthur locked his elbows and reinforced his stance.

“Come up slowly, hands first,” he called out.

A bright white flash came through the window.

Human reaction time is easily tested.  Remember that van back in school,  the one where you would go in, put on head phones, and push the button when you heard sound?  Or maybe the one with the brief case with the red light inside, with the button to push when it went off?  These are ways of measuring the health of your eyesight or  hearing based on the reaction time to visual and auditory stimulus.  The average reaction time for a visual stimulus is about 190 milliseconds for a young adult.  As we grow older reaction times increase, tiredness and distractions also increase reaction time.

Our reaction time no matter what state we are in is always the fastest when there is only one response that can be performed.  Hick’s Law states that choice reaction time increases in proportion to the logarithm of the number of response alternatives.  Essentially, more options means more time, we have to think about it.  Is the light red or green? What does that mean? What action do I take?

Law enforcement can not afford this kind of time for decision making when their lives are at stake.  There is only one reaction to be taken for certain worldly stimulants programmed into the mind of a cop.  A muzzle flash, fire your weapon.  The glint of gun metal elevating, fire your weapon.  The unmistakable auditory direction of a weapon being discharged within ten feet, fire your weapon.

Arthur Martian fired his weapon at a target eight feet away.

A one hundred twenty five grain .357 hollow point bullet will travel at about 1300 feet per second, or 1.3 feet per millisecond.  To travel the eight foot span of Emily Snoogin’s bedroom, the bullet would only take 6.2 milliseconds, the point is, it takes Arthur longer to decide to pull the trigger than it does for the receiving end to feel the effect of his decision.

To say a grenade was tossed in a bucket of open red paint would be putting the scene before Detective Martian in a conservative made for TV horror film.  Emily Snoogin’s trundle day bed sat below the window, her pink floral quilt was spattered in blood.  The porcelain dolls placed with such precision and care all cried hemoglobin tears.  The white painted trim oozed blood, and shards of broken exploded red stained glass clung to what was left of the single pain latching window.  Arthur stood engulfed in a wave of astonishment and surprise.  He couldn’t make out very many pieces of what he shot, they were to small.  He inched toward the bed.

A glint of what looked like cheap rhinestone caught the moonlight beaming through the window.  It was sitting in the lap of one of Emily’s dolls;  a happy faced doll that had a hand up waving at passers by, to bad she looked like she just ate a cherry pie face first.  Arthur picked up the remaining half of the jeweled band.  Spelled out in cheap bedazzled plastic rhinestones was the same name on the scratch post in the living room, “Mittens.”

“Fuck me,” Arthur said.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 2 and 3 – Download PDF

Chapter 2: Winner Winner Turkey Dinner

Beep! Beep! Beep!

‘What the hell?’ The sound woke up Remy just in time to experience the full blown nausea and headache of the hangover he wanted to sleep through.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

‘Shut the hell up,’ he closed his eyes but it was too late.  The inside of the cardboard Maytag home started to spin, there was no sleeping now.  Being a homeless man in the back alley of Front Street had perks at night but not during the day.  No one bothered wanders while they slept but the  morning always brought the foot traffic of early risers to downtown.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Remy rocked his body out of the shelter and felt for his boots.  It was a weird quirk of his, but sleep only came without shoes on, no matter how cold it was.  He tied the laces of the worn doc martins he had found in a dumpster some years back and stood up.

The back of the alley was deserted say for a new microwave that someone had dumped there.  ‘Why would anyone toss this?  Maybe it fell off a truck.  Doesn’t matter now, this should be at least fifty bucks at Smitty’s if it still works.’

He walked over to the microwave to inspect it.  A Sears genuine special, and not one scratch on it.  The aluminum handle caught the rising sunlight and blinded his eyes.  He stepped closer and opened the door.

‘God damn.  Would you look at that?’

Hot and steaming, a fresh turkey dinner was in the microwave.  The mashed potatoes were filled with a reservoir of brown gravy that flowed contiguously onto a pile of white turkey breast meat.  Green little marbles of peas stacked with the precision of the most prestigious upper class restaurant.  The coup de grâce of this food masterpiece was the pile of cranberry sauce bleeding into the base of turkey hill and potato mountain.  Remy wasn’t one to turn down a free meal.  He would take this to Smitty’s after breakfast dinner.

