Jamie Grefe licks his wounds, hugs his wife and pets his dogs from a high-rise in Beijing, China, where he teaches Literature by day and sips black coffee from a Craven A tin by night. He also, on occasion, creates experimental/improvised music with contact microphones and shortwave radio transmissions. His work appears or is forthcoming in Mud Luscious Press (Online), New Dead Families, Danse Macabre, Wonderfort and elsewhere.

And then I physically fell.  The sidewalk leading up to my porch didn’t give and I felt it scream through my bones.  I punched the concrete and it tore my skin.  My fist drove through the nights we slept together and the nights we were curled up on the couch.  On those nights we imagined the places we could go.  We dreamed about the future.  I finally felt whole with her fingers twisted in mine, a hurt and a hope in every bend that now breaks my heart.  The air was knives, serrated and sharp, sawing at my lungs and throat.  I refused to inhale, I refused to breathe.  And I kept punching.

“Please don’t hurt me like that,” she said once, the sorrow in her eyes pleaded.   I wanted to burn everything down for her and start again, like it all never happened, and give her the life she deserved.  Forests would grow back and the birds would return, looping under the rainbows of God’s vow.

Instead, I agreed, giving her some long rambling speech with every word crafted for comfort, each pause laid before her to put her at ease.  And then I punctuated my promise with a handshake.  She made me stupid, and the official gesture had her laughing the way I knew it would.  She nuzzled into my shoulder and a happy sigh rose from her throat, untying the bow around my world.  This was what the poets wrote about, this need for which so many songs begged.

A warmth grew in that dark room.

And it grew the first time she kissed me.  She wanted to be at this place with these people, none of which I knew, none of which I wanted to know.  They weren’t malicious or suffering from poor hygiene.  None of them were making faces or poking fun, or god forbid, discussing the stock market.  They were just new and weren’t of any interest to me.  They were antithesis of private time.  She was midsentence with a bachelor’s degree-carrying enthusiast for combing out his hair gel, when she stopped, grinned her evil little smirk, and kissed me.  The flecks of fire still burned in her hazel eyes, then.

“What was that for?” I asked.  She shrugged and said that I looked bored.

The warmth grew every time she fit perfectly in my arms or tucked her head under my chin.  Every time she curled against me, two warped puzzle pieces locking into place, that warmth expanded.  Each time she called me by my name, omitting my surname and replacing it with my middle initial, it was a coy plea for my attention.  The outside of her left foot acted as a pivot as her heel swung in time with her shoulders, her head tilted to the left, her dark chocolate ponytail, a direct contrast to her milky white skin, swaying, lower lip bitten; every time my mind wandered, she did this, this whine for my focus, to bring me back, a siren luring me back home.  Then, that warmth exploded in my chest.  She has been my salvation, my reward for growing up through all of the drama, the hurt and the pain that life brings.

And it grew when she rested her hand on my knee while we were out running errands.  She talked about when all of our separate dramas were over and we could be official.  Despite her looming departure, we could be together, and her father would want to make sure I was handy.  He would want to know that I was aware of what a wrench looked like, that I could change the oil on her car, that his lovely daughter would be cared for and protected.  Her eyes scanned the roadway into the future, and the smile on her face saw it all with certainty and joy.  Our lives would straighten out and we would come together as more than just the emotional cushions that we were in that moment.  It grew because I finally knew she felt it too.

Each day, however, was preparation for this moment, for this soul crushing sound in my ears, a cyclical dirge on the Top 40 station, going over and over in my head.  The pop of that door handle.  Both of us playing stoic and strong before she left for school.  Signals and static sparking between us, thoughts and messages relayed through the humid air, fizzling out before it reached the other.  Pleas for hope.  Hope for peace.  The unrequited cries to not leave me.  Good luck.  Drive safely.  Please let me know when you get there.

Don’t forget to love me back.

I had a bad day once and she couldn’t deal with me.  Days leading up to her leaving were getting smaller in both time and number.  I don’t know what I was trying to do.  Prepare, maybe mourn a little ahead of time, so I wouldn’t be so ridiculous, so I could be gallant when it came time for goodbyes.  And I got so wrapped up and emotional in the preparation that she just couldn’t handle me.  I was so immersed in the future emotion that I wasn’t enjoying and appreciating the time we still had together.  The destruction to which this was all leading was greater than myself, and I conceded that I was being selfish, smothering her with half-hearted apologies that came from the bottom of my soul, and underneath it all that might have hurt more.  Protecting her from me.  From the words I wanted to say, the things I wanted to do.  From wrapping my arms around her ankles, locking her keys in the car and pushing that damned car into the ocean.  From launching torpedoes and watching it sink.  Keeping her here, keeping her from following her dreams, keeping her all to myself.

