When We All Fall Asleep… Chapter 2

The sun was glorious this morning, Denny decided, even if it didn’t feel very warm today. She strolled casually across the grass behind her friends, Vera and Jasmin, indulging in a little selfish “me-time” before catching up with them.

Not everything always had to be about them, now, did it?

Even though, they did seem to be pulling away from her, ignoring her, as a matter of fact.

“Well, that’s just rude.” Denny huffed, but received no response.

What the hell were they talking about so intently, anyway?!?

“And did you see what she had on?” Vera glanced quickly at Jasmin, “that brown was never a good color on her, what was up with that?”

“Oh, I know, right?” Jasmin’s hands flew up in front of her,like restless birds. She always talked with her hands when she got worked up over something.

“This whole thing, honestly…” Jasmin choked up as a tear rolled down her face. “I just can’t…”

“Jas, it’s almost over, honey..just hold on.”

Denny stomped right up behind them, sliding into the backseat of Vera’s car, seemingly unnoticed! What the hell! STILL?!?

“Hey! Look at me! I’m right here!”

Nothing. Not even a glance.

This had to be a damn nightmare, Denny decided.

“Well, I’m just going to wake right the hell UP, then! Because this is bullshit!”

And she pinched her arm.

Nothing. Not even a twinge.

Wait.

Not a twinge?

No pain?

WHAT?!?

Denny was seriously thinking about having a panic attack, when Vera’s car came to a stop, and both girls got out, Denny sliding out right before the door slammed in her face.

And then, they walked off.

Into – a freaking CEMETERY?

AW…HELL NO!

No. Nope. Noway. Denny wasn’t having it.

This was so not on her to-do list for this week.

“Dearly beloved, it is time now to commit this precious child back into the Lord’s keeping…

Ashes to ashes….

It’s a dream…I’m going to wake up in my bed,and it’ll be time for school…its JUST A DREAM!”

“Dust to dust…”

THUD.

THUD.

THUD…..

When We All Fall Asleep… Chapter One

Run….

Insistent, the voice in her head growled harshly, while London’s feet struggled to keep the pace barefoot through the darkened forest.

She knew if she stopped, it would find her, catch her. So she ran, stumbling over rocks and roots, catching her pajamas here and there on brambles, branches tearing at her wild hair. Scratches littered the skin that was visible, dots of blood beading on the surface.

She knew she was leaving a trail a mile wide for it to follow, but couldn’t seem to help herself, the panic so thick on her tongue she could barely swallow.

Water, if only she could reach the water. Maybe she could throw it off her scent… Buy some precious time.

Downhill…yes! Go downhill! That’s where the water would be, right?

She swerved to the right, almost wiping herself out as she twisted in the leaves and angled down, grabbing a sapling to propel herself down faster.

There! A glint of silver in the moonlight!

London bit back a cry as she crashed through the tree line to the edge of the river, not wanting to give it any more hints as to where she might be.

First, though, to throw it off…

Luckily, the river here was low enough she could cross without too much danger to herself. Plenty of rocks and handholds on the other side to get herself out, and she was on the far bank, and scrambling up the next hill on her hands & knees, pausing to wipe her bloody hands on saplings.

Once at the top of the hill, however…she slowly worked her way back down the hill, using those same hand and knee marks, backwards, until she reached the river’s edge, and gently eased her way back into the water, only to start floating downstream.

….There….let that thing…try to find her now.

The water was frigid, but London didn’t even care. It would wash away the mud and blood, and the stink of fear,that had been clinging to her. She slowly ducked down into the water, wetting her whole self, lifting back up only far enough to get her head out of the water so she could see while she treaded her way downstream.

Suddenly, behind her, she heard the forest explode with angry snarls and breaking noises.

It was coming. Fast. It was going to SEE HER.

A deafening roar split the night as it caught sight of her and started pounding into the water, heading RIGHT FOR HER!!