“Morning Remy.  Wow, someone felt sorry for your ass this morning didn’t they?  Lemme have some buddy.”

“Back it up Josiah.  This was in that microwave and I’m claiming them both.  No one was around when I got it, so piss off they’re both mine,” Remy said.

“Alright alright, cool it old man.  I’ll be on 9th and Sierra Ave today so give it some birth.”

Josiah shuffled off with his shopping cart half full of cans rattling on the rough pavement, his “Disabled Vet, need help, god bless” sign was sticking way out.  That boy wasn’t a Vet, he had no idea what war was or what it meant to fight for something, he had no idea what it meant to survive.  He was just a filthy beggar.

Remy sat and polished off the meal slowly with his trusty metal spork.  It was nice to have a hot meal, the tastes reminded him of Thanksgivings spent with his wife and son, wherever they are now.  He sat cross legged and stared at the dirty brick wall of the alley way, eating his food with conservative bites and wiping his mouth with the cloth napkin he carried in his back pocket.  Unlike most of the condemned persons around this city, Remy still retained a sense of common manners so long as you weren’t trying to threaten his life.  Being a fifty year old homeless man with a bum leg made that life hard, it made it real hard.  The daily struggle was breaking him down very fast.

He shuffled to the microwave and turned it over for further inspection.  Not one dent or blemish, say for his own finger prints that molested the buttons earlier.

‘Let me get you to Smitty’s.  Thanks for the breakfast dinner.’

Heavy lifting required all the weight be put on his good leg.  With arms under the microwave he grunted and stood looking for his cart that was a good twenty feet away.

‘Should have pushed that over here, to late now, cause my back ain’t gunna do this again today.’

He began slow forward steps, hopefully his arms would hold out.

Remy did not see the discarded plastic soda bottle when he got to the half way point and stepped on it.  The cap was on tight and it held shape.  His good leg lurched forward forcing him to attempt balance with the bum leg.  He let out a yelp of pain and his knee buckled causing him to fall straight back, the back of his head hitting the asphalt first and his vision went black.  Good thing too, if his body hadn’t been so relaxed by the time that microwave fell on his chest, he probably would have busted some ribs.

Chapter 3: Don’t tase me bro.

Arthur Martian might have been a slacker rebel to his father but when it came down to his own security and employment, he was a workhorse.  Not to be out done, his little brother would never leave the station until after Art did, no matter how late into the night he stayed.

“Not one finger print, not one trace of fiber or hair, no foot prints and no sign of a forced entry.  This guy is really good.  A right professional cowboy of murder.  I blame movies and TV.  The media wants to make things so damn real these days.  We are training our children to be killers at the age they can operate the remote.” Arthur was angry, someone got lazy at that crime scene.

“It seems bizarre doesn’t it?  I’ve been over the photographs a hundred times.  Nothing adds up like it should,” John said, at the desk across the room.  There were only two desk lamps on at the station.  The Martian boys wanted to crack this sucker wide open.  Nothing bad had come this precincts way since the riots of 2001.  Detectives were being replaced by science.  Grunt police work was fast becoming a lost art.  Once and a while some cases needed the insight a computer hasn’t been able to produce yet, the human intuition.

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have a girlfriend that needs your attention? It is eleven o’clock get the hell out.  You aren’t helping,” Art snapped at his brother.

‘They didn’t analyze everything, didn’t give him the tools he needed.  He would have to go back to the Snoogin residence himself and see just what the hell was going on.  He hated the foot work but he hated the possibility that a criminal could out wit him even more.’

“I’m going back to the Snoogin house to run over it again.”

“I’ll go with you,” John said.

“The hell you are, I’m going alone.  If you think you can ride my ass to the top you’re wrong.  You will earn it like everyone else.  Like I did.”

read on -

Horace adjusted the windage and elevation knobs on the ruby crystal telescopic sight of his 67dm Sniper Rifle.  The knocking of the robots steel heart pounded at the drums in his ear.

‘One shot to open the can, another to put the bastard down,’ Horace thought to himself.

It was cold, damn cold.  His finger trembled on the trigger as he squeezed.  Before the noise of the explosive shot would reach the robot’s sensors, the chest would already be torn open.  The second shot would be well on its way to impact before the mechanical systems could respond.