Swallowing all of that has been bitter, but I’ve done it for her.  Time and time again I’ve done it for her.  I’ve prayed for warships armed to the teeth with torpedoes and dreamed about sinking her car over and over.  I’ve wished I could drop to my knees and punch the ground, lash out and scream, break my bones and show the world, that this woman, this woman was my entire being.  She had me, I was hers completely.  Without her I am nothing.

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

And I smiled.  I smiled for her.

Click: her long nail on the wheel of the iPod, shutting it down, to silence, that reverential, pregnant, church silence, the kind of quiet that suggests something is about to happen.

Something is.

Click again: the sound of her compact mirror shutting; she’s just checked herself and she’s more than ready, pout-perfect, long-lashed, blushed, and enough cleavage showing to fracture the fault lines of any faint heart.

Click: an old woman exits the door of the confessional; it’ll be Sarah’s turn next, another Saturday and she’s more than ready. Up for it.

Most of her friends are still hanging around their rooms, still in pyjamas, some feeling sorry for the thunderous headaches, the punishing post-binges, others watching pop videos, apologising to parents for their manifold misdemeanours, but already scheming their Saturday night. More of the same. Week in, week out. The parents are tired of it. Most of the parents just dog-tired.

The church isn’t far, a twenty-minute walk at most from Sarah’s house, though sometimes she wants it to last longer, give her more time to appreciate the tunes. She’s just getting stuck into an album when the church spire comes into sight, then the black spiked railings, and then the big brown doors. She often takes a roundabout route, not just for the music’s sake, but also to enjoy the stares of morning men and boys who can’t help but fix on her legs (she pulls the skirt up higher on the thigh when leaving the house) or rubber-neck to catch a glimpse of that behind if she’s in those jeans. This all from a body not even finished, waist still slender, not an ounce of fat, breasts full and not yet done with their forward charge; a tidy package all in all, as if she doesn’t know.

The perfect-arse jeans were flung in the laundry basket the previous day. Mother will wash them for her: another one she’s got wrapped around her fingers.

Today: a skirt. Short enough to cause car accidents, to short-circuit the very traffic lights and make them want to flash green only and go go go.

Must have been a sinless week because there’s no one ahead of her and she waltzes right in. Click. Action.

When the old lady shuffles past her smiling and muttering she takes a deep breath and struts towards the box. Before she steps in she makes sure there is no one else around. If another sinner, bent on penitence, should approach, then she’d have to take a cautious step back and wait a little longer. This is the way she works it. She’s careful. She’s bad in her bones, scorching to the touch, but she’s careful, oh so.

Everything in a church is done slowly. She likes it this way. Outside it’s all skipping and prancing. Her nights on the town especially, the clubs: under strobes, struts and poses; in here though, all slo-mo. She likes that sense of gravity, the tension.

The door shuts behind her: a final click.

The little square shutter opens. And then…then she gets the whole operation underway.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned, it’s been a week since my last confession.”

She can hear the tremble in his reply, his very first words, and she can see the shadows his hands make as he begins the ritual. The air in the box is heavy, musty, and she lets him wait a few moments before she begins.

“Go on, my child.”

A little more of this pausing, adds to the drama, the way she works it.

“Well, you see, Father, it’s been a very bad week for me. I’ve done some very naughty things.”

She tries to contain her smirk. It wasn’t easy at first, all those months ago, but she’s getting the hang of it now, can stun that smile, as if ice wouldn’t melt in that sweet, hot mouth.

“Go on, Sarah, tell me everything, God will absolve you of all your sins, no matter how bad they are. But you must confess. Tell me everything, child.”

He calls her by her first name. She calls him Father.

She loves these Saturdays, loves her clandestine escapades. Her English teacher asked her about her hobbies recently and for a minute she almost told him, almost confessed. Only she saw the irony and chuckled, it got her detention when she couldn’t stop laughing, the rest of her classmates stared, bemused. If only they knew.

“Oh Father, Monday night I was taking a swimming lesson in the pool with John Murty. He’s so big and strong and has these muscles.”

She sighs here, wistful, longing sighs. She does actually attend swimming lessons, not yet as competent a swimmer as she would like to be, but she won’t drown, that’s for sure.

“And he was there in his little swimming pants and, oh Father, is it so wrong of me to be staring at him?”

John Cavanagh is indeed a fine figure of a man, an Adonis for anyone that’s vaguely interested in that sort of shit. There is no John Murty. She doesn’t know where she got the name. She creates.

“No, dear, it’s not wrong. Your natural biological impulses will lead you to do that, but you must try to avert your eyes because you are not yet old enough to deal with such things, the consequences.”