London made a small strangling sound at the back of her throat and turned quickly downstream, pushing herself through the icy waters. She had to get around that next bend! Ducking under the water, she swam as hard as she could, but she had to surface quickly, it was just too cold! She couldn’t do this much longer…she had to surface…

She had to…surface…

“LONDON!”

“Wake up!”

“Hunh…? Whu…I’m up…”

“”Yeah, sleepyhead, it’s about time you surfaced. Get up. Time for school.”

Living Dead Girl ~ Chapter 4

Well….shit.

Trying to get useful information out of an angel was about as easy as hanging wallpaper with one arm tied behind your knees.

Go ahead. Try it once, you’ll see what I mean.

The wallpaper thing, I mean. It’s still easier than talking to angels. Closed-mouthed fuckers, the lot of them.

Seriously, I think Azreal only handed out his messenger feathers so he could play “Let’s frustrate the bejeezus out of Patsy”, & have fun stories to tell his angel buddies at the holy water cooler later about how many colors my face turned while he refused to answer my questions with straight-forward replies.

Jackass.

So, here I was, back in the the mortal world, in the good ole “loony bin”, with little more than some vague hints & pointed glances to go forward.

“Patsy…”

“I know, I know, another job, right? What is it this time? Smack down in the rec room? Someone choke on their midnight meds?”

“Uhhh…I’m not really sure. I haven’t looked, I was just told to send you to the East Wing of Third Floor. Lockdown.”

……

?

“You haven’t looked? Really?”

“No. I was told to send you, and that you’d need to go quiet.”

Oh….Hell…that was never good…

Going quiet meant incorporeal and invisible.

Serious wrong.

Um…

Ok…

It didn’t actually take much for me to flip the switch, but it felt all kinds of messed up, considering I was supposed to be using a physical body on this tour of duty, but…whatever. It was just a matter of mind over, ya know? Then, up two floors, and down the hall, to the big locked doors.

Which, in my incorporeal state, really shouldn’t have proposed much of an issue…

Except, I couldn’t get through them.

WTF?

Locked steel doors <incorporeal person… Normally, no problemo.

Until tonight?

Ugh, fine. Windows R Us.

Floating through the wall to the outside was nothing, around the corner to the mesh-screened windows, was easier than nothing.

Getting through the windows?

Stopped. Flat-out, fucking banned from entry?

You’ve GOT to be kidding me!

I reached out & felt towards the building, my “fingers” stopping mere inches from the glass -there – a barrier.

Someone, someone magical, had put up a barrier on the Lockdown wing!

I was going to get in there come Hell or high water, but this was going to require a magical lockpick.

And I had just the fiend for the job.

No, don’t autocorrect that. There’s no “r” in fiend.

Living Dead Girl -Chapter 1

“Hello, my name’s Patsy,” I spoke, mostly to the floor.

“Hello, Patsy”, disembodied voices echoed back at me from the circle I sat in. I refused to look up…there was no point.

“Did you have anything else to tell us today, Patsy? Why you’re here, maybe?” The cool, soft voice of Dr. Tellman (yeah, irony there, am I right?) cut through the gloom of the purposely-dimmed room from my right. She kept us in a semi-darkened state to “free our inhibitions and allow us to speak easier”, or something like that.

“I’m here because the State thinks I’m nuts, that’s why I’m here, Dr. Tellman”.

“And what did you say to them to give them that impression, Patsy?” Still, with that same easy, coaxing voice. God! She could sell milk to cows, which would be difficult, because of the whole lack of communic-

“Patsy?”

“Oh, sorry, Doc, woolgathering. I told the State’s doc the truth, is all. And he marked up my sheet like a game of tic-tac-toe. Next thing I know, here I am with the rest of the Cranks, Tanks & Yanks.”

Creaks, whines and rustling met with that statement, & I knew I touched nerves, and got some of them curious. 

Off to me left, I heard 

“Whatzat? Whatchoo said? Cranks, Tanks & Yanks? Zat some kind of insult or sumpthin?”