Long live humanity.

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 1 – Can I get fries with that? – Download PDF

Chapter One:  Can I get fries with that?

The Police tape outside Emily Snoogin’s home held back the hoard of media.  Flashing cameras blinded Detective Arthur Martian as he ducked under the plastic yellow barrier.  Apparently some sicko decided to terrorize little Miss Emily.  The CNN news ticker would later read:

‘Elderly woman tortured to the point of heart failure in her own home.’

“Can we get these fuck sticks out of here please? For Christ’s sake John, this is a crime scene not a god damn fashion show,”  Arthur said.

John Martian followed in big brothers foot steps and joined the police force when their dad strictly forbid it.  It almost tore the family apart.  Winston Martian could handle the oldest boy not giving a shit about the family, but he would be damned if his prize winning honor student would follow the same road as his rebellious older brother.  That was five years ago, right before the old man died.  John blamed himself for it.  If he had not stormed out that day, his father would not have gone looking for him.  If the fight had never happened, if he wasn’t so jealous of his older brother, if only they could have tried to talk it out more, he would still be alive.

“Give us some room here boys.  Push them all the way back to the street.”  John shouted to his fellow officers and strode along side his older brother.

“What are we looking at in there?” Arthur asked.

“The forensic team just left.  From the way their jumpers looked it is a real horror show in there.  The shit that nightmares are made of.  Try not to puke.” John said.

“I’ve seen more things I want to forget then you ever will rookie.  Remember, I was on the front lines of the riots eight years ago.  They were tearing women apart and murdering children right in front of us.  Good thing the military was called in or it would have been us next.”

“Yea, but it still wasn’t right with the way they handled it.  Heads should have rolled for the brutal tactics they used,” John said.

“Sometimes little brother you have to break a few eggs to keep the peace.  Give me a mask, this body is ripe.”

John handed Arthur a face mask to keep the smell down.  After all these years he still could not bare the smell of a corpse beginning to decomposed.  It really did make him want to puke, but he kept his cool most of the time.  They stepped through the threshold and were directed to the kitchen to see the crime scene and body.

“Alright, the cavalry has arrived now that the nerds are gone.  Detective Martian I assume you will be heading up the investigation so let me bring you up to speed.”  The small Asian crime scene analyst was new and still had a personality, hopefully  he would lose that soon.  Arthur still couldn’t remember the bubbling little pricks name, Yango, maybe?

“What we got?”

“Let me give you the tour.  To your left you will see a nice arc of blood from the severed brachial artery.  The spray that you see on the ceiling is from when she lost balance and twisted her arm upward before hitting her head on the counter.  She laid there and suffered the heart attacked,” Yango said this as he gracefully twirled around, pointing his white latex fingers at the white numbered evidence tags.

“Hold the phone Yango,” Arthur said.

“It’s Yan, Detective.”

“So you are telling me this guy cut her arm off, she stumbled around, probably slipped in her own blood, bangs her head on the counter and she dies of a heart attack? Bullshit.  If he just left her there, she could have gotten to a phone it’s right here on the counter.  It would take a while for her to bleed to death, she could have called for help,” Arthur didn’t like new guys spouting off like they could do his job as well as he could.  It was Arthur’s job to find out who and what went on here.  Yan motioned behind the counter to the floor.  Arthur looked over the mortified face of Emily Snoogin, now purple with black circles around her open eyes.

“Look at this body.  Her arm wasn’t just cut off.  The meat is just hanging there and the bone is chipped,” Yan said.

“So it was pounded off.  Crushed with a big hammer until it separated from the torso.”

“I don’t think so, look at this.”  Yan held up the glass cup of the blender filled with blood and bits of what Arthur could only guess was Emily’s arm.

“Not your average Mc D’s strawberry shake, but yea, its what you are thinking.  We sifted through most of the contents and found her wedding ring and bits of cloth from the shirt she has on now.  This guy jammed her hand in there and chewed her up.  A real psycho,” Yan said.

Arthur got a lump in his throat and held back the vomit, he needed to leave.

“I want every inch of this place photographed before the body is out.  I want the body autopsied today, wake up the doc if you have to.  I want statements from every person in this neighborhood.  This is a big one, I think this guy isn’t done yet.  None of this shit gets to the media.  We keep it under wraps till we have some solid leads.  We do not want to have people buying up guns and shooting everything the moves close to their driveways,” Arthur said the orders and turned to leave.