“But I couldn’t help it, Father. I just had to look and look again, and I think he knew I was staring. Do you want me to continue, Father?”

Does he what?

A small crucifix hangs behind her on the wooden wall. It’s eerie. The whole thing, encased in a box is eerie, like a coffin, a coffin with company. She never turns around to look at the cross. First time she was in there she felt a presence behind her; in the dark she thought it was a sleeping bat. Turns out it was much more frightening than a winged rodent, a man nailed to wood, a crown of thorns, fucking gruesome.

“Well, yes Sarah, if I am to clear you of your sins then it is best to know everything in detail, so I can give you the correct amount of penance, you know, to be getting on with.”

Weigh up the sins, get out the scales.

“Well, it is embarrassing to speak of it…but what he had inside those swimming shorts, it’s like he was just packed into them. His thing, you know, his “thing”, seems huge, all the girls say it. And we are all only hoping that somehow it will slip out and I can get a good look at it, to see if it really is like the snake I imagine it to be.”

Fr. Michael Mulcahy’s breathing is heavier; she can hear him, a rustling of vestments on the other side of the dark box.

She waits a moment, then continues.

“I know the serpent in the Bible is evil, but God forgive me, I want to see this one slither out of his shorts and stand up right in front of me.”

He lets out a rasping gasp, the Rothmans doing the devil to his fifty-eight-year-old lungs. His elbows bang against the wood panels.

She keeps going. Gathering speed. Working it. Working it.

“That night, Monday night, I was thinking about him all the time. When I was in bed I couldn’t get to sleep. I was just thinking about him, taking me in his arms and kissing me all over. Kissing me all over and then taking off my nightdress, I still wear one of those childish ones I’m embarrassed to say, you know, with Minnie Mouse on the front.”

The details. Fr. Mulcahy likes the details. He can’t help but blurt:

“Yes, yes, do the voice now too. Do the voice now, Sarah.”

She does. She does the voice. A high-pitched, child-like voice, embarrassing, but practiced enough to get through this, to pull it all off.

“But of course Johnny doesn’t even look at Minnie Mouse, he just tears it off and starts kissing all over my belly and then licking my breasts. Father, my breasts aren’t even fully developed yet, but he says I look like a woman, that my breasts are full and heavy, and he holds them in both hands and squeezes my nipples. His hands are soft, maybe from being in the water so much, but his caresses cause my nipples to harden.”

Gasps again.

“Like bullets.”

Gasps and crazed shuffling from his side of the box. A flurry.

“Oh Father, I can’t believe I’m confessing these sins to you, these dreadful fantasies that keep coming back and devouring me, I spent all week lingering on them. Am I wicked? Am I a naughty, wicked girl?”

“Please continue now Sarah, we’re almost done. Confess. Confess.”

She tries hard to contain herself, holds her hand over her mouth, closes her eyes and tries to concentrate on the task. She can smell his rough breath coming through the mesh, coffee a half-hour ago perhaps, fags too, pungent. He’ll have a heart-attack in front of her one of these days. Poor fool.

“Please continue now Sarah, we’re almost done.”

She doesn’t know how she doesn’t laugh, how she keeps serious, keeps it all together. But she does.

“Do you do anything to yourself when you are imagining these scenes?”

He cues her right up.

“Oh yes Father, I can’t help but touch myself. I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t stop, I slide my hand inside my white panties and I rub myself until I’m wet and…”

The shuffling gets louder. His eyes against the mesh, bulging. Panting now, really gruff. The other side.

“Should I stop, Father?”

“No, keep going!”

Her voice high and squeaky, a Minnie Mouse parody, but reducing now to whispers, to counter the gruff priest. When she slips into her own tones he almost shouts:

“No! The voice! Do the voice!”

“And then Johnny puts his tongue on the inside of my thighs and he licks right along my flesh until I’m in a frenzy and then, oh the shame of it, he puts his tongue right on my pussy lips and licks and licks, where I’ve never even been touched before…”

“On your what?”

“My pussy.”

“Your what?”

“My pussy.”

“Your what?”

“My pussy! My pussy!”

And then he groans and the shuffling and motions on the other side of the little square window stop, and she can just about make out his dark hands moving to his forehead as he dabs at sweat and coughs and sighs and mutters something about a decade of the Rosary and how God will forgive us all our evil deeds and something else about wantonness and the fires of Hell. And the shutter opens and he slides across the fifty Euros and mumbles some more and he waits until she clicks open the door and exits before he starts his sick sobbing. They never even got to her Tuesday activities this time.