“No, not an insult, Tommy, it’s just my own way of describing this place.  You see…Cranks are real crazies, through no fault of their own. Something’s wrong upstairs, & they can’t help it. I feel bad for them. 

Tanks are the ones gone crazy because of drugs, alcohol, or both. They did it to themselves, so they get no sympathy from me.

And Yanks, well…those are the poor ones that been through hell so bad, abuse, war, rape, you name it, they’ve suffered & seen it, and they can’t contain it inside their brains by themselves. They get yanked all over by others, put through torture so horrible, ain’t no one should have to go through that shit, specially not alone.”

“And where would you put yourself in that labeling system, Patsy?” Dr. Tellman attempted to get us back on track, but I could hear in her voice that I had her interest.

“Nowhere, Dr. Tellman. I’m not in any of those categories, because I’m not crazy. But the truth sounds an awful lot like crazy, these days, so I might as well have a vacation, hmm?”

I could hear her pen scritching against her clipboard as she wrote notes, quick & efficient, just like her. If I concentrated, I could probably envision her wrinkling her nose as her ash-blonde hair fell over her eyes while she wrote, and her tucking it neatly back behind her ear, sliding her pen atop her ear to wait for the next thought.

“And what is this ‘crazy truth’, Patsy?”

“Well, that I’m a Reaper, and that I’m a living dead girl.”

Light #FamChallenge

And the light streamed in the window

As I lay, curled on the floor

Broken, just like the day before

Left behind, always left…wanting more…

And the light streamed in the window

Dust dancing in the air

Landing softly in my hair

Building up, slowly, everywhere

And the light streamed in the window

Softer now than before

Angled more towards the door

Knocking louder, the policemen swore

Flashing lights streamed in the window

Opposable #FlashFiction

“You’ll write what I want you to write, and that’s that, goddammit!”

Moira flinched as a meaty hand slammed the table in front of her, punctuating the sentence with a slap.

“No,” she breathed firmly, “I won’t. I’m not a smut writer, and I won’t start just because you’re threatening me. I write what I want, and kidnapping me won’t matter, you fucktard. You’ll never get what you want from me. Sick bastard.”

Moira could hear him grinding his teeth as he growled under his breath at her refusal, but she refused to cave in to his sicko demands.

She’d been here for just over 3 nights now, or 4 days…she couldn’t really tell. She knew she was underground in some kind of bomb shelter, since she could smell the musty, mildewy smell of old water on concrete, but he’d fixed the place up…almost nice.

Creepily so.

The walls were covered with faux wood panels, that had pictures and paintings hanging from them, to add some semblance of “windows”, even to having curtains hung around a few. It was – homey – and macabre, all at the same time.

The table at which she was now seated was real wood, a deep butcher’s block kitchen- style surface, ready to seat at least 6 people, but currently only holding her and an old manual typewriter, a fresh ream of paper, & a cup full of freshly sharpened Number 2 pencils.

Exactly like she’d told Author’s Gazette last month when she’d done that article about her writing habits, & her quirks about liking to have pencils on hand for the odd note-taking, twirling, putting up her hair in a bun when really getting serious, & chewing on the erasers when she got stuck on plot points.

“Alright. Well, you’ll stay here until you write what I want, then.”

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

“Are you going to write it yet?”

“No, go to hell, asshole.”

“Supper’s on the table.”

“Carrots and cheese sticks again?”

“Bologna tomorrow. You know you get meat once a week.”

“Fuck off”

“Write it.”

“Die.”

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

“Maybe…maybe if I just… No, I can’t.  But…then he’d let me leave, right? Yeah, sure, after all this time…he’d just let me go. What, it’s been how long? How many weeks, months…ohh…god…so long…he’s never going to let me go…”

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

“Write it”

“Never”

“WRITE IT!! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

“THEN JUST DO IT ALREADY!”

“no”

“Then die”

“You first”

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

“Crunch…crunch….crunch…..”