“How do you know he isn’t done yet Art?” John said.

“Just a feeling, now do your fucking job and I’ll do mine.”  Arthur made a fast paced walk to his old Cadillac El Dorado.  He sat in the crusty torn leather seat and put his hands on the steering wheel.  A couple pumps of gas and she always fired right up.  John watched the chipped red painted boat of a car turn the corner out of sight.

Falling Bricks Hurt

     Justin wandered about in the shadows watching the fascinating people. He smelled the breads and listened to the pop of corks for hours before finally settling on the perfect sunny patch of grass to feast. Justin the turtle munched on the greenery of the city he loved, Paris.

     1,063 feet into the sky, Gaston Space Pierre ran back and forth on the observation platform of the Eiffel Tower, his parents not at all effective. A stray brick from a display for Gustave Eiffel found his palm. He tossed it over the rails.

     Justin looked up just in time to catch the impromptu solar eclipse to the head.

Read On -

“Billy lets go, he isn’t worth it.”

“The hell he ain’t Hank.  A kid can’t walk home from school without being scared, that’s not right.  I’m gunna teach him a lesson.”

“You should listen to your brother Billy, no sense in me kicking your ass again.”

“Jeremy that was three years ago, I’ve gotten a lot bigger since then.  Besides, what you’re doin’ ain’t right.  It ain’t right at all.  So square up you pussy, lets go.”

Billy put his fists up like he saw Rocky do in the movies.  The spectating kids formed a circle around them.  Sidestepping like two gladiators locked in battle to the death, one of them would not come out of here the same.  Jeremy struck first.

Billy lost his breath from the blow to his stomach and backed up.  Within seconds he recovered surprising Jeremy’s smirking face with hammering blows.  Jeremy put his hands up but Billy didn’t care.  He would pound on his forearms until they were black and blue, break them if it came to it.  Jeremy stumbled from the high intensity onslaught of Billy’s fists, which apparently were made of brick.  The stumble caused Jeremy’s arm to drop slightly creating a small exposure to the face.  Billy’s right hook had no trouble seeking out the weakness in the defense.  Jeremy’s cheekbone made a loud popping noise as Billy’s knuckles dragged across his face.  The nose was next in line and in that one swift motion, Billy broke it.  Jeremy reached up to hold his crooked nose and fell to his knees.  Blood oozed from between his fingers dripping into dusty dark red puddles on the dirt.

“Now, you might be the popular guy, your father might be the mayor, but you have no right picking on little kids like you done.  Like you did my little brother, like you did to me.  Because you know what Jeremy? We grow up and we don’t forget.  You better start learning that you are a small fish in a big pond and there is always a shark waiting to eat your ass,” Billy stood over the hunched figure.

Jeremy looked up, and in the shadow of Billy nodded his head.  Billy grabbed his little brother by the arm.

“Let’s go Hank, he aint gunna bother anyone no more and Mom will have supper ready by now.”

The crowd stood in silence and parted to let the two boys out.  They set off for home into the orange hue of the sunset.  After about a hundred yards, Billy turned to look back, the crowd was gone but Jeremy remained on his knees staring at their long shadows on the horizon.  Billy was certain things would be quiet for a while, but Jeremy wouldn’t be completely shut down that easy.  Retaliation was coming, just a matter of time and place.

Billy knew that people like Jeremy came to power through fear. While he had the false respect of many, some frustrated soul will always rise up and challenge his authority.  Ultimately the only way to end Jeremy’s reign is to destroy him, but Billy doesn’t have it in his heart to do that.  So Jeremy will rise again, only stronger next time, until another Billy takes the challenge.  Thus perpetuating the state of fear among the children, in the small neighborhood, in the middle of nowhere.

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I’m really enjoying this story, so I’ll keep on writing it.  I hope this isn’t boring people to death.

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Anyway, here is a 100 or so word story I wrote for the 100 Word Stories Podcast! on with the show…

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So here we have it, “Harold the Ardently Knight of Battynannas: Part 1.”  It is a long read, about 7 minutes if you don’t fall asleep.   I’m still knew to all this stuff.   Suggestions are always welcome, especially in regards to the audio.

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