Two old men are seated at the back of the church, on either side of the aisle, and when she passes she can feel their necks turn to get a glimpse of her calves. She sashays out of there knowing that the head on the crucifix is the only head that never turns in her direction, no matter how many Saturdays she shows up, it hangs, dismayed.

Dave Drake is waiting outside for her, all height, meat and solidity. He smokes, hasn’t yet got that Fr. Michael rasp however, twenty years too young for that; he just oozes confidence, the confidence of a trickster, who knows that he’s got you right where he wants you, and somehow, somehow, you don’t mind being there at all. His hair is remarkably soft and she runs her fingers quickly through it when he bends to kiss her on the cheek: a touch of vanity perhaps, that care and attention to self, expensive conditioner she’s sure of it, well Sarah wouldn’t be surprised, that’s the way men are these days, more careful, they like to look pristine, whatever the sordid business.

Drake takes out his cigarette case and offers her one, she takes it to her lips and he lights it for her, his big hands sheltering the flame from the wind. He notices the lipstick that so quickly stains the butt, tarnished already.

“You’re a star. This is turning into a nice little earner. What? Ten minutes work. Fifty Euros.”

She smiles, enjoying his thick North Dublin accent, laps up his praise.

“Where was the cum-point today?”

“Pussy. It’s always pussy.”

“I thought last week it was Minnie Mouse.”

“Yeah, well, whatever, it was over pretty fast as usual.”

“You’re such a tease.”

“I’m such a professional.”

He smiles at her, believes her, would believe anything she says. He has a soft spot for these country girls in their boring country towns. They’re so bored they’ll do anything, anything for the damn dour days to pass faster.

“Right, well, I’m outa here. Now don’t you think I deserve a little something. Can’t hang about.”

Drake reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little packet of white powder.

“Candy for my girl.”

“Ooh, you are so good to me. I’m glad we’ve forged such a good partnership.”

Sarah knows there isn’t much in it for her. She works for him, hands over the cash, gets a tiny bit of blow for her efforts. But what choice has she? Drake has his famous knife inside that jacket too. And he’s cut up girls in the past. In whatever town he happens to be working in. Wouldn’t think twice about taking another slice. She fears him. He terrifies her. And for some odd reason, for some reason that she still can’t fathom after all these weeks of this “work”, she’d fuck him just as quick.

“You’re a star. All three of you.”

“Three?”

“Yeah, you, Minnie Mouse, and your pussy. Aren’t those the three leading players.”

“Don’t forget the fictional Johnny Murty.”

“Indeed, hell of a man. Body of an Olympian, face of a matinee idol, dick of a porn star.”

“Yeah, and my Johnny is copyrighted. You can’t go stealing any more from me,” she laughs.

Drake takes a good look at her fit body, grins. He’ll take it one day for sure. But not yet. He’ll let it mature a little more first, few months perhaps, then fuck it with such ferocity that she’ll never smile and chatter with him again, only tremble when she sees him coming towards her, either his long cock or his bowie in his hand.

Sarah waves herself away, plugs her earphones back in and moves to her soundtrack. She has places to be. People to see. She’s a torpedo, goes only one way, a crazed rush forward, she’s all youth, and despite her walk on the shady side is innocence yet.

The two old church men exit through the main door and pass him, their prayers done for at least another few hours. Maybe they are making some deal with their maker, knowing how close they are to the end of it all, maybe they’re preparing their way, ensuring the ride there is less bumpy. They pass Drake and mutter, mumbles that could be mistaken for reprehension, or general disaffection at the state of things, maybe they know what goes on every week, hearing the sobbing pathetic priest sitting in his dark box, a once-fine institution only digging bigger holes for itself these days, maybe it should call that hole a grave, jump in and just stay there; whatever, Drake can dismiss their rheumy sputters, doesn’t want to think of old-age and the inevitable slide towards infirmity, can do without all that for another while. Right now he’s got to make it to St. Christopher’s, because that little peach Melinda is on her way to confess to Fr. Brendan. He closes his cigarette case after lighting and dragging deeply on another: click. Saturday’s are always busy.

Colin O’Sullivan

Daniel Donche is an avid liar, most especially of the written variety. In addition to a handful of self-published novels, his shorter work can be found desecrating otherwise upstanding websites throughout the electronic realm.  He can be found at home on http://dandonche.co.

Available now is the Warmed and Bound anthology, brought to you by the good folks at The Velvet, and featuring stories by Nefarious Muse authors Amanda Gowin, Bob Pastorella, Caleb J Ross, Chris Deal, Christopher J Dwyer, Craig Wallwork, Doc O’Donnell, Gary Paul Libero, Gavin Pate, Gordon Highland, Nik Korpon, Pela Via, Richard Thomas, Rob Parker, and Tim Beverstock.