“carrots all gone…hehe hehe…”

********

“OH GOD! What did you do!!”

The blood dripped from the table, smeared along the walls, spelling out “Never” before slumping into an indecipherable scrawl near the bed where the dead woman lay. All her fingers bitten off, strewn about on the floor and tabletop.

“No, dammit! I never got my story!”

He flipped her over onto her back, furious, noticing as he did so, that she was smiling, with her own thumb, firmly wedged in her own mouth and throat.

Well…it was an opposable thumb, after all.

Perspective – Flash Fiction

There was a dead body in the kitchen.

Again.

A heavy sigh escaped Jonah’s lips, deflating his hope of getting through this evening without drama.

How the hell was he going to explain this?

“Shit. It’s Thanksgiving, all over again”, he muttered to no one in particular. “Can’t I get even  one holiday off?”

Obviously not. 

At least this one wasn’t bloated and blue like the last one. Those drowned ones were the worst, in his opinion.  Impossible to dispose of them without making a huge, freaking wet mess all over the kitchen floor.  And the grout between the tiles was almost impossible to scrub completely spotless.  Totally useless, hard to clean up, & leaving a fishy smell around for days…But…sigh… Time to get to work.

An hour later, Jonah knew why the body had been in the kitchen, who had put it there, and what he was going to do about it.  

Absolutely fucking nothing.

The body was gone, Jonah’s specialty & his talent…to make the uncomfortable truths and the inconvenient secrets disappear.  It was all a matter of perspective.  

And his restaurant had one of the highest ratings in the city because of his personal outlook on life…and a cousin in the mob.

Flash Fiction ~ Friday the 13th Edition

It’s been a while…

Triskaidekaphobia

Genna’s chai tea was cold.  And chai was not improved through cooling off.  It was always better when it was scalding hot, with just a touch of honey in with the milk and spices.  If you could gulp it down, it wasn’t right.  It should be sipped slowly, almost painfully, in order to really be good.

But it had been sitting too long.

Just like Genna.  And she was rapidly moving in the opposite temperature direction from her tea.  From cool, calm and collected – to scalding hot and ready to blow up.

“Jerks,”  Genna blurted in a loud exhalation of breath,  “They’re superstitious jerks, both of them.” 

Grabbing her bag and her tea, she stood abruptly, making the chair protest by squealing against the tile as it was pushed out.

Just because it was Friday the 13th, the world had to stop? 

Genna had set up this coffee date with 2 of her best friends, Naomi and Mark.  Both had said yes, but obviously they hadn’t noticed the date on the calendar when they’d done so.  Genna knew what day it was, and that usually everyone stayed behind closed doors on Friday the 13th.  It was silly, really.  It was just another day, after all.

I mean, really.

Nothing was going on here.  She was the only person in the coffee shop, except the coffee dude.  He was back there, busily mixing potions for coffees and teas behind the counter, frothing milk and…. putting hot dogs in the microwave?  Wait… what?  They didn’t serve hot dogs here. 

As he wandered into the back part of the shop, Genna moved up to the counter to put her tray down, and snuck a glance at what was on the other tray sitting in front of the small microwave.  The coffee shop used it to heat up things like cookies and specialty sandwiches, but they didn’t serve things as mundane as hot dogs. 

Hot dogs…no… hot dogs don’t come with fingernails.

The hair stood up on the back of Genna’s neck, and a shiver ran down her arms as she realized what was going on.  Taking a step back, she bumped into another person.  The coffee guy, whose breath was hot on her neck. 

“You should have stayed home today, ma’am.  Most people are bright enough to be afraid and stay out of our way on the 13th.  But I guess you’re just not that smart.”

The coffee shop opened bright and early on Saturday the 14th.  The floor, spotless, not even really showing where the blood had stained the grout between the tiles.

Jerry, the coffee guy, smiled as he watched the customers meandering in for their morning caffeine fix.  Yesterday was over, and it was a new day.  Time to make the coffee.