Also featuring new short stories by NM favorites Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones, and Brian Evenson.  With a foreword by the amazing Steve Erickson.

Purchase your copy today.  Available in paperback and ebook formats.

Warmed and Bound

Someone is crying-a lonely sound off in the distance, insistent, and
impossible to ignore. It’s coming from somewhere near the tree line, just
beyond the perimeter wire. Why doesn’t someone go out and check on this guy?
Where’s the medic?

Scared shitless, he tries to get out of his foxhole and investigate, but he
feels as if he’s strapped down, powerless to move. He concentrates with all
of his might, trying to make a connection between his brain and useless
limbs, but it’s impossible. The harder he tries, the more frantic he
becomes.
_____

When Harris comes awake, it happens all at once, as if someone has just
thrown open a door. Sweat pours freely into his eyes and his breath comes in
ragged gasps. The fragments of who he is, and where he is, slowly drift into
place. He turns over on his side to check the time. The red digits on the
clock show 6:00. It’s just beginning to get light out. He slides his legs
over the side of the bed, sits up, and feels around on the bedside table for
his cigarettes and lighter. After fumbling with the lighter, he manages to
get one lit and takes his first drag of the day.

For the third time this week, he’s had this same crazy dream-followed by the
feeling that someone has arrived just in time to save his ass from some
unnamed evil. He considers calling his doctor to ask about cutting back on
some of the drugs, but he knows he’ll get the same old ration of shit. “Mr.
Stone, if you stop taking the medication, you’re going to end up right back
in the hospital-blah, blah, nada, nada…”

“So fucking what”, Harris grumbles, “I could use the rest.”

He leans over, snaps on the table lamp and pushes himself to his feet.
Cigarette dangling from his lips, he bends down, grabs a pair of jeans off
the floor and slips them on. Glancing around the small bedroom, he notices
the cardboard boxes he hasn’t unpacked, and a huge stack of books that he
presently has no interest in reading.

Lately, he hasn’t felt like doing shit. He hasn’t even bothered to put in an
appearance at work for over a week, and he’s pretty sure the foreman on the
loading dock hasn’t missed him.

Harris takes a hit off his cigarette and catches his reflection in a grimy,
full-length mirror propped against the wall. He spends a few seconds glaring
at the image, as if trying to place the face-then half-sings in a
low-pitched voice, “tell me, who do you love?”

Still half-asleep, he walks down the hallway to the living room. A tiny
night-light allows him to navigate through the minefield of crushed beer
cans scattered across the carpet. Dropping into his battered recliner, he
clicks on the television with the remote control. On the screen, a
Sunday-morning evangelist is pacing back and forth, sweating, shouting, and
pointing an angry finger at a group of scared sinners.

Harris retrieves an empty beer can from the floor, and jams his half-smoked
cigarette through the opening in the top. Using his hand as a pistol, index
finger aimed toward the screen, thumb cocked, he drops the hammer. A soft
exploding sound comes from his lips followed by a mocking “bullshit”.

As the camera scans the crowd, every face reflects the same guilty
expression, eyes cast downward, as though they’d like to crawl under the
folding-metal chairs to avoid the punishment that could come at any second.
A penalty dished out by some unseen force under no obligation to answer for
itself-absolute, petrifying power.

Feeling exhausted, he leans his head back, closes his eyes, and tries to
rewind the dream that’s been causing him to lose so much sleep. For the last
few days, he’s been catching more shut-eye in this chair than in the bed. He
scans his brain for any details, but can remember nothing except the sound
of crying, and the terrifying helplessness of being unable to move.

In the background, the fire-and-brimstone voice grinds on like a
metal-driven dream. There’s something about the sound of that voice that
really gets under his skin. And that cold, conceited face-the kind of face
he always loved to pound the shit out of when he was sixteen. Back when
every teacher, coach, and preacher were figures of authority and every beer
bottle smashed in a past-last-call parking lot, a salute to his father-his
holy father coming home thundering drunk…

3 o’clock in the morning-rousting everybody out of bed. Ranting and raving.
Promising them the worse beating they’ve ever had. His sister, hiding in the
bedroom closet crying-terrified. Calling out for her mother. Calling out for
him. His mother sitting motionless, a posed mannequin on a beat-up, brown
sofa, while he stands in the corner, helpless. Angry tears rolling down his
face. Inadequate child-sized fists clenched at his side. Both of them,
frozen-in-place too frightened to move into the next room and hold her. They
can only stare at this furious, red-faced bully pacing back and forth across
their living room floor and pretend not to hear-pretend it will end
soon-pretend they recognize this man.

Suddenly Harris raises his head, thoughts rushing around his brain like a
runaway train. Now he remembers-remembers it all-every shitty detail buried
behind the walls of that derelict, little southern mill-house. A thousand
Technicolor images etched into his mind: every whiskey-driven scar fixed in
faded walls, every shattered glass, every meaningless minute spent begging
mercy for every wrong thing.

Old shadows descend on the room like a judgment. Something deeper than
sadness washes over his body, and for the first time, Harris Stone sees
himself as he really is-a broken toy, a defective machine bent by a brutal
hand. He knows something vital has been stolen from him and there’s no way
he can ever get it back-not with overpaid doctors, multicolored pills or
sweet prayers to Jesus. For him, there is no redemption-no road home.
_____

He reaches over, picks up the remote control, and turns off the television.
Pulling himself out of the chair, he walks slowly down the hallway to the
bedroom. He opens one of the cardboard boxes lying on the floor, and
rummages around until he finds what he’s looking for. He pulls the .38 from
the box and walks into the bathroom.

Mind floating somewhere on the edge of time, Harris stares into the mirror,
body trembling under the weight of what he can never set right. Trails of
sweat travel the lines in his face, as he focuses intently on his shifting
reflection-until gradually: he sees his father’s face-hears the menacing
voice-feels his sister’s fear, his mother’s humiliation.

Totally exhausted, Harris closes his eyes. Both arms hang limply at his
side. The revolver feels almost too heavy to lift. Opening his eyes, he
sighs and speaks directly to his reflection.

“Okay old man, it’s just me and you.”

Harris raises the gun, places the blue-metal barrel just above his right ear
and pulls the trigger. Click. Nothing. ClickClickClickClickClick.
Dead-silence. The face in the mirror smiles. Harris Stone screams.

DB Cox is an ex-marine/blues musician/writer from South Carolina. These
days, he can often be found in the early-morning hours bent over a Fender
Stratocaster guitar in roadhouses, honky tonks, and juke joints throughout
the south. His poems and short stories have been published extensively in
the small press, in the US, and abroad.

Chris Deal has a new collection of flash fiction available from Brown Paper Publishing.

‘Prose haikus, fiction bullets, one-sentence novels, two fingers of story neat, no chaser . . . I don’t know what to call these, really. But I want more.’ –Stephen Graham Jones, author of Demon Theory and Ledfeather

A free PDF version is available as well.

Purchase Cienfuegos here.  (goes to PDF and Amazon link.)

Chris Deal on Nefarious Muse

By the waning light of what was left of their dinner fire they absently fed themselves, eyes scanning the surroundings. Shadows could no longer be trusted. The sun was setting and they were on the beach.

The lifeless ocean still made its susurration in the background; but now it was devoid of that white noise no one could ever quite put their finger on that made it sound vital. That made the ocean sound alive. The Earth had been put to an end.

There were only two of them now; whittled down from a larger mass composed of strangers mashed together by the cataclysm. One man. One woman. Their own reverse Adam and Eve. Peering about without real concern. An end was inevitable; only the degree of violence in which it swooped in was in question. There was no life left in their eyes. They were tapped out. Weary. Ruined. In many ways feral.

He took in their scenery and felt agony for what was lost. It was worse knowing what was lost cannot be recouped.

She took in their scenery out of honest curiosity. Oblivious. The shock of their reality turning inside out had erased her.

“Look at how the buildings took the wave’s impact.” She said, nodding toward the remaining husks of the city’s former skyline. Little more existed on the horizon than shattered concrete clinging to warped rebar and I-beams bent so far out of true it was comical. They were all bent westward. The direction in which the Atlantic rose up and kicked. An aquatic titan large enough to bowl over mankind.

Even at this distance he could see petrified tangles of long-dead seaweed dangling from the buildings. It took months for the ocean to recede and unveil the ruined coast again.

“The weather man said that wave was something like a mile tall. Actually, more I think. Can you believe it?”

He swallowed, said: “Yes I can believe it.” He thought about keeping silent, and then decided it didn’t matter either way. He said: “My brother moved his family here. To this very city. They didn’t get out before the mega-tsunami made landfall. I’m sure no one did. I remember watching the traffic on TV. Bumper-to-bumper for miles. People began using the lanes that went into the city as exit lanes. Didn’t matter. It became anarchy. The news coverage started showing a sea of cars driving every which way to escape before the water came. People were running. Motorcycles were cutting every which way. Cars were driving on the grass and hills. Fires broke out. It was the highway. The water hadn’t even come yet.”

He stared off in the distance for a minute. “Not that it would have mattered. The tide came to the Appalachian Mountains. Illinois flooded. You know that.”

“Your brother, huh?” She said, mouth full.

“Yes. We all lost people, blah blah blah. I lost my brother here, is all. When the group made the decision to come this way I just kept my mouth shut.”

“I’m sorry.” She said, looking anywhere except in his direction. “I didn’t know this was your home town. We met so far inland…”

“My parents raised us out west. Quite a ways, actually. My brother got a job here working-” He scanned the horizon, looking for the structure’s remains. His eyes lit.

“-there. That building. It’s coincidence.”

“How do you know they didn’t get out?”

“He never called. My mom always hoped he would reach a pay phone that still worked or something…” He looked away, fiddled with his meal.

“Or maybe he’d just show up at the house. They never did.” He set his food down, wiped his hands together. Anyone who had family on the coast entertained the same fantasies. “Besides, no one made it out. No one.”

“I’m sorry to bring it up.” She said. “I just- I’m still so surprised it happened.”

“You’ve had two years to get used to the idea. So get used to it.” He was sitting Indian-style. He disturbed the pile of clothes left behind from their meal. His stomach turned, but he forced the nausea down with two rationalizations: 1. The man died on his own; they didn’t murder him, and 2. The ethics of cannibalism and the moray against it died with civilization.

He kept eating. It stayed down. He tried on the shoes, they were too small. He kept them anyways. Might cut the toes out and see how that worked.

Out of the blue, as alien and out-of-place as a chicken and waffles joint in the middle of Chinatown. She said: “So, when everything gets started again I think I’ll open a hip boutique where I can sell jewelry and clothes. We’ll need that.”

He looked to her, incredulous. Shock. It’s got to be. She’s been mentally reduced to a child. The stress of losing another member of their party, the foot-trodden journey through a former pillar of American society now reduced to little more than rubble and fleeting memories, the cost has warped her. This is her form of coping.

A recognizable cityscape slapped by the hand of a god of war. Annihilation drew a breath and passed it over this globe. She saw it; experienced it; suffered its wrath firsthand. Everything covered in ash and death. The stench of ruination and rotting life simply became what the air smelled like no matter where one could smell it; here or the next state inland. This hemisphere or the next. Antarctica was as wretched as The Amazon was as disconsolate as The Mojave was as afflicted as the Alabaman Cathedral Caverns.

Shock.

A week back they walked down an ancient dirt road and they saw what were the obvious remains of an extensive flower garden. She lifted the barely recognizable form of a lily in her hands and cried for an hour. Inconsolable, retching sobs. No explanation. She didn’t speak of it then; didn’t now. Never offered any reason for her breakdown. It just was.

“Whatever you think.” He said, watched her pick small bits of meat from her piece and enjoy each morsel. Quadricep. She got the left, he got the right.

“Jeffery said he used to be a jeweler. You ever hear him talk about that?” She asked.

“Yes I did.”

“His wife was a real downer. What a pill. I bet before she was pretty and all, but after the impact she was just… she just sucked the life out of everything.”

He watched her sitting there, eating burnt meat and complaining about a dead woman, he could imagine her asking next if they had any barbeque sauce in their packs.

She’d been getting stranger by the day. Detached. Goofy.

She continued: “But Jeffery always had a story from when he was in the Navy or when he worked in New York City. Or the time he spent in California.” She smiled, giggled even. “I wonder how he wound up in Tulsa.”

Behind her the sun was setting. Its weak, strangled light slithered through the twisted dead bodies of skyscrapers and the few remaining columns the highways were pedestal-ed on. The wind was eerie. Haunting. It carried the miasma of dusted-over carnage with it. The way a grisly tomb would smell a century after it was last filled.

The winds had a strange hiss to them now; they whispered in the ear and told stories of how life hadn’t survived anywhere they’d been lately.

And the wind had been everywhere.

“Where did she go, you think?”

“Who?” He asked.

“Tara, Jeffery’s wife.”

He looked at her sidelong. Tara had slit her wrists a month ago. Jeffery found her almost a quarter mile away from their camp. He never explained how he located her. No one had the guts to ask.

Jeffery cried all day. The two other men they were traveling with-gone now, thank God-wanted to eat Tara. Any kind of hunting game was sparse to begin with and had all but vanished a year ago. Food of any kind was as scarce as hope. Maybe more so.

Jeffery would have nothing of it. Eating Tara.

The sight was pathetic and horrible all at once. Tara, dead, just laying there amongst dead trees and the ash-covered forest floor. Jeffery, tear streaks making gray wet lines down his cheeks from the ash constantly raining. Morris and Brian trying to convince him no matter what Jeffery’s heart said Tara shouldn’t go to waste.

Tensions prevailed. More blood on the forest floor.

After he killed Morris to defend his wife’s corpse, things cooled down. Brian sulked, slithered away. Ate Morris instead.

Jeffery never said what he did with his late wife. Again, no one had the guts to broach the subject.

“Well?” She asked.

“She took off. No note. No nothing. Just left.” They never told her what Tara did.

It would be too much. The woman here with him had already lost her husband and child when they were jumped by rogues last fall. No more bad news. She was fragile above her shoulders.

“I hope she’s OK wherever she is.”

He mumbled: “A better place.”

Time passed. They could smell the cuts he was smoking in a hastily built pit. He tried not to waste anything. He was glad his father was an avid hunter and liked to prepare his catch start to finish. Taught him well. Coming in handy now.

He had looked for a place to tan the hide but the sun never shone anymore; the dust eruption and ash cover was too thick. But the sinew, the bones, the rest, he had it worked out how to use.

“Anyways, you think Jacksonville is OK?” She asked.

“No. It was on the coast.”

“What about Tampa? It wasn’t on the Atlantic side, right?”

“Florida is a thin state, all things considered. The weather man said the impact wave was… intent on reaching inland quite a ways. We’re better off not worrying about reaching Florida.”

“That weather man became a legend after the impact.”

“Yes he did. Stupid, but he earned it.” Another bite. “I guess.”

Florida had been Brian’s idea. He was consumed by it. Said his ex-wife, their three kids and his ex-wife’s new husband lived there. Apparently in life Brian was not a good man. Then one night he went out for a piss, never returned. There might have been a choked scream in the woods, might not. Rogues. Pacing them like they were game. Probably were.

He wasn’t so sure they’d lost them, but they hadn’t seen any signs of being tracked for over a month now. No new attacks or disappearances. The only thing easing his conscious on still being hunted was that he was sure Brian would not feed them for thirty days.

But, they might be a small number, or disciplined in their food rationing. They could just be biding their time.

With every bite he wondered if he could taste the love for Tara. He searched his taste buds and his tongue for any sign of the morose guilt and agony filling Jeffery with her suicide.

She interrupts: “I bet Denver is fine. God, I would love to be skiing right now! What about you?”

“Never have been.”

“Oh, you’ll love it! And I could set up my shop right next to a resort and tourists will stop by, picking up things for each other and part of my store can sell skis and boots and ear muffs-”

She droned on. He looked away. The sun retracted itself from them they same way they felt God had. The shoreline was flat, pulverized. The impact sent all ocean life floating tits up. The shores were still covered in annihilated bones from that day.

Here he was, finally eating a meal on the beach and it tasted the way he figured the final meal of a death row inmate would taste.

Oh, the beach. The weather man, broadcasting live barefoot in the sand as the tidal wave reached to the heavens behind him, transmitting even as the boom of the impact stole every sound from him. Then the wave hit the beach and their feed disappeared from the world. Liquefied live before his audience. Legend, all right.

She sat by the fire, still talking and eating. They hadn’t had a good meal in weeks. Nothing warm. Nothing they hadn’t scrounged or taken off a dead body found along the way. Nothing fresh.

Fresh had been taken out of the dictionary. If it were to be put back in it would be a synonym for cannibalism.

He looked on, contemplating killing her and then himself. He still had five bullets and a knife. Jeffery had done it this morning. Maybe when the meat ran out he would do it. Just get it over with.

He watched her, wishing he had his own jewelry store dream to escape to. All he had was reality, and the sea had risen up to reclaim that.

Ryan Sayles has been published at Shortstory.us.com, Heroin Love Songs volume 7, Powder Burn Flash and has an upcoming publication at Beat to a Pulp. He’s Midwestern and prior military.

Eternal Night: A Vampire Anthology

Blood, fangs, darkness and terror…these are the calling cards of the vampire mythos. Inside this tome are stories that embrace vampire history but seek to introduce a new literary spin on this longstanding fictional monster. Follow a dark journey through cigarette-smoking creatures hunted by rogue angels, vampires that feed off of thoughts instead of blood, immortals presenting the fantastic in a local rock band, to a legendary monster on the far reaches of town. Forget what you know about vampires; this anthology will destroy historical mythos and embrace incredible new twists on this celebrated, fictional character. Welcome to a world of the undead, welcome to the world of Eternal Night.

Featuring stories from Nefarious Muse authors:
Chris Deal
Christopher Dwyer
Nik Korpon
Caleb Ross
Richard Thomas

Buy at Amazon.com

Louise Norlie‘s publications have appeared in Gloom Cupboard, decomP, otoliths and elsewhere. Her writing will also be included in the Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts anthology from Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink.  Meanwhile, she has been putting in her time in a bureaucratic cubicle where she shuffles papers and pushes buttons deep within the belly of a large building.  Visit her at louise-norlie.blogspot.